:September 26th, XX46; Thursday.

:CALL TO ACTION.

•~~~~•

"Ugh, I wish lunch was better today," was the general message Joe heard all around the lunch room as he walked in. He spotted his two friends already sitting at their usual table, talking and poking at the food on their trays with plastic forks. Joe sat down next to them after getting his own tray of food.

"What are these supposed to be?" Joe asked, unwrapping some sort of tan, solid substance from tin foil.

"Cheese quesadillas," Oliver answered.

"Except they're special," Sage banged his against his tray with a sarcastic smirk, "because they're as hard as rocks. Good for your teeth, I'm sure."

"Ew. At least we got brownies. I hope there's better food tomorrow."

Sage and Oliver both smirked. Joe smiled.

"Yeah, yeah, I know... it's my birthday tomorrow. Not a big deal or anything. Not like I'll only have one more year of my life still legally being a child or anything," Joe mused. He was pretty excited to be seventeen.

"I'm bringing cupcakes, just for us three," Sage said.

"My parents won't let me go buy anything for you so I'm just gonna make you a card, is that okay?" Oliver asked. Joe blushed.

"You guys really don't have to do anything."

"Uh, yeah we do?" Sage raised an eyebrow. "Our birthdays are in the summer, we can have sleepovers then. But yours are always on school days. So we gotta celebrate extra hard."

Joe chuckled. "Thanks, you guys."

"What do you think you're gonna get? Like, as presents?" Oliver tapped his fingers on the table.

"I don't know, I kind of want a skateboard since Sage got me to try his out and I got decent at it, but other than that I don't really care what I get. I also still want a tattoo of an eye on my forearm but I've been asking ever since I was old enough to get one and my parents are still saying no. Uh... maybe a new sweater, actually, if I can't get the tattoo. It's gonna start to get cold soon."

"A sweater? You sound like a 43-year-old suburban mother," Sage laughed.

"I said a skateboard and a tattoo too, dude. I'm gonna be the coolest middle-aged white soccer mom you've ever laid your eyes on."

Oliver laughed. "What are your kids' names, then?"

"Hmm... uh, what would a soccer mom- oh. Jedediah? Jeremiah? Judith? My husband's name starts with a J too so we're gonna be that family who has a bunch of people with the same letter at the start of their name. We'll get a pug or chihuahua or something and name him Justin, like some name that wasn't meant for a dog at all."

"Have you like- actually thought about this, or something?" Sage asked.

"No, I just have a better sense of humor than you."

"How dare you, sir."

•~~~~•

The rest of the day went by semi-quickly, and soon enough, Joe was sitting in history class once more. They had just finished taking notes on the life of Jeffery Dahmer last class, because that was definitely a normal thing to learn about in school, and now they were moving on to another serial killer. It was kinda creepy how many were out there that Joe could learn about.

"...Now, the next person we'll be covering is a bit different. With older serial killers there are videos out there we can watch to help you guys learn more about them because people have spent years looking into and studying them and their behaviors, but this one is rather recent and we don't have any of those materials yet. He died in July of XX28- about eighteen years ago. Not very much is known about him, but we're still going to learn about him because, believe it or not, he went to highschool an hour away from here, and died what is probably a bike ride's distance from this school."

The class made various noises of surprise, Joe included. He never knew there was a serial killer that lived and died in his area of Florida... but of course, it was Florida, so that wasn't very surprising.

"I'm sure some of you already know who I'm talking about at this point- if you have any older siblings, they were probably alive when he died. I don't believe any of you lived at the same time as him, but I wouldn't be surprised if any of your parents had school classes with him when they were your age. So, let me bring up my presentation, and you guys can prepare to take notes."

The class fumbled for their notebooks as the standard procedure of pulling up a Google Slides presentation and projecting it to a whiteboard or pull-down white sheet happened. The teacher clicked the space bar on her screen, and it switched to the next slide, which read-

Remy Café- November 3rd, XX00 - July ???, XX28

...Yeah, Joe had definitely never heard of him before.

What if he was the serial killer his parents seemed to be talking about a few nights before? No, that probably wasn't it. Right? Why would it be?

