One single thread of gold tied me to you

Chapter 1

some people are simply meant to be together. I really hope we are those people

Knowing someone and knowing of them are two entirely separate things.

Oscar and Asher knew of each other. They had exchanged polite small talk and sprayed champagne on the podium a handful of times but weren't nearly close enough to say they properly knew each other. This isn't surprising considering they had only just started karting against each other this year. Being only thirteen meant the pairs, and several other racers, first year touring Europe.

Asher doesn't trust Oscar. There's just something offputting about his demeanour. The way he carries himself, softly smiling at anything and everything; his navy blue braces showing through his soft pink lips when something causes his smile to grow. How his chocolate brown eyes and light freckles made Asher turn red and want to run away. Oscar looks at Asher like he sees through the facade he displays, like he knows what's going on. Very unsettling considering there is no way Oscar of all people could know. How could he possibly?

Oscar admires Asher. The curly-haired Italian could not be more perfect if he tried. Everything from head to toe about Asher was gorgeous. His battered and bruised converses, well-loved but not very well cared for; Oscar had often seen Asher playing football, the way his hair moved as he ran, or the pristine grin he would flash if he scored, God, Oscar loved his smile. His large Roman nose, a classic sign of an Italian, and those eyes. Those olive green eyes. A forest yet electric colour, the kind that felt quiet. A comfortable quiet you could live in forever. Oscar wishes he could look into Asher's eyes forever yet when they meet, those quiet green eyes looked hurt beyond belief.

The Australian tried his hardest to mend the boy's broken heart. He offered to play football with him, invited him to join group games, walked with him almost everywhere for a week walking in what oscar percieved to be comfortable silence. Yet no matter how hard he tried, and God did he try, he couldn't fix whatever was wrong with Asher. The pain was deep rooted inside his eyes; a void in his stomach etched into his very being; something a thirteen year old boy certainly could not fix.

"Hey" Oscar approaches, unsure of how this interaction will go. His friends say that Asher is scary, abit of a weirdo who doesn't really like talking to people. The Australian just smiled when they said that, "he can't be that bad, maybe he just doesn't like you!"

"Hi" The other boy replies, and thats when it happens. Quiet green eyes meet loud brown ones. A connection between that they are too young to understand yet. To Oscar, the feeling is warm, familiar, kind. Like Christmas day. Asher feels strange, a foreign, uncomfortable sensation he's not sure he likes. But, momentarily atleast, the hunger stops. The bursting yearning in his gut holts. It holts for Oscar.

"we have a couple of hours before the race" the compassion in Oscar's voice obvious "would you want to hang out for abit. I'm not very good at soccar but we could kick a ball around. Or if you want we cou-" He is cut off quite abruptly by a colder voice, "I can't" Asher plainly stated, avoiding the eyes of the Australian, desperately not wanting the feeling from earlier again. "I have to go prepare for the race, hopefully i see you in my rear view mirror." His stomach screams and gnashes at itself from the inside.

Trying not to look to degected at the harsh words, Oscar walks off ignoring the burning sensation to run after the boy.

It isn"t that Asher didnt want desperately to accept Oscar's friendship, his company, his smile. He wanted to save the young boy from his father.

In Oscar's eyes, Ashers father was a stern man, serious in demeanour and his son's biggest critic. In Asher's, he was a monster, a vampire who took and took from him and Asher was determined to keep this monster behind closed doors, where Oscar couldn't see.

One day however, the monster springs free, leaving the entrance of the moterhome slightly ajar as it spits vemon. It screams in angry Italian, a language the australian boy watching from behind a tree, wishes he spoke right now. The sight freezes him; stops everything around him; everything but his mind, running at unhumane speeds as he desperately attempted to process the scene unfolding infront of him. The monster raises its hand. He thinks of Asher and those damn eyes of his. Oscar thinks he understands now.

So, whilst his father isn't looking, Asher is stolen away the next day, Oscar says he has something urgently private to discuss and snatches the italian by the wrist before any sort of protesting can occur. He leads him down to the small river running near the track, where all the kids would come and skim stones on the water.

The silence between them is two different worlds, two different lives seperate them, two different paths. The Australian asks a question, such a simple question he should have asked years ago, he wishes he'd asked months ago.

"are you okay?"

He breaks. completely.
He sobs and he cries and he sobs some more, more then he thinks he ever had; more then his first bruise off of his father, more then any of his lectures after loosing a race, more then when his mother ridicules him.

And its all okay.

Its all okay

the world doesnt end, time doesnt stop, its all okay. Oscar holds him, rubs his back and lets him get it all out.

"its all okay" Oscar tells him.

Oscar holds his hand and is told everything, he cant even fathom what Asher goes through and hugs him tightly again.

Very begrudgingly, Oscar lets him go. The world doesnt end, time doesnt stop.

its all okay

Oscar and Asher definitely know eachother after that.