Making Remy Laugh (BoyxBoy)

Ten- Cecil Clarke

"You really didn't have to do this," Remy insisted from the passenger seat once again, looking over at Cecil with sincere eyes. Cecil grinned at him, his eyes shifting back to the road and Remy turned a little more in his seat to peer into the back. Atticus was happily kicking his feet in his car seat, looking down at the plastic dinosaur that he insisted bring with him. He was very young, Cecil remembered. He often forgot since Atticus was so talkative and smart for his age.

"It's no problem," Cecil reminded and Remy just scoffed softly, though it wasn't his normal sound of annoyance, just more of an I doubt it. "Really, Rem. I owe you one anyways".

"Because I went bowling?" Remy asked. His voice voice had changed over the past few weeks in the time since they had met. In the beginning, Remy had only spoken to Cecil as if he was a desperate idiot, but now he spoke to him as a friend, who was sometimes an idiot. "You... repayed me with your shoulder to sleep".

"Oh," Cecil said, still smiling. "I need to repay to for that gift too".

"Shut up," Remy snapped quickly, turning his head to look out the window. Cecil would bet a large sum of money that the boy's cheeks were tinted that adorable pink.

If was Cecil's second favorite expression that he had seen from Remy, right behind Remy's stern are you kidding me face that he seemed to use the most often. Cecil knew that there was a larger variety of expressions that he hadn't see yet. 

He wanted to see them, though. He wanted to see what Remy's looked like when he was surprised. What Remy looked like when he was jealous, when he was so happy he might cry. When he laughed, and most of all, when he smiled.

He had yet to see Remy smile, and it concerned him. Smiling was such a mundane thing that it was alarming when Remy didn't do it.

It made him think back to what Kyle had said in the bowling alley. About what had happened to Remy to make him this way. He had trying to prove Kyle wrong, trying to make Remy smile, to show that nothing happened, and he wasn't suffering in any way. Cecil wanted to prove that Remy wasn't this way because he was hurting, but because he was Remy. He had no such luck so far, but he had gotten close a few times. Cecil was beginning to believe that maybe it was impossible for Remy to smile, though the next events gave him a certain hope.

"Remy?" Atticus asked from the back seat with a small voice.

"Yeah?"

"How are babies made?" Atticus asked and Cecil snorted in surprise. Remy shot him a glare.

"Why do you ask that?" Remy demanded and Cecil looked up at the rear view mirror where he could see Atticus from the eyes up. He could tell the four year old was still looking at the toy in his lap. "Ask dad".

"I already did," Atticus said sadly. "Daddy said that him and mommy hugged a lot, and that's where I come from, and your daddy and mommy hugged a lot, and that's where you came from".

"That's right," Remy said quickly.

"But Daddy says it only happens when you love the person you're hugging, and that's why I can't have babies with the girls in my class". Cecil couldn't help it. He laughed, and then shot a quick look at Remy, who was chewing his lip as if he desperately wanted to laugh as well, but just couldn't. "But I love you, and I know you don't like to be hugged, but if I hugged you, does that mean we could make babies?"

Remy made a soft gasping noise and Cecil looked at him in alarm. "Baby, what's wrong?"

"I'm trying not to laugh," Remy admitted, his expression pained.

"Why?"

"Because I can't," Remy hissed, and Cecil's eyebrows raised.

"What do you mean you can't. Remy. Why have I never heard you laugh before? We've been friends for weeks now, and I've never heard you laugh". There it was, the question that Cecil had been so afraid to ask, but had been desperate to know the answer to.