(Please read the TWs in the description before continuing. Thank you.)

:September 23rd, XX46; Monday.

:INTRODUCTION.

•~~~~•

...Highschool is tough.

At least, that's what Joe Croft was thinking to himself as he flipped through the pages of his first history test of the school year. Who was the English sailor that discovered Cape Cod?, a question asked- but how was he supposed to know that, and when was he going to use that information in the future? Never. Literally never.

Joe racked his brain for an answer. The first name that popped into his mind was Thomas Jefferson, which was definitely incorrect because this unit was on 1600s American history and that guy wasn't born until, like... way later. Or something. Regardless, Joe wrote it down, because it was the last question he hadn't done yet. Maybe they'd learn about something fun next. Maybe that one time he only listened to Hamilton on repeat for an entire year and a half would come in handy.

Had anyone else even turned their test in yet? A paper rustled at that moment and Joe watched a kid walk up to where they were supposed to turn it in. Joe perked up at who it was- none other than one of his best friends, Oliver Keita. Oliver looked over at Joe after he put his paper in the bin, and smiled, and Joe could have sworn a heap of butterflies knocked around the walls of his stomach in that moment. He smiled back.

Boys were pretty.

Joe quickly got up and followed suite, a few of his classmates also standing up after he did- like a big game of follow the leader. Now, he could just doodle on the back of his hand in his seat until everyone else was done and he could go home. At least this was his last period, right?

Miraculously, the entire rest of the class ended up turning in their tests during those next five minutes. Everyone was probably already done and just didn't want to be the first one to turn in their test. But that was just life for a teenager with social anxiety as usual.

The teacher stood up from her desk, looked around to make sure everyone was done, and quickly moved the small bin containing stacks of paper with poor handwriting on them to her desk. She wiped off whatever had been on the whiteboard when class started and began writing something else in its place.

"Alright, class- Unit 1 is done, how do you all feel?"

The class made various noises of varying emotion.

"Sounds complicated. Anyways, for Unit 2 we're going to take a small break from strictly American history and learn about something a little bit more interesting... serial killers."

Joe raised an eyebrow. Serial killers? Wasn't that a bit of an odd topic for an 11th grade history class? It didn't matter that much, though- serial killers were a lot more interesting than a bunch of old white guys. Unless... well, a lot of serial killers were also old white guys. Damn. That's American history for you.

"A bit odd, yes, but I promise you all will enjoy it, we'll learn about a few American ones and one specifically that's pretty well known around this area. We'll talk a little bit about their living situations and what drove them to do what they did, as well. The bell rings in about a minute, so any questions? Comments about that or the test you just took? Anything else..?"

The class was silent. The bell rang, and everyone immediately stood, gathering their stuff together.

"Alright, I'll see you all tomorrow! Get some good sleep tonight, be proud of yourself, you finished your first history test of the year!"

Joe balanced his books in his arms and walked to the back of the room, where his previously-mentioned friend sat next to his not-previously-mentioned second best friend, Sage Williams. Why did teachers always put Joe's friends so far away from him when they had assigned seating?

"How was the test?" Joe asked the two of them as they walked out of the classroom, making their way to the hallway that had their lockers so they could get their stuff and go home.

"I failed it. Good thing my parents don't really pressure me about grades," Sage answered, half-smirking. That was definitely correct, Joe knew Sage's parents pretty well- they were basically his uncles without actually being related to him. Apparently, Sage's parents and Joe's parents went to highschool together, so Joe couldn't really remember a time he didn't know his family.

"Ugh, I envy you guys both for actually having nice parents, I can't wait until I can move out after highschool," Oliver chimed in as they began walking out of the classroom. That was also correct, Joe didn't know Oliver's parents nearly as well, but they were the people-who-are-not-exactly-like-me-are-going-to-hell type. It sucked, Oliver was just a sweet and mildly sarcastic 5'4 seventeen-year-old, he really deserved better parents.

"What did you guys put for that one question about who discovered Cape Cod?" Joe asked. The three of them reached their lockers, which did happen to be close to each other this time around.