"Strangely, we don't actually know Remy Café's exact date or time of death," the teacher began talking. "His body was found at least a week after he had died. There was a note left next to his body that was likely a suicide note, but rain had made some of the paper illegible. Fingerprint scans of the knife that was also with him showed that he was the one who killed himself, though."

Hold on- why did Remy have the same birthday as Joe's father? That had to just be a really weird coincidence... right?

"Of course, we're also going to be going over one of the most famous victims of this serial killer, but I'll come back to that in a moment. It is unknown exactly how many people he killed in his lifetime- it is speculated to be close to thirty people, or even more. He was a true master at covering his tracks. We only know the names of fifteen people he killed for sure, but once again, there's likely more." She changed the slide. "These fifteen can be split into two groups- five were killed between mid September XX18 and early October XX18. Remy was a month or two from being eighteen years old, and he was a senior in high school. He was caught after the fifth one and sentenced to life in prison, but broke out in XX28."

Well, Joe's parent's dating anniversary was the day before Joe's father's birthday in XX18. So no way they would have gotten together that close to a serial killer in their school being arrested, right? Did they even go to the same school together at all?

"The next period of time happened after he broke out of prison, between early June XX28 and mid July XX28. Also, on the corner of the screen you can see his prison mugshot," The teacher pointed to the side of the slide she was showing, where there was a mugshot of an angry, frowning man wearing sunglasses. "Apparently, with the evidence being in the picture, he refused to remove his sunglasses no matter what the officers tried to do, and he kept them on at all times when he was behind bars- even when he was sleeping. We don't know why this item was so important to him."

...Shade-s? No. Joe needed to stop thinking. No think. Head empty. Bleh.

"And with that, we'll talk about Remy's most famous victim, specifically because it's the closest we may ever get to figuring out his true motives. There was never a definite link between any of these people he killed. But, something about this specific man- his name was Janus Foster-"

...Uhm.

What?

What?!

"-gives us a bit of a clue." The slide changed, and a small picture of none other than Joe's currently dead uncle resided on the screen. Joe coughed- he could practically feel the burning stare of his friends at the back of his head.

"Janus Foster had some sort of connection to Remy, because we do know that Remy was dating one of Janus's relatives when he was in highschool, but whoever the person was broke up with him after he got arrested, for obvious reasons."

At that point Joe zoned out for the rest of the class period, mostly out of confusion. He kept taking notes, not really processing what he was writing and just wanting to go back and read it later after he collected his thoughts.

"And... oh, we have about fifteen minutes left now, I'll let you all take a quick break."

As soon as the teacher stopped talking, Joe fumbled for his phone and very quickly opened his group chat with his two friends.

💃Homosapiens🕺
2:59 PM

Oliver🥰
<lol uh am I dumb or
was that one victim actually...

UH NO YEAH THAT
WAS MY UNCLE🤠>

Sageroonie
<BRUH YOU SAID HE
GOT HIT BY A CAR🖐🏾

ALL MY PARENTS TOLD ME
WAS "CAR ACCIDENT" BUT
IDK FAM I'M LITERALLY
SO CONFUSED RN>

Oliver🥰
<Maybe Remy was
driving the car-??

Sageroonie
<I thought she said he got
stabbed in the neck lmaooo

my uncle rlly be like🧍🚗💨>
WAIT RLLY>
I MISSED THE STABBING
IN THE NECK PART LOL>

Oliver🥰
<Okay okay but Joe... do you have
any other family members
that could have dated Remy
in highschool? Because
that's kinda weird🧐

Sageroonie
<I don't think Janus had
any highschool-aged relatives
at that time besides Joe's dad,
or any other relatives at all really

Well he couldn't have
dated my dad, right?>

Sageroonie
<WOAH
<WAIT
<OH NO
<JOESEPHHHH

...right, guys??>
please??????>

Sageroonie
<HAHAHAHAHAHA

Oliver🥰
<omg 👁👄👁

SKSBFKSNDJF>
NO FUCKING WAY>
IT WAS NOT MY DAD>
I REFUSE💞>

Oliver🥰
<Omg wait that means we're
actually learning about a
gay person in history class,
what a surprise🤪

