Young Writers Society

This is a direct sequel to another 2am, although I don't think you will have had to read that first to understand what's going on.

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“Hey!” Mariel’s voice was lost somewhere between annoyance and indifference. She looked up at Glory and then back down at the snubbed out cigarette he’d snatched from her. “D’you mind? Those aren’t cheap, you know.”

Glory shrugged, “then smoke them outside, like I told you to. I‘m sick of this place smelling like stale cigarette smoke.”

“It’s raining,” Mariel protested, “and I’m comfortable.” She was sitting in a kitchen chair, her feet up on the table.

Glory sighed and shook his head. He felt like a bad parent. “Feet off the table,” he ordered, and she did as she was told, putting her feet on the chair beside her, “Mariel,” there was a warning in his voice, and she heard it loud and clear. She put her feet on the floor.

Although neither of them spoke of it, they both knew their relationship had changed. In the space of about fifteen minutes, Mariel had destroyed all of the trust Glory had in her from their years of living together. Once again, Glory was the parent and Mariel the child, although she felt more like a moody teenager. It would take years to repair the damage she had done, assuming she could ever really fix it at all. Glory had come very close to throwing her out. However, she wasn’t allowed to come back unconditionally and he insisted that he reserved the right to throw her out at any time if he saw fit. In addition to not drinking, Mariel also was supposed to smoke outside.

“What’ve we agreed about this?” he asked, sitting on the seat her feet had previously occupied and looking pointedly at the ashtray with the cigarette he’d put out, less than half burnt.

Mariel sighed and rolled her eyes, “if I’m going to smoke, I’m going to smoke outside.” Although she was secretly grateful that Glory had helped her quit drinking, she was marginally less pleased about having to smoke outside. Especially in this city, where it seemed to always be raining. When she’d pointed this out, Glory had shrugged and told her that maybe she should take it as a sign she ought to stop smoking.

“Now,” Glory said, “if you can quote me verbatim, why can’t you just do it? You’re a smart girl.”

Mariel glowered. “I hate when you say that,” she muttered, standing up, “I’m not that much younger than you.” She pushed her chair back under the table before Glory had time to tell her to do so, and headed for the kitchen.

“Sure you aren’t,” Glory said with a shrug. She was a good deal younger than him, but now that they were older, the difference in their ages no longer meant as much as it once had.

“Get me one of whatever you’re making,” he called.

“Make it yourself,” Mariel snapped back, although she took down two mugs from the cabinet. “Besides, how do you know I’m not making a rum and coke?”

Glory shrugged again, flipping through the paper. “Easy,” he said. “I’d throw you out if you were. You’re making coffee. You always make it when you want a drink. Don’t think I don’t notice these things, Mariel.”

Mariel muttered something uncharitable about Glory’s powers of observation, which Glory could only half hear from the dining room and therefore chose to ignore. She made two cups of coffee, leaving one black and dumping a generous amount of cream in the other one. Returning to the dining room, she placed the black one down in front of Glory, muttering, “if you want cream and sugar, you’re going to have to do it yourself.”

Glory bit back a smile at this, holding the paper up so that she couldn’t see his face and took a sip of the coffee. He’d never put cream or sugar in his coffee and he knew that she knew it. Mariel’s caustic indifference was about as close as she ever came to being nice, at least that Glory had ever seen.

“Gimme a piece of the paper,” Mariel said, reaching across the table and snatching the comics from beneath Glory's elbows.

They sat in amiable silence, reading the paper and drinking their coffee. It was the closest they came to having Sunday brunch like any normal family might.

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[s]I know this says "tomorrow morning," but it actually takes place several months, if not a year or so, after another 2am.[/s]

edit: I changed the title to a Veruca Salt song. I may or may not change it back.