Atlas At Last

Chapter 8

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1447 Miles To Go

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Louis doesn't wake up sad, but he wakes up disoriented, and in the strange gray-blue light of the sky a full night after raining, it almost feels like the same thing.

He rolls onto his back stiffly, actually wiping Harry's hair out of his mouth this time, and he vaguely recognizes that the van door is open and Liam and Zayn are absent, presumably awake and outside. The air isn't so hot for the first time in days, cooled by the storm.

He lays there on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the Garbage Truck, and a pit settles into his stomach that he doesn't have to think too hard to place.

He's homesick.

Not for Maine, not for Brunswick, but for his family.

Mostly his mom.

It had started yesterday, with the rain comments from Niall and Liam, with realizing that he hadn't even thought of his family in days, with Harry's dismissal of even the thought of calling home. He hadn't thought too hard on it, just sort of accepted that he'd been kind of a shit son and brother, and it hadn't gone away, but it hadn't been like, a thing.

It's a thing now.

He feels a little nauseous, and that's dumb because who feels nauseous just because they haven't spoken to their mom in a few days? Who wakes up feeling lost and lonely even though they're exactly where they want to be, surrounded by the people they want to be with?

Louis feels Harry squirm in his sleep, and he rolls onto his side just as Harry rolls onto his back; he nudges his head onto Harry's shoulder and drapes an arm over his chest and wonders when he got so comfortable with a boy who said he wasn't looking for love and who has never even explained why he left home in the first place.

The skin around the star tattoo on Harry's bicep glows red, and Louis makes a mental note to pick up bandaids at the next gas station.

He wonders what his mother, nurse extraordinaire, would say if she knew his friends were exchanging homemade tats in the backseat of his car and not even bothering to bandage them up afterwards.

He wonders if Harry can feel him watching him, or if when he blinks awake, squinting in the pale light, he wakes up on his own.

It's a lot to wonder so early in the morning.

"Hi," Louis says quietly.

Harry, to his credit, tries to smile sleepily. It comes out more like a grimace. "Hey."

"I miss my mom," Louis says, simple and soft, because it can't be even 8 AM and his brain isn't working properly.

Harry frowns sleepily and rolls onto his side, face squishing into the side of his own arm. "I'm sorry."

Louis shrugs and his shoulders almost touch his ears they go up so high; he crosses his arms over his chest, fists fitting under his chin. He feels small and stupid, and Harry looks so warm and soft, still only half awake. "It's okay," Louis says. And then, "do you miss yours?"

Harry shrugs then, mimicking Louis. His hands cross over his chest. "Not really," he says. It doesn't look like it costs him anything to say it, good, bad or otherwise, and Louis doesn't know what to do with that, even though he knows, rationally, that not all families are the same.

It's 8 AM and it's a bad idea, but he has to know because yesterday was the sixth day in a row Louis went to sleep thinking, today is a day I will never forget, and it's easy to kiss and smile and laugh in the moment, but moments don't last forever.