Archive of Our Own ^beta

Edgar’s hands are clammy as he fishes the cigarette out of his pocket. He shoots another look over his shoulder, just to make sure no one’s left the dinner table to discover him. He knows it’s silly to be seventeen and still afraid of getting yelled at, but it’s also silly to be seventeen and have to lift a cigarette from your fifteen-year-old brother’s bag because you haven’t the balls to steal a pack for yourself. It’s silly to be seventeen and slip out of a family dinner because all the noise makes your teeth ache. It’s silly to be seventeen and hate coming home as much as he does. 

At least he has his stolen cigarette, which he’s smoking mostly to prove a point to Edmund, regardless of the fact that he’s not going to tell Edmund he smoked it at all, because he’s too scared of getting in trouble, which was the point he was trying to disprove all along. But still.

The wind is picking up: A storm’s coming. Edgar usually likes storms, but right now, he’d rather it wasn’t so windy. Three matches burst into flame and blow out just as quickly before he can even touch the flame to the cig. He’s just managed to get the stupid thing lit when someone standing just behind him clears her throat.

He jumps about a mile, barely managing to retain his hold on the cigarette. Whirling around, expecting to have to justify himself, he’s confronted with the sight of Cordelia Lear, looking, if possible, a little more miserable than he feels. She smiles weakly, with no joy in it. “Mind sharing?” she asks.

And that’s how Edgar and Cordelia end up squished together side by side on the porch steps in the gloaming, just like when they were kids watching the fireworks on the Fourth of July with their families, except they’re alone now, and it’s October, not July, and instead of ice lollies, they’re sharing a cigarette, and instead of being happy, Edgar, at least, feels like rubbish. 

Cordelia’s a year younger than him but she looks infinitely more comfortable with the cig, holding it between her fingers like a film noir dame and staring into the distance with a vaguely haunted look in her eyes.

“How was…your year?” Edgar asks after the silence drags on a second too long, trying to think of any topic of polite conversation he can reach, because he does try to be a good conversationalist, a nice person, he tries. It’s just hard, especially when he’s back here, and it feels like everything is pressing in on him. He does it well, not as well as Edmund, of course, to whom it comes naturally, but well enough. He thinks he does. He hopes he does. “How was school?”

Cordelia snorts and passes the cigarette back to him. “Fucking fabulous,” she says, the mockery sharp in her voice. “What’s the point of it, anyway?” Her voice wobbles, whether with rage or tears, Edgar can’t tell in the dark. “I don’t need school, because I’m my father’s favorite, and I’m going to inherit the whole thing. All of it.” Her head ducks for a second, pressing to her knees, but then she’s back up again, sharp and shiny again. “It’s all mine, Gloucester. Better be nice to me, because I’m going to own your ass in a few years.”

He holds the cigarette uncertainly, trying to gauge how mad Cordelia is right now. “Is Lear retiring?” he asks. 

She shrugs and snatches the cigarette out of his hand. She takes a long drag, coughing as she exhales. “He has to die at some point,” she says. “Kent’s doing most of the heavy-lifting now. And Albany.” She rolls her eyes, rocking her head back at the house to indicate Goneril’s husband. “And your dad, of course.” Her voice softens a little, as though she’s remembering him sitting there. “Whatever,” she says a moment later, more quietly.

Edgar sits there and can’t think of a thing to say. He watches Cordelia out of the corner of his eye. Even in the growing darkness, he can see the dark shadows under her eyes and the way her mouth tugs down at the corners. “That’s your mom’s dress, isn’t it?” he asks, because he’s really grasping at straws now. 

She snorts. “Yessir. I get all of my dead mom’s clothes, because my sisters are too skinny to wear them.” She sighs, and Edgar can’t even describe his relief that she no longer looks quite as wrathful as she did a moment ago.