"Pfft, I don't know, I couldn't remember who it was, though," Sage said.

"It was Bartholomew Gosnold," Oliver said. Joe blinked.

"Oh. I put Thomas Jefferson."

Both his friends snorted, Sage ending up accidentally slamming his locker shut as he tried not to actually laugh. Joe glared at him.

"Oh, come on, I didn't actually think it was him. It's not that funny."

"Then why'd you put it?" Oliver looked at him, highly amused.

"I don't know! First thing that came to mind type shit. At least we don't have to worry about weird questions like those next unit... hopefully."

At that point, the three of them were walking out of the building to the front of the school. Sage chuckled. "Hah- question 17: who was the first person to experience malice of afterthought?"

"We might as well get that as a question if we have to know about the Bartholomew guy."

"I'm kinda weirded out that she's teaching us about serial killers, though... death really freaks me out," Oliver shuttered.

"Yeah, I mean we talk about stuff like that a lot, I feel like teachers should really start giving content warnings or something." Joe shrugged. "Like, who knows, maybe my uncle got into a car accident and now I don't wanna learn about death."

"Your Uncle Janus did get into a car accident, Joe," Sage raised an eyebrow. Joe looked up and him and raised one back, silently wishing Sage could at least be his height when they playfully argued on matters like these. Why did he get to be 5'11 when Joe was only 5'9?

"That's true but also besides the point, I'm just saying. Oh yeah, Oliver, isn't your mom picking us up?"

Usually, Sage and Joe would just walk home from school since they lived nearby, but today the two of them were hanging out with Oliver for a bit of time after school. Oliver nodded.

"Yeah. I think she'll be pulling up in a second."

"Ew, your mom," Sage commented randomly, suddenly looking at something on his phone. "Did we have homework?"

"No, I don't think so. I mean, I hope not," Joe pursed his lips.

"We didn't. Oh- there she is." Oliver pointed out his mom's car up ahead, it being pretty easily identified by the small range of conservative-identifying stickers on the bumper. The three of them walked quickly towards it and opened the back door, all three piling in with Joe ending up in the middle somehow. Their backpacks sat on their laps, and Joe's face went pink when he realized his pinky finger was brushing against Oliver's. Sage noticed and wiggled his eyebrows at him, resulting in him receiving a quick shove on the shoulder.

"Hey, you guys!" Oliver's mom looked back at the three of them, her usual fake yet peppy self. "How was school?"

"It was okay, mom," Oliver answered. He stared down at his lap as the car started moving once the three of them had their seatbelts on.

"Oh, Eve, how was your history test, sweetie?"

"Uh, it was okay," Oliver answered. Joe screamed internally.

"Everything's just okay now-a-days with you." It was unsure what she meant by that, though it sounded passive agressive. Joe quickly got out his phone and opened the groupchat he had with the two of them. The other two got the jist and dug their phones out of their bags as well.

💃Homosapiens🕺
3:18 PM

Istg I'm gonna punch your
mom in the face, Oliver>

Oliver🥰
<Noooo, don't be violent :((

Sageroonie
<lol she deserves it

Oliver🥰
<Bbut like
<Don't go to jail, I'd
miss you guys🥺

We won't go to jail
if we do it correctly>

Oliver🥰
<Fineee, but lemme join you
because you give me a
step stool and I'll do
some real damage😊

Sageroonie
<I-

DHKJWOCNS OLIVER>

The three of them held back a snicker and put their phones down after that, deciding they didn't want Oliver's mom to get suspicious of them for whatever reason. The drive to the house was actually pretty quick, considering that they were in a car going at a decently normal speed for a car to go at. Once they got to the house the three of them went inside and quickly ran up to Oliver's room, not wanting to have to deal with his parents for any longer.

"I wanna have a sleepover at one of your houses soon, you guys both have gay parents. Way better," Oliver commented as the three of them sat down on the bedroom floor.

"My pop literally just sings 24/7, we should have one at Joe's house."

