Chapter Text
Sammy was, no doubt, what made mornings bearable.
To be fair, you don’t even say a new day has started until Sammy wakes up. She was a rancher, and that meant her body clock was more accurate than yours will ever be.
You’ve always woken up at ungodly hours. She, on the other hand, sleeps snugly in the duvet she found. Hair a mess, but relaxed. No longer snoring, so you know she’ll wake up soon. You take this chance to reminisce.
Back at the camp, when it was still intact, she wasn’t always this peaceful when sleeping. You two had shared a bunk once, and she would stir in her sleep and mumble her worries into her pillow. In the morning, she would greet you happily as if the dreams she had didn’t happen.
(You regret not reaching out to ask. To reach down and tuck her hair behind her ear and replace her uneasy mumbles with your sweet nothings. You couldn’t, so while you had no power to help her in her slumber, you would do anything to protect her in her wake.)
That had stopped when she admitted she was a spy, bearing out her problems in front of everyone and more so you. It wasn’t until after you were done being angry that you realized she was sleeping soundly for the first time, and it surely wasn’t the last. Her mumbles turned into snores, and stirring turned into snuggling. They lessen as she gets closer to waking up, you don’t notice how you’ve made her into your personal alarm clock.
And just in time, the sun’s rising. The golden hour has come.
You’ve already looked away from the sun, watching as the light spills on top of the boat and illuminates everyone. Nothing’s out of the ordinary. You grip your pen yet again and go back to where you left off, sketching the scene of what you resist to name the piece as “home”.
It’ll be a matter of time until the morning starts. So you continue, your pen glides lightly on the paper.
Triangles turning into the shoes neatly stacked against a wall and Darius’ necklace he holds gently in his sleep. Circles become the heads burrowed in pillows and Brooklynn’s bun messily tied but somehow still in place.
Squares emerging as the cabinets in every corner of the room and Ben’s old-shirt-now-bandana folded next to him. Polygons become the light reflected by the sun into the sea that goes to dance inside the boat, sprinkling bits of gold and red hue on Kenji’s disaster of a sleeping position.
(You notice his right foot is tangled with Ben’s left leg, and you figure it isn’t a mistake at all if you only draw what you see.)
Now, onto your favorite-
“Good morning.”
You let out a sound. An embarrassing one, if Sammy’s quiet giggling is something to go off of. She sits up and yawns from her bed, and you have half a mind to tell her off for making you squeak so early in the morning.
You wait as she stands up, reaching over a nearby handle of the boat and stretches, popping her back. You haven’t a clue how much time has passed, but the gleam that bounces off her skin is still as gold as it is liquid. It spills from her eyelashes into her messy hair, bangs strewn across.
You wait as she walks over to you and you watch the familiar scene. She pats Kenji on the knee, and it twitches to relax and let Ben’s leg breathe, and Ben smiles in his sleep from what you guess is his blood going back to his leg to which Sammy can’t help but also pat his head.
She treads carefully around Darius and Brooklynn, lifting their astray blankets with her toe to lay on top of them. She kicks the blankets that stuck to her legs and somewhat fixes the shoes haphazardly thrown against. Finally, no more obstacles and she’s finally right in front of you.
She lets out a sigh of content, and you almost want to as well.
The morning has started.
“You woke up a bit earlier than usual,” you say while closing your notebook with your pen in between. “You think so?” she glances over at you with sleepy eyes, and you reply with a shake of your head and a small smile.
She nods and helps you up, you move from the floor into her arms and she’s cold. Her arms wrap around yours.
(Your brain somehow recalls something about how body temperatures continue to fall until a few hours before wake time, from when it begins to rise again. You guess Sammy’s body temperature still hasn’t caught up and she’s just trying to match your warmth and-)
“Not a hugger,” you mumble, and her giggling reaches your ears. “Are you going to steal my warmth when the sun is literally right in front of us?
“Contrary to popular belief, you ain’t as cold as everyone thinks you are.” she grins, letting go and sliding her fingers from your arms to reach down to hold your wrists. “Physically and personality wise.”
You roll your eyes and pull away, “Contrary to popular belief, being cold isn’t a personality trait.”
With habit, you two start walking to the kitchen in the back. “No?” She brushes her hair into some semblance of order beside you, “Then why’s there a thing called a warm personality?” She wipes away the remaining drowsiness from her eyes and you see the moment it was replaced with an intent to tease.
(As always. You guess that around this time, it would be half past 6. The sun had risen up more, not as gold as when Sammy was yawning but still the sunshine perfectly framed her cheeks in the smile you knew so well. Though the light no longer spilled, it was still liquid in that it highlighted the flow of her lips and the bangs you so badly wanted to fix behind her ear.)
Subconsciously, you run your fingers through her hair and think of a response to the glint in Sammy’s eye. You’ve yet to open the kitchen door before she speaks up, probably not expecting a response from the last.
“My friends back in Texas call me a little ball of sunshine.” she grabs the apron from a cabinet where it was hanging, turning to face you. “Stuck around since elementary! Oh, and could you go and check if last night’s dinner is still okay for me?”
