"Damn." York sounds surprised now. Everyone is once again staring at me. Aster chuckles nervously, and I slam the cup down on the table.
"That was fucking delicious." I grin at Banks, who smiles right back.
"See?! What did I tell ya?" He stands up then, setting his empty cup down. He drags his chair beside me and sits back down once we're side by side.
"Tell me kid," he starts, "have you thought of a name yet? I'm tired of not having anything to call you."
I shrug. "I literally have no idea how I'm supposed to pick a name for myself. And it has to start with the letter Z? What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?" I scoff, and Banks roars with laughter, leaning forward and smacking his knee. "It wasn't that funny." I furrow my brow at him.
I jump a little when Aster pulls up a chair too. He's holding a cup, and I raise a brow at him.
He shrugs. "You two look very happy over here."
"Be happy with us." Banks grins and smacks his hand on my knee.
"I hate being touched; did you know that?" I turn to look at Banks. His face falls a little. "I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable. I'm trying to get used to it. But you all are very touchy." Jesus, was that blood I drank or truth serum? These were thoughts that should be kept to myself.
Aster chuckles a little as he downs his cup.
"Geez, someone wasn't hugged as a child." Banks sits back in his chair, crossing his arms. He looks annoyed.
"I wasn't." I say, trying to patch things up a little. But it just makes him look at me like he doesn't believe me. "No, I'm serious. It's funny this is coming up because I was just trying to remember if I had ever been hugged by my mother, and I don't think I have." I scratch the back of my head awkwardly. I think I made things weird. The truth was just spilling out.
"No one will hug me because of the way I look." Aster sighs heavily. My brow furrows, and I feel tears stinging at my eyes. Holy shit was I crying? This blood was a trip, my emotions were all over the place. I felt light and fuzzy too, and kind of like my mind was on autopilot.
I stand up then and hold my arms out. Aster looks up weirdly at me.
"Give me a hug, right fucking now."
"Y'all are creeps." I hear Nico muttering from where he still stood. I shoot him a glare.
"I am very comfortable with myself, pretty boy. Are you?" His nose scrunches up at me, and he scoffs. I turn back to Aster. "Are you really going to leave me hanging?" I raise a brow at him.
He quickly stands up. I'm taller now, so he doesn't tower over me quite as much, but he's still quite a bit taller.
I wrap my arms around him, and he does the same. It's a little stiff, it's not like we melted into each other or anything, but he looks happy when I pull away.
"You are definitely strange." I hear Banks muttering from his seat. "York! Get me some more blood!"
"Seriously? After you didn't get me any?"
"Come on York! Get us more!" I grin at him. He rolls his eyes but hops up from where he'd been sitting on the edge of the table watching us and walks off towards where the blood is kept.
I crash back into my seat, taking a deep breath and blinking a couple times. Everything was really intense in my eyes right now. Everything was very sharp, very clear.
Maybe I shouldn't have gotten intoxicated while I was still adjusting to my new senses.
"What did I miss?" I turn to the sound of Jaskier coming back into the room.
"I'm fucked up." I raise my hand, smiling at him.
"I am also." Aster raises his hand. Banks grunts and half raises his hand.
"I was gone for like six minutes." Jaskier complains, but he pulls up a chair too, and a small circle begins to form.
Especially when Jaskier turns around to Nico and says, "Why are you just standing back there? At least sit down."
Nico hesitates for a second, but finally grabs a stone chair too and drags it next to Jaskier. Jaskier starts teasing him immediately about being shy, and Banks jabs me in the side with his elbow.
"Did you have a girlfriend or something when you were alive?" He asks when I look at him. I shake my head.
"I've had my share of encounters, but I've only ever loved one person in my entire life I think." I nod firmly. Banks is very quiet for a moment.
"Who was that?"
"My sister. Her name was Jasmine, but I always called her Jazzy." I smile a little, her face popping up in my mind. She had long brown hair with honey highlights and big green eyes that always looked at me with such emotion. She felt so much for being born in a household that didn't allow feelings.
"Were your parents abusive?" Banks asks. I can tell Nico and Jaskier are listening now.
I quickly shake my head. "No, nothing like that. They never hit me or locked me in a closet. They fed me all the meals, gave me trendy clothes to wear. But they also never told me they loved me, or that they were proud of me. They would remind me and my sister that we were burdens on their lives all the time. My mom would tell me at least once a week, "work hard, but not too hard, because it doesn't really matter in the end. You'll always be nothing, a zero. No one is special." And it's not like she was wrong, it just made it hard to love her, I guess." I shrug, meeting eyes with Banks again.
"Holy shit that's perfect." I turn to raise a brow at York, who's just came back into the room with more cups and a few bags of blood.
"I'm sorry?" I had never thought of my childhood as "perfect."
"No, no." He shakes his head and rushes forward to set everything down on the table. He jumps up on it too, crawling over so he can be in front of us all in our circle.
"Zero. For your name."
"Huh." I look down at the ground, rolling it around in my head. I literally hadn't been able to think of anything so far, and it wasn't awful, to be honest.
"Yes, let's enforce that childhood trauma." Nico nods sarcastically at York, who just flips him off.
I shrug. "I mean, I don't hate it. What are my other options? Zach?" I shake my head. "No. Zero is it."
I nod at Aster across from me.
"My new name is Zero."