Summary: The first time was a disturbing, random incident. The second time was a strange hazard. The third time was an eerie coincidence…

Warning: SLASH, YAOI, SHONEN-AI, BOYS LOVE, BOYxBOY, MxM, whatever you want to call it. You've been warned: if you don't like then I really don't see why you're reading this. Also: mentions use of drugs, nothing too hardcore though.

Rating: Uh…this chapter would be T. Might g up later, I dunno.

A/N: Mmmeh, I'm reposting this chapter because I realized it was filling with mistakes and typos and stuff…so here it is again, more presentable.

As I said, this story was supposed to be a one-shot fic, but I got kind of carried away with the whole story and the characters, so instead I decided to post it as a kind of mini-multi-chaptered story. I can't say how many chapter, but I've almost finished writing it up, so you should get regular updates, unless, of course, you review to tell me you actually WANT those updates.

Oh, and also: if after three or four chapters you guys decide you'd like more of the story, I might actually develop the whole thing into something much longer. It's all up to you. See how you like it, and then send some feedback. Please? I love you all! Enjoy!

Fate's Fools

I

It started, like things always start, on a Sunday. Yes, Sundays have this bad habit of making things happen. It was weird, really, when you look at the way it all happened: it was Sunday, so that meant market day. A few days earlier my sister, Heather, had lost her wallet by forgetting her handbag in a fast-food because she'd run out of it to stop a dog from being hit by a car and consequently needed to win back the fifty or so quid she'd lost in the process. In order to do this, she decided to sell the stocks of new CDs she'd never listened to but owned due to the fact that her former university flatmate had worked at a music shop and had been offered free samples of CDs on a regular basis, giving most of them away to my sister when she moved back to Canada because her Uncle had died in a car accidents caused by slippery roads. So my sister had organized her stall in the busy and very Christmassy Yello Market, early on the icy Sunday morning, all her CDs laid out nice and neat and ready. Then her ex-boyfriend's sister (a.k.a. her best friend a.k.a. the devil's spawn a.k.a. Catalina) had called her on her mobile to announce to her that she'd broken her legs by trying to avoid colliding with a kid in the staircase to her secret lover's flat, thus tripping and falling down the steps. She'd been brought to the hospital by said lover, but now he had left for an important meeting that he couldn't miss if he didn't want to give up his entire career and she found no one to drive her back home. So my sister, who was closer to Catalina than she'd ever be close to anyone, except perhaps with the exception of me, decided to go pick her friend up, leaving me in charge of the stall. She could have asked any of her friends to drive and do it, but it happened that I'd wandered to her stall to buy a CD from her (yes, even though she was my dear older sister, I still had to actually buy CDs from her, the cow) and she'd spotted me coming up to her stall, and asked me, and I'd refused, claiming I had the whole market to get through in a record amount of time to get back in time to do all my enormous piles of homework, but unfortunately, she ruthlessly reminded me of 'the pink ribbon' and I couldn't refuse her anything. So I agreed to look after her stall for two hours.

It wouldn't have happened if the owner of the dog had not let the dog loose to run across the road. It would never have happened had my sister not mistaken room numbers when she moved into the Uni campus and ended up with the music shop-seller instead of the flute-playing turtle-neck wearing music student. It would not have happened if she hadn't forgotten her keys at home one day, and remembered that she'd left them in the guestroom bedside table, thus coming upstairs unexpectedly and catching me in the middle of 'the pink ribbon incident.' It would not have happened…well, you get the point. It was all these tiny elements that made it all come together, so that on this cold November Sunday I leaned against the CD stall, playing the stupid games on my mobile because I had nothing else to do while waiting for customers to be angels and finally come buy something at my stall instead of all the other ones. And then it happened.

