Atlas At Last

Chapter 6

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1431 Miles To Go

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The next morning doesn't feel nearly as romantic.

When Louis wakes up, Harry seems to finally be asleep after a night of mutual tossing and turning. He's all curled up in a ball, hair in his eyes, mouth hanging open; there's even a little drool coming out of his mouth. It's adorable, in Louis' professional opinion.

The ache in Louis' back? Not so much.

He sits up haltingly, wincing as he goes. The movement must jostle Harry, who sniffles and cracks open his eyes, blinking blearily in the morning sun.

With what must be much effort, Harry mumbles, "Last night was great," and rolls over to flop onto his stomach. "But never again." His face wedges down into his arms, but he lifts it back up again to quickly add, "sleeping outside, I mean. The other part was—" his face flops back down, "I'd be down for that again."

"Ditto," Louis mutters and rubs his eyes, bringing his knees up to chest. "Fuck." Somewhere in the back of his mind, there's probably a part of him more concerned that he had his first hook up last night. "We should probably make sure a coyote didn't eat Liam or Zayn during the night..."

Harry moans in response and shows no sign of movement, but Louis' used to this by now. And that's sort of a pleasant feeling. Knowing someone enough to know how crabby they are in the morning and that they need coffee first thing. Knowing how they scrunch their face when they sleep.

Knowing how they sound when they come.

Ah, there it is. Last night's euphoria finally pulling through.

Louis smirks and stands up, a sudden pep in his step.

✘✘✘✘

"You fuckers."

Standing in the open doorway of the Garbage Truck, Louis feels a sense of envy and rage most likely far beyond the scope of the situation.

There, peacefully sleeping, lay Liam and Zayn, sprawled out on the shag floor of the van with what Louis can only assume is a solid six hours of restful, painless sleep under their belts.

Well, they were peacefully sleeping; now they're sort of blinking awake like a pair of disgruntled kittens, right down to the bed head and sleepy stretching. Zayn sits up halfway, disentangling his ankle from Liam's, the only parts of their bodies touching.

It's cuter than Louis would like to admit.

"What?" Zayn grunts.

Louis frowns. "What happened to sleeping beneath the stars?" he demands.

Liam promptly rolls over, and Zayn clucks in annoyance. "You two went off to fuck, or whatever—"

"We didn't fuck—"

"—and you never came back, so Liam and I decided to sleep here obviously." He sits up all the way, already reaching for his morning smoke. "'Sides," he adds, pulling his lighter from the pocket of his jeans, "you two were the ones that wanted to sleep outside. Not us."

"You said you like to feel the Earth when you sleep!"

Zayn smirks and lights the cigarette. "I lied."

Louis is so completely and utterly not surprised. "You're on first shift driving, asshole," he says then, because Zayn technically didn't do anything wrong, but it sure feels like it.

"Liam can do it." Zayn taps at Liam's hip with his knee. "He likes to drive."

Louis hopes that the look he levels Zayn with communicates what he's thinking: how the hell do you know that Liam likes anything if he said a grand total of ten sentences yesterday?