Lead Sails and Paper Anchors || Joram

A laugh cracked through the sky. Joram was very happy that she managed to find someone new, even if she didn't know anything about relationships. "That's a good starting point, I mean if you really like him that must mean something. I really like someone too Alice so try not to be sad all the time." He was being honest with her, whether he should tell her again rose in his head, but it was quickly gone. Maybe he would tell her if she completely promised to keep it a secret from everyone at the school. Did he trust her? That was another thing, sure Alice was a very trust-worthy person.

"You what?!" Joram covered his mouth with a surprised smile and laughed again. She was adorable and so very innocent. Even if he did take her virginity it didn't feel like it, she seemed so untouched so unscathed that it made him smile. "Well if he kissed you on the cheek that means he must really love you Alice. He's been there to talk to you and guide you, if that's not love then I don't know what to tell you. It seems he goes through a lot to make you happy, and if it doesn't phase him, go for it." Swallowing he wondered about Rodolphus and looked back up at the stars. Could they ever be something? Could they be anything? Maybe, maybe if Rod and Bells did get married would he still want him? His chest was heavy for a moment. A tear rolled from his left eye and dripped from his cheek to the blanket.

He tried to share all his feelings with Ezio and that ended sourly, but now he could really feel. Instead of drowning himself in the alcohol he had to tell her. Alice would listen, she was patient and very kind, something he felt he would never be. "I need to tell you something, but you have to promise me that you won't tell a single soul that walks this earth, not your new boyfriend or Marly, they cannot know. Not one person or even an ant for that matter." Joram swallowed and turned to look at her again. His heart was in his throat as he spoke.

What everyone said about the pain being worse when your sober was right. All the emotions he held inside of him were boiling and screaming. The skin on his shoulders seemed to go tight and he curled in on himself. Looking up at the stars he could feel everything erupt inside of him and a sort of pain that he never imagined to be possible covered his entire being. Her hands were so soft and so gentle, her voice so caring and there for him. But he didn't feel love, he didn't feel anything, no sexual attraction to her. Alice was a beautiful woman and he knew that, he loved her once, but now he felt empty. Everything felt so dark and lonely. Taking in a deep breath his violet eyes met hers. Moist with the oncoming storm, the boy blinked trying to hold back what it was he wanted to tell her, what he wanted everyone to know. Searching her face for the answers, this was the most emotion he had expressed in a very long time and right now he wanted a hit of cocaine or to drown everything away in alcohol. Blood lust even sounded more fun than the feelings that were pounding out funeral march.

"I don't even...." Joram had no idea how to tell her, but if she was here for him, and she promised him that she could be trusted he had no reason to doubt her. Alice was a one of the only people he could fully expel everything he felt and not have to worry about a damn thing. She was here and willing. "I'm not something to be jealous of Alice, ever. You will die, Rodolphus will die, Integra will die, everyone will die and I will still be here without anything, but myself." By now Joram's hands were shaking in Alice's. It was the same thing he told Ezio, or at least what he thought he told that entitled snob, but being sober and saying it hurt more than he could ever imagine. "I will stay young, maybe a wrinkle here or there, but I will still look like I'm seventeen well into my hundreds. You will be dead in the ground your body withering away and I will still be roaming the earth looking for something or someone."

Jaw tightening as the first tears started to fall and splash on his forearms, but being a vampire wasn't at all what he meant to talk about. In fact he felt pathetic and lonely, he hated to be alone. It was one of his deepest fears to live a life with no one to love or to love back. He cherished so many things and he cared too much. The downfall of Joram Mortelle happened to be the fact that he would never be able to love someone the way Alice could. "I told you I-I-I was in love." She nodded and he took in a deep breath trying to will the tears to go away, but they just started to fall tenfold. "Never in my life have I loved someone so much and had it hurt so bad. This doesn't compare to a single thing I felt with you so many years ago, and I didn't think it was possible to feel my heart being ripped out of my chest just by my own ego." Where the words were coming from he didn't know. Joram didn't want to know where all these feelings were coming from as he just wanted to feel.

"I fell in love with someone who is betrothed, and that betrothal is something neither party wants. I'm too scared to tell him how I feel, I'm terrified that he will push me away like a bad habit and that I'm just going to be another one of his lays. Alice. I have never felt this way, but the more I think about it the more I see him laying on his deathbed and me looking upon those milky blue eyes as his soul is being pushed from his body toward heaven." Joram's mind had been riddled with death these past few days, and he's not gone to class or left the dorm, but instead he's been keeping himself secluded from everything. Snorting the powdered white, drinking himself into such a stupor that he hasn't been able to leave his bed. Only on the rare occasion, like tonight, was he sober.

"We had a tryst," it was out before he could stop the words. "I felt an actual connection, the fire, the passion it was all there. I gave him everything I could, he was the first person that could get me to the point of....hunger while intoxicated by sex." That was it, sobbing into his hands he felt so wrong about everything he did, like he defied his God and now he was going to be cast out to hell. "I'm going to be disowned from my family, cast from the church. Everything that I loved will come to a halt and I'll be alone. I'm so scared Alice. I don't want to be alone, I don't want to watch my friends die around me. I just- I can't do it. I don't want to die alone. I'm so fucking scared, I'm so terrified of the future and I can't share it with anyone." Joram's words were broken up between heavy sobs, tears, snot, drool the whole works. It was as if someone turned the spicket and the water came out full-force. "Don't let me die alone."