Atlas At Last

Chapter 5

⩶

1832 Miles To Go

⩶

"Lou." A dry cough and a stuttering yawn. Louis watches in the rearview mirror as Harry forces himself up onto his elbows. "Lou. Coffee."

Louis pulls the sun shade down, tilting it carefully, fussing with it a second or two too long just to keep himself from glancing at Harry again.

"Yeah, I know," he finally says. "I'll pull off first place I see."

"Church," a possibly comatose Zayn mumbles. A fleeting glance towards the back reveals he's still sprawled on his stomach, face buried in his arms.

"Excuse me?" Louis blinks. He's not sure he's ever so much as stepped foot in a church before— it definitely wasn't a topic ever really acknowledged in his household. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with churches, other than the whole burning in hell if he ever finally manages to fuck a dude thing. Which— does sort of humping Harry count as sodomy? Should he be buying SPF 80 and negotiating with the devil yet?

"You wanna go to church?" Louis finally manages to clarify.

The Garbage Truck jolts over a speed bump. Zayn grunts in displeasure. "No. I'm Muslim." If it weren't 8 AM and pre-breakfast, Louis thinks he'd probably be more interested.

He rolls his eyes. "Again. So? You said church?"

"Donuts. Coffee." The words are muffled by Zayn's arm. Harry moans in response, and Louis' eyes automatically flicker to his sleepy, curled-up form.

Zayn finally rolls himself over, blinking dumbly in the daylight. "There's always food and stuff after church services on Sunday. That's like...hitchhiking rule number one, man."

Fair enough, Louis thinks, forcing his eyes back to the road. "So what?" He signals and shifts over a lane, mind already made up to take the first exit off. "We can just waltz right up and take whatever we like? I feel like it's free for you know... church goers."

He hears the flick of Zayn's lighter, followed seconds later by the faint scent of bud. "It'll be fine, man. Just act natural."

✘✘✘

Brunswick, Maine is a small town. Louis knows small towns. Harry, by extension, knows small towns. Judging by the utterly blasé droop in Zayn's eyes, equal parts stoned and sleepy, he does not know small towns. Worse yet, as they pull into what Exit 55 had labelled Kelso City, Missouri (population 1,258, according to the welcome sign), the first sight they see is a red and white brick gas station with Let Jesus Into Your Heartscrawled across the side in neat, black paint; it's only then that it occurs to Louis that, small town or not, Kelso City is a beast unto itself: it's in the South.

The Garbage Truck ambles down what is quite probably the one and only main street in the town, and it isn't long before a picturesque, white building comes into view, the pristine front lawn completely vacant.

Harry sticks his head out the window. "First Baptist Church of Kelso City," he reads off the small marquee standing proudly between a set of ugly bushes. He turns to stare at Louis, clearly fielding the same sort of apprehension about the morning's mission.

"Uh... Zayn? I don't know if this is gonna work," Harry says, leaning between the front seats to face a still prostrate Zayn.

"What's the worst they can do?" he shrugs, eyes closed, arms folded behind his head. "Kill us for trying to get a few donuts?" The joint in the crook of his lips dips precariously.

Now, to be fair, Louis doesn't actually know much about Southern Baptists besides the fact that he's always used them as a synonym for Bible Thumpers, something his mother was always particularly adverse to herself. And wrong or right as that may be, all he currently sees is a single solitary church house with neither hide nor hare of coffee or donuts. What are they supposed to do? Crash the service and hope for the best?