"Oliver, blink twice if you want me to kidnap you and make you live with me instead."

Oliver blinked twice in Joe's direction. The three of them laughed. For just a moment, Joe let his thoughts focus in on Oliver once more. He really didn't know what his sexuality was and always just said he was queer but damn if that boy wasn't the best looking human he'd ever seen. His caramel colored eyes, brown hair always pulled into a bun... circular glasses... dark skin that was really reflecting well in the light of his lamp- okay, maybe Joe should stop publicly simping. Sage would make fun of him for that.

"What do you guys want to do? We could watch youtube or something, I have a few board games up here, too."

"Neither of you have ever beat me at The Game of Life, so..." Sage trailed off, smirking.

"Oh, it is on," Joe grinned.

Sage and Joe never really got to spend much time with Oliver outside of school because of his parent's strict time schedules and what not, so the ninety minutes they did get to spend together until Sage's parents appeared downstairs to bring Joe and Sage home was nicely spent. When Sage's parents did arrive, only Sage's dad walked in, who apparently was the best at acting heterosexual even though his husband was literally an actor.

And so, Joe said goodbye to Oliver and got into the car of Sage's parents. It was much different than Oliver's mom's car, that was for sure- it was a bit nicer looking, a large rainbow sticker covering the entire bumper and musicals constantly blasting at what was probably way too loud for anyone's ears to manage.

"Greetings, you two!" Sage's pop beamed as the car door closed. He lowered the sound of some Hamilton song Joe couldn't remember the name of but had heard a thousand times before as the car began to move forward. "How was today, then?"

"Not too bad, pretty sure I failed that one history test, though," Sage shrugged.

"Same here. Also currently want to punch Oliver's mom."

"I can't believe she thinks both of you don't have gay dads," Sage's dad said, looking back at them through the car mirror for a moment as he drove.

"She do be kinda dumb though," Joe commented.

"Your father would have a coughing fit if he heard that grammar, Joseph," Sage's pop looked back at him with a sly smile. Joe laughed.

"Why does your pop always call me by my full name?" Joe turned to Sage and asked.

"Well, I'm right here, just ask me. And I do it because I can."

"Might as well just address me by my middle name if you're gonna do that."

He laughed. "Joseph Janus Croft? What are you, a middle school librarian?"

"I thought it was Greek," Sage's dad asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's my dead uncle's name, so I dunno."

"I often wonder how your dad's parents had two sons and named them Janus and Patton. Complete different planes of existence, really."

"At least my father doesn't have any siblings with weird names. Or any siblings at all, for that matter. I don't need another uncle. Or a dead one, either, I guess."

"Logan is a bit generic, though, don't you think?"

"I don't know-?"

The conversation continued on for a few more minutes until the car pulled up to Joe's house. Apparently, Sage's parents ordered food that was supposed to arrive to their house at any moment, so they had to leave quickly and didn't get to come in to say hi to Joe's parents. So Joe made his way inside, walking in on the usual scene of his parents standing together in the kitchen.

"I'm home," Joe announced as he came in. His dad stuck his head out of the kitchen with a smile.

"Heya, kiddo! Dinner's almost done, you can go set your stuff down in your room if you want and come back down here."

"Gotcha."

By the time Joe came back downstairs, his parents were scooping spaghetti onto three different plates. Joe sat down at the dinner table with a slight huff, and soon, his dads both joined him.

"Anything interesting happen today?" Joe asked. Sometimes interesting things did happen at his parent's work, even though their job wasn't that odd. They were both college professors at a nearby university, his father taught astronomy and his dad taught education. Before they adopted Joe, apparently his dad worked at a different school, but he ended up moving to work there so he could work in the same building as his husband.

"Not particularly. My students are fairly well behaved, mostly because not many students are required to take an astronomy class to graduate," Joe's father answered.

"I like teaching, but my stories are always more boring than yours, Logan," Joe's dad smiled sheepishly.

"Do you have a story today?"

"No, I don't. But what about you, Joe? How was your school day?"