Sageroonie
<NOT YOUR DAD LITERALLY
DATING A SERIAL KILLER LMAO

NOOOOO MAYBE I HAVE LIKE
A COUSIN OR SOMETHING
I DONT KNOW ABOUT>

Sageroonie
<Remy: 🧍🔪🩸☠️
<Your dad: 🥰😻💞😘😋

STAAAAAP OMG>

Oliver🥰
<Sage don't kink shame him if
he has a thing for that😡

OLIVER PLEASEEE YOU'RE
SUPPOSED TO BE THE
WHOLESOME ONE>

Sageroonie
<ok mr "death scares me"

Oliver🥰
<It doessss!! But joking
about it is easier than
being scared 24/7🥰
<Well Joe I hope your dad
isn't too mentally
scarred from that lol
<...i mean your uncle is clearly scarred
in some way tho-

ISTG>

•~~~~•

Joe went home that day with a shit-ton of questions that he knew his parents would never, ever, in a million years, answer.

Why did Joe's father and Remy Café share a birthday? Joe's parents never talked about their highschool experience, did they go to school with Remy? Did Joe's dad actually date him? Is that why Joe's Uncle Janus died?

Also, why were his parents lying to him about all that stuff? Maybe they just wanted to keep him pure or whatever. Possibly. Something weird seemed like it was going on, though.

Joe was currently sitting in the living room with his parents, too... it wouldn't be too hard to just bring it up in conversation.

"How was work?" Joe suddenly asked, deciding he might as well start with that.

"It's been the same all week," Joe's father answered. "Though, I just assigned my student's first essays so perhaps I'll have some stories surrounding those."

"Ew, I hate writing essays."

"And I do not enjoy assigning or grading them, but the school requires I give out at least one per semester, so I try to get them over with as quickly as possible and I pick the easiest topics I can. I honestly don't believe my students will need to worry much about writing essays once they join the work force."

"Yeah, I don't like giving out essays, either," Joe's dad frowned. "Some people just aren't naturally good at them. They're stressful, too."

"Precisely. I hope the other professors at the college don't assign you many essays when you attend the college, Joe."

Joe smiled. "I like how it's just decided that I'm going there."

"Well, you don't have to, kiddo. You can go wherever you want, that's just where we assumed you'd wanna go since it does have a good science program anyways."

"I do, I do, I just think it's kinda funny."

"Well how was school for you, then, son?"

Oh boy. There it was. Joe cleared his throat- just ask one question and be done with it. Just ask if they went to highschool with him. Easy, right?

"Uh, it was pretty good. I got to take pictures of Oliver in photography, we got a good one of him jumping out of a tree. It was kind of funny."

"You two are so cute with each other," Joe's dad mused, ruffling Joe's hair a bit. Joe looked down at his lap.

"Daddd..."

"You are! It's true!"

"...Whatever." Joe looked back up and sighed. "But, uh... so..."

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, just- so, we were in history class at the end of the day too, and we learned about this one guy, and uh... I was just kind of wondering if you ever went to school with someone named Remy Ca-"

"O-Oh, Logan! Logan, uhm, what... what did you want for dinner?"

"Ah- well, we could order take out. Perhaps- ...pizza? We have not had pizza in a while, it's not very healthy but tomorrow is Joe's birthday so I believe we may deserve it."

Joe's dad's very fake grin turned into a real one. "Awwe, yeah! Are you excited for your birthday, honey? Ugh, you're just growing up so fast. I can't believe it."

"...Uh, yeah, I am."

"Good, good. I'm sure you'll like your present."

"Thanks."

"I will now get up to order the pizza."

"I-I'll come with you-!"

And just like that, Joe's parents both speed-walked to the kitchen. And that was the end of the conversation.

...

...Was Joe surprised they avoided the question? As soon as he said Remy's name?

Honestly? No. No, he wasn't surprised.

•~~~~•
Joe do be learning about his dad's ex-boyfriend in school though🥰

See ya in the next chapter!👻
~Maxx(SanderShipper)