(You briefly think of Sammy in Texas. Walking peacefully through the mud and grass on a morning like this, petting the goats and pigs on her way. You imagine her humming as she steps carefully around sleeping chickens and roosters, kicking some straw underneath for them to sleep comfortably.)
Before you can wonder how you could imagine something as vividly and realistic as that, Sammy had turned back around, and you’re already rummaging through the blessed working fridge the yacht had to offer.
You hear the beep from the electric stove, and see that Sammy was already heating the pan you didn’t even hear get out from the cupboard.
“You’re already so active,” you pointed out, laying the mixed vegetables you all had called a salad beside the ingredients Sammy was already chopping up.
(You’ve thought from day 1 that maybe the reason she was so good at preparing meals was because she liked cooking and did it even in the early morning, but she had corrected you that she had to wake up really early to feed the ranch. From her massive family to her massive clan of livestock, she had to.)
You two move in routine around the small kitchen corner the yacht had.
“A little ball of sunshine, you?” you add, “I can see that but it’s not something I would say is a personality trait.”
“Good. Cause c’mon… ‘little ball’?” She grumbles, dicing the tomatoes after the onions and jalapenos. “The sun is already plenty round, ain’t it? Pretty redundant, if you’re askin’ me.”
You laugh while you plug the kettle on. You grab 5 paper cups and fill them all with the hot chocolate powder you bet was Mitch’s stash, judging by the huge ‘MITCH ONLY’ scribbled in the front, effectively hiding the brand.
“Hey now! Don’t laugh, I know full-well I can brighten up anyone’s day if I so choose to and while I don’t have any problems gettin’ called sunshine, I still have the right to complain!” She calls out, hand on her hip and waving the spatula around with little bits of egg yolk still dripping.
You can’t help but snicker, “Complain all you want. I mean-” You make a show of looking around for something, far and wide. “All I see is a girl complaining about getting compared to the literal sun rather than any ‘little ball of sunshine’ here.”
She rolls her eyes with a smile plastered on her face, and you smell the delicious omelette coming from the pan. It was dotted with colorful vegetables, and big enough for at least half of the group.
“Do you think I’m a little ball of sunshine?” She asks, placing the dish on a large plate before making a new one again.
You hum, considering the somewhat serious tone you detected from the cheerful voice it presented.
“No.”
This rewards you a flick at the back of your neck, where Sammy plays with the baby hair you’ve always wanted to shave off.
“Ow,” you yelped, rubbing the sting and scowling at the taunt of a tongue from your perpetrator. “I wasn’t finished yet,” you snap and she leans back on the small kitchen counter, eyebrow up waiting patiently.
(You ignore the inkling bliss from the domestic sight of Sammy in an apron, hair somewhat neat, and breakfast wafting through the air. It doesn’t feel like you’re all stranded on a boat, thousands of miles away from any island with no contact from anyone trustworthy. It feels like you’ve all had a sleepover, a slumber party that lasted for way too long. And now, you’re making breakfast together, making breakfast because your parents are out and not because you haven’t even seen the both of them in a long time.)
(You think that maybe this is what home could be. You think maybe Sammy had already made this her home, bringing all the routine from there to here.)
“You’re lots of things,” you start, and you already know it’ll be embarrassingly sweet so you turn around to stir the hot chocolate in the cups. “Little ball of sunshine is barely scratching the surface of how warm you are.”
“Whaddya mean warm?”
“I don’t know. Like home? I guess,” you groan, going over the counter and grabbing the plate Sammy offers you to clean in the sink. “So profound,” she teases and you flick the back of her headband, chuckling when it falls over her eyes and she’s swatting you away.
You fall into silence. Comfortable, but the air still felt empty. Words that could have been expressed but fall through.
“I think there’s a thing called a warm personality because you like people like me,” you say out loud. There’s a pause before she giggles in response, and before you can call her out for it, she catches your eye and keeps you on hold.
“I think so too.” She places the last dish on the last plate, and leaves you for a bit to set it down on the dining table. You wash the pan she used, and don’t bat an eye when Sammy returns to sit down on the counter beside the sink as you wash the dishes.
By the time Sammy can relax, it’s around 7am.
The sun is up in the sky, and the tides are back to waving. They move under your feet and though your balance is strong, your hands, wet and soapy, grip the sides of the sink.
But before the familiar feel of nausea wraps your mind, her hand slides to your wrist. It’s warmer than your hands that bathed in the cold water, practically wiping the soap off.
You watch her move from your wrist to your hands, you feel her palm match yours in a way that’s strangely intimate.
She dances her fingertips on yours and she’s humming, you hear the joy of an early bird like you tweet beside you.
The taste of the salty air weakens from the smell of breakfast wades through the air, and the smell has the others from the other room wake.
It’s 7am and just like routine, Sammy has already filled the sense of nausea and replaced it with her.
It’s 7am by the time you think Sammy isn’t just a little ball of sunshine, but the warm feeling of morning itself.
“Smells delish in here, good morning!”
“Oooo, breakfast already up and made! Just like back at home.”
“Good morning to you too, Kenji.”
“Thanks for this, Sammy! Yaz! A good morning has already started.”
“Good morning, you guys!”