"Eh, nothing special. Probably failed a history test."

"I truly don't understand why American schools still teach that Christopher Columbus founded this country," Joe's father shook his head. "You don't have to worry about getting substantially good grades as long as you're trying, Joe. We'll always be proud of you."

"Thanks," Joe smiled. He really did appreciate his parents. "But yeah, it's a really stupid topic. We're learning about, like, local and American serial killers next though, maybe that'll be interesting?"

Joe's father's eyes went wide and his dad almost choked on his food. The flow of the conversation entirely halted as the two parents made eye contact.

"Oh, wow, that's... hah, that's nice, Joe," Joe's dad answered slowly. He leaned towards his husband and began to whisper. Joe could hear what they were saying, but he just kept eating because this wasn't that weird of a situation for their household.

"You think it could be a code orange?" Joe's dad whispered to Joe's father.

"I'm unsure. He did say local- if he learns about Shade he could learn about Scar and then I'm not sure what we'd do then."

"Well at least his Bell is probably better than ours... probably."

"The experience or the Bell itself?"

"Uh... I don't know."

Joe was confused, as always. His parents spoke in that weird code of theirs a lot, he wasn't sure what they were talking about but he never knew it had something to do with serial killers. They were constantly talking about code this and code that and whoever that Shade guy was.

But, dinner continued on as usual. When Joe finished he put his plate in the dishwasher and went upstairs. With nothing else to do and no want to look at his phone, he opened his window and climbed onto the roof below it. This was something he did very often, it was a nice spot and he could see a lot of stars up in the sky past the few trees that surrounded his house. A nice place to relax and contemplate things.

...Was it normal that his parents were keeping secrets from him? Maybe. Was Shade literally some serial killer that his parents didn't want him to know about? Also maybe. But the one time he had tried to ask who Shade was, the conversation was immediately directed to what they were having for dinner that night, so it was a lost cause.

And so, Joe sat up against the wall of his house, on the roof that covered the front door, staring off into the night sky and the empty road that ran past his house.

But even with no sun in the sky, and barely any light from the stars, he could have sworn he saw two dancing shadows on the asphalt beneath.

•~~~~•
Hello, all! As always, this A/N is going to be important so please read all of it. Thank you!

For starters- I'm non-binary and since finishing writing Yours I've changed my name from Maxx to Klaus. But most of the author's notes are still going to be marked from Maxx, because Maxx is now the name of the author of the book. I've basically separated the author character into their own person. Why, you might ask? Well, this ending A/N in each of the chapters is going to be just as much a part of the story as the rest of the book. The basic rule of thumb is that if an A/N is marked from "Klaus", it's from me, it's NOT part of the story. But if it's from anyone else, then it IS part of the story. This
A/N and the eventual epilogue will likely only be the two marked as by Klaus, though. Mostly everything about the way this is written is part of the story- even the comments section will be a bit interactable when the time comes.

Second thing- if you didn't read the bonus chapters of Yours, I really suggest you at least go read the one titled Afterlife. If you couldn't already tell, ghosts play a big part in this story and if you read that bonus chapter then the general way the afterlife works in this AU will be a bit clearer.

Also, yes, the title says "JOE" in parentheses because it's his POV- there will be other characters' POVs a bit later on.

My apologies in advance for how many chapters there will be, as well. I'm not saying how many exactly, buuut... there's more than all of Yours and Mine combined lol. Ain't that neat? This chapter ended up being ~2500 words (not counting the A/N), and other chapters will probably be anywhere between 1K and 4K. I don't think it will go over that often but it might. So look out for that I suppose.

Oh yeah, and definitely look out for foreshadowing. There's a lot of it all. But otherwise, that's it. Don't forget to read the description, and I'll see you all in the epilogue!

    ~Klaus🏳️‍🌈

[ also- do y'all want me to do the thing where there's an emoji to foreshadow the next chapter? lol there's only so many emojis i can really make fit so it might be a bit hard. just tell me what you guys think:) ]