Making Remy Laugh (BoyxBoy)

Twenty Nine- Cecil Clarke

"How far are we driving?" Remy asked, reclining Cecil's passenger seat a little. Cecil watched him out of the corner of his eye,  thinking about the old Remy who liked to sit up perfectly straight at all times.

"Not far," Cecil said. "Like, four minutes".

Remy snickered at this, the sound still new to Cecil's ears, startling him in the best way. "All the times you were asking me if I wanted to go for a drive, the drive was five minutes long?" Remy questioned, and Cecil hummed in agreement. "Why didn't you just ask me if I wanted to go to our destination?"

"Because you've never been where we're going before," Cecil said, and then he added, "also, it sounded more romantic if I said, wanna go for a drive?" Remy snorted, and when Cecil glanced at him, his eyebrows were raised. "What?"

"You're ridiculous".

"Yeah," Cecil agreed, and then he smiled and shrugged. "There are worse qualities to be though". Remy hummed in agreement and turned his face to look out of the cars window, and Cecil took the moment to study him. It was weird to see Remy so at peace, but weird in the most refreshing way. It made Cecil wonder about something. "You seem more relaxed, Remy, uhh, happier since we..."

"I am," Remy said in a small voice, but before Cecil could get discouraged, the smaller boy held his hand out for him to take. When Cecil wrapped his warm fingers around Remy's, Remy continued, "I... I wasn't allowing myself to accept what happened to my siblings. I wouldn't let myself even think about it, and my final memory of them became sort of... suppressed over the last five years, and I couldn't really be happy without facing the truth".

"And you did?" Cecil asked, and Remy squeezed is hand a bit. Cecil soothed the tension with a swipe of his thumb over the back of Remy's hand as he turned his car onto his street.

"Uh, yeah. It was like... this huge weight was just lifted. Sure, for the few days afterwards I was awful, and we had just broken up or whatever, but the more I thought about my siblings, the better I felt. I mean... before hand, when I thought about them, even the happy memories made my feel upset. It was like when I thought about all the happy things, my brain could only focus on the one thing I wasn't letting myself remember, so I just didn't think about them at all".

"And Beckett?" Cecil asked.

Remy sighed. "I promised Donnivan I'd take care of Beckett right before he died, but Beckett was taken in by my aunt and uncle who didn't want me, and they didn't want me to interact with him. I was too... damaged and they didn't want it affecting how Beck turned out". Cecil's hand squeezed Remy's, offering him confort. "About two years ago, my aunt contacted me and said that Beckett wanted to see me again and he couldn't be convinced otherwise, but by that time I already had three years of telling myself that he was better off without me that I actually believed it".

It was quiet for a minute and Cecil pulled up to the curb. Remy didn't seem to be paying attention, staring at Cecil rather than their surroundings. "Why did your father... how could he...?"

"Do that?" Remy finished, and Cecil nodded, chewing his lip nervously. He didn't want to overstep any boundaries, but so far none of the questions had seemed to upset Remy any, and this was the thing that had been bothering Cecil the most. How could a father ever do that to his son? "He needed to release tension, he always said. It was hard raising four kids all alone". Cecil shot Remy a look and the boy sighed. "I'm not defending him. He was just... stressed I guess".

"He could have released tension with women his own age," Cecil pointed out and Remy shrugged.

"How do you think Bonnie and Beckett were created. Having sex with women could result in more children, and he didn't want more children," Remy said, his voice calm. "It's sad, really. He loved my mom. They were high school sweethearts or whatever and they were happy together, but once she died he changed, or so they say. I don't know, I was too young to remember. Apparently he used to be a kind, loving man, and she was gentle and soft and they were good together". Remy hummed fondly, and Cecil could tell by his eyes that the boy desperately wished he had known his mother. "He kinda gave up on love afterwards. All his girlfriends were really beautiful, stupid things that had sex with anything that walked. Mom wasn't like that, apparently. Our Aunt always told us that mom wasn't beautiful on the outside but made up for it on the inside". Remy paused to think. "Clearly she wasn't beautiful. I mean, I look exactly like her and I'm not-"