It was cold, this Sunday morning, so I was dressed for the occasion: thick baggy jeans over battered old biker's boots, a thick woollen jumper three sizes too big hiding my pale blue pyjama jacket (I hadn't had the courage to remove it this morning, since it was all warm and cosy from my sleeping body and it was so cold outside) my great grand-uncle's leather jacket from the times he was a punk, black woollen fingerless gloves, a bright blue woollen cap pulled over my head down to just above my eyes (and no, it was so not a girl's woollen's hat! Why would I wear a girl's woollen hat? You weirdo…) and a thick stripy scarf so long that even though it went round my neck three times, one of the ends still managed to trail on the floor…

All these warm clothes meant that my hearing, as well as my sight, were slightly less extended than usual. Plus, I was caught rather tightly in a breathless game of Snake on my mobile, so I only noticed that someone was standing right in front of me when I felt two hands grab my cheeks. First thing I did was wonder at how warm the foreign touch was against my wind-whipped icy cheeks, then I looked up, and only had time to spot wide swimming-pool-water blue eyes before, to my immense and complete astonishment, I felt a mouth crash against mine. Time seemed to freeze as surprisingly cold but soft lips closed roughly over mine, before I felt something warm and moist poke right into my mouth, touching my tongue briefly before withdrawing. I simultaneously realised several things: the thing that had touched my tongue was another tongue. I was being kissed by a total stranger. I was being kissed by another guy. I was receiving my first kiss at the impressive age of seventeen, from a complete and absolute stranger. And, last but not east, I was enjoying it.

I realised what I'd just thought to myself and almost fell. Then I realise I didn't almost fall merely because I was astonished, but because the stranger who'd been kissing he had let go of me quite abruptly, and I was now once again standing alone against the stall, eyes wide and mind numb with shock as I watched the retreating figure vanish into the crowd. I glimpsed an old, battered leather trench coat, and a shock of the most screamingly red hair I have ever seen, and then the crowd engulfed him, and he was gone. I was left alone with eerily tingling lips, enough shock to make my knees feel like liquid silver and enough thoughts and confusion to last me a lifetime.

'Well, well, well…passionate or what? I never knew you had such a hot lover, Jarhead!'

The last person I would ever have wanted to see this scene popped up into my field of vision, with a grin that would have been visible from miles. Horrified, I watched El, my best friend of ten years, saunter up to me, pink hair a halo of chewing-gum-ey spikes around her red-cheeked face, eyes glittering with the sparks of pure evil. She was going to make sure I never forgot this incident until the day I died. And even after death, she'd probably go on reminding me…

I shrugged, making an attempt at casualness.

'I don't even know him…he's just some random freak…'

'Oh, wow, now you sound like strange pretty boys randomly molest you on a regular basis…has this happened before? Is there something you haven't told me? And why didn't you tell me you'd come out of the closet?'

El leaned against the stall beside me, smirking evilly up at me.

''God's sake, El, stop it! I haven't told you I'd come out of the closet because I didn't come out of the closet because I was never in the closet in the first place!' I snapped.

She frowned the El Frown of Doom™ and I cringed.

'Are you saying,' she began slowly, voice cold enough to freeze the Sahara over, 'that you aren't gay?'

'Of course not! Why the hell would I be gay, you utter weirdo?' I gaped at her.

'Jared…you do realise that you are in denial, don't you?' El said patiently, rubbing her forehead with her pink-gloved hand.

'I'm not in denial!' I protested, glaring at her. 'Have I ever shown any interest in a guy before? Of course I'm not gay!'

'Jared, you do realise that most guys your age—most straight guys your age—have already, if not gone the whole way, like, a million times, than at least kissed a girl?'

'Urgh, no thanks…kissing girls is gross…' I shuddered.

'Is kissing guys gross?' El asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

'Yes! 'the hell are you insinuating?'

'Didn't you enjoy it when that guy kissed you?

Did I enjoy it?...Oh God. Oh no. Oh hell. Please tell me I didn't enjoy it! Oh no. Oh my God…this is so not happening to me. Oh God. Oh no…

'Of course not!'

'You hesitated!' she yelled triumphantly, pointing an accusing finger in my direction.

'I did not!'

'You so did!'

'I did not!'

'You so loved this kiss!'

'I did not!'

'You are so gay!'

'I am not!'

'Are too!'

'Am not!'

'Are!'

'Not!'

'Are!'

'Stop being so goddamned childish!'

'I'm being childish? You're the guy who doesn't even realise he is gay!' she retorted.

'I'm not gay!'

'You are! You'll see, I'll prove it to you…soon, you'll be standing in front of me, all blushing and fluttering and faltering, and you'll tell me: 'El…you were right!' and I'll tell you: 'I told you so' You'll see!'

And with this heart-freezing threat, she stalked off.