There’s a picture in the entryway of Lear’s house—the very house that they’re sitting on the porch of right now—of the last family vacation the five of them took before Cordelia’s mother, Regine, died. It might be the only image Edgar’s ever seen where Lear’s smile looks happy. He stands with his arm around Regine, who’s also beaming, though she looks tired. Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia stand in a line, in height and age order. Goneril’s face looks a little less pinched. Regan’s nose is sunburned and she’s not wearing makeup. Cordelia’s round-faced and dressed in cargo shorts and a t-shirt that’s practically a dress on her nine-year-old frame. They’re all smiling bigger than Edgar’s ever seen in real life. 

On the porch, Cordelia smooths out the silky, floral skirt of the dress. Her face is a little less stormy now, and Edgar can breathe easier. He hates that feeling of a fight brewing. With Edmund and his dad, he’s mostly learned to see it coming, and the ways to avoid it: Take Edmund out for ice cream and let him rant until he’s tired, by which time their father will also have calmed down. Play a game of chess or gin rummy with his father while Edmund isolates in his room. It hasn’t happened in the last few years as much; Edmund’s learning to work through anger, or maybe—and this is what Edgar worries about—he’s just learning to shut it off, put it somewhere unreachable. 

But probably that’s not what he’s doing. Edmund tends to be more mature than Edgar, despite him over a year younger. He finds ways to manage better than Edgar. Yeah, Edmund’s going to be fine. 

Edgar’s less certain about himself.

“What about you?” Cordelia asks, stubbing the cigarette out on the step and flicking it into the garden. “What are you doing out here? I didn’t take you for a smoker.”

Edgar laughs hollowly. He can’t even fool one person. “I’m not,” he says. “I just—” He stops, trying to figure out how to explain something to Cordelia that he can’t even explain to himself. “Edmund’s…cool at school,” he starts.

“He’s pretty cool here,” Cordelia says, and Edgar stops. He hasn’t thought of Edmund as being cool at home. At home, he’s just Edmund.

“He is?” he asks.

Edgar can’t be exactly sure, because of the dark, but he thinks that Cordelia rolls her eyes. “Yeah,” she says. “He’s good at the, like…family politics. He’s good at playing nice while being a killer. You know,” she says, but Edgar doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what, exactly, she means by family politics or being a killer, but he knows instinctively that, while Edmund may be good at it, Edgar himself is not.

“Right,” he says. “Anyway, he’s cool at school, and popular or whatever, and I’m…”

“Not?” Cordelia supplies. Edgar winces a little, and she laughs, though it’s not an unkind sound. “I understand,” she says. “At least Edmund’s younger than you. You don’t even know what a pain it is to go through high school after Goneril and Reggie have both been through.” She rolls her eyes, involving her whole head in the motion. Edgar winces sympathetically. “Everyone wants me to be like them,” she says, her voice softening a little. “And I can’t. I can’t do that.”

Edgar feels an ache in his chest, like a fist unclenching. She does understand. “I feel like I have to prove that I’m not…what they think about me.” The words are easier to say than he thought they’d be. “I wanted to prove…I don’t know. Anyway, at least I did it. I smoked a cigarette I stole from my little brother.” He waves a hand in the direction that Cordelia threw the cigarette. 

She laughs, and Edgar feels the ache a little more. It feels good. Like someone might think he’s at least a little cool. Or just think something about him. Someone might see him a little more than he’s used to.

They sit there in silence for a moment longer before Cordelia says, “We should probably go inside.”

The thought’s been bouncing around his head ever since he got out here, but it’s still worse to hear someone else say it. He smiles tightly, though she probably can’t see it in the dark. “Yeah,” he says. “We should.” They remain there, on the steps, silent, for a little while longer, and then they stand up.

“No matter what they say about me,” Cordelia says suddenly, as though she only just decided to say it. She’s outlined in the porch light that’s come on, and Edgar watches the silhouette of her as she shakes her head and looks down. “No matter what I do,” she starts again. “You get it, right? You’ll remember this. I can’t be like my sisters, and I won’t be like my father. You’ll remember that, right?”

Edgar nods, and he tries to ignore the cold tightening in his chest, the feeling that he’s shifted into a general, forgettable face for Cordelia. A paper to write her final message on. Nothing but a witness. He nods anyway and tries to smile.

Cordelia smiles back at him, and then she turns and walks up the steps, illuminated as she slides open the glass door and slips inside the house.