_What’s
in a Name?_
zack snippet
(cloned Sephiroth, cloned Zack, & Avalanche post-adventure)
It all started innocently enough, one of Cid’s
crewmen producing a tray of coffee and passing the last mug out with a,
"Here you are, Mr. Sephiroth." He didn’t think anything of it until Tifa snorted in amusement at him.
"Yes?" He spared the stubborn woman a look. Even after saving her
life twice, she was determined to think of him as little better than a paroled
psychopath. To be fair, he did obliterate her town and innumerable loved ones
during his less-than- sane period of life, but her ability to hold grudges was
impressive. "And what may I ask is so entertaining about my coffee, Ms. Lockheart?"
"He called you Mr.Sephiroth.” She rolled her
eyes again. "It just sounds dumb, you know? Why don’t you ever use your
last name? Is it not glamorous enough for you?"
"I don’t have a last name, Ms. Lockheart.
Therefore ‘Mr. Sephiroth’ is an acceptable option."
The brunette rolled her eyes again and then smirked in a very unpretty way. "You could always use ‘Hojo’, he was your dad wasn’t he?"
He refused to flinch at the disgusting idea. On the other side of the room he
caught Cloud glancing their direction, obviously
having overheard the taunt and wondering how he’d react. Zack seemed more
oblivious, watching the scenery below the airship as he stood next to the
blond, but it was likely he was listening too. Sephiroth snorted softly, it
seemed he was being tested. Looking over at Tifa, he
was pleased to see she was disappointed at the lack of immediate response. He
prolonged her irritation by shaking his head slowly. "No, I think not. He
never openly acknowledged paternity while I was alive, and certainly I am not
required to take on a last name by unfortunate accident of biology."
"Yeah Tifa, if he was to do that, he might have
to become ‘Mr. Valentine’ after all." Yuffie
giggled as she shoveled more sugar into her drink. The former Turk looked up
from reading the paper on the couch and blinked at her outburst. Sephiroth
couldn’t help but wonder about the man. They certainly had more in common
physically than he did with either of his ‘parents’, but really given the
amount of alien matter he had been subjected to prenatal, judging paternity by
looks would be futile. For his part, Vincent dodged the subject by going dead-silent every time the topic came up.
He decided to let the man off the hook in a moment’s generosity. "I don’t
think there is a case for my becoming Mr.Valentine
either. Even if I cared to pursue it, at this point both of our genetics are so
compromised by Jenova I doubt a valid test could be
administered."
"Hmmm." Yuffie
nodded thoughtfully. "I guess so, but calling you ‘Mr. Sephiroth does seem
a little funny now that she’s mentioned it."
"Not really." Zack finally turned around, lips set in a wicked grin.
"You guys never actually looked at his official Shinra records, did you. If you had,
you’d know that ‘Sephiroth’ is officially his last name."
Blinking, Sephiroth tried to remember that far back, the vague stack of forms
that had been thrust at him one day in the lab, with instructions to fill them
out and be quick about it. Somewhere his file had contained those first bits of
Shinra bureaucracy still carefully stamped and validated, proving that he had
entered company pay the same as every other lowly employee at one point. He had
remembered his childhood confusion suddenly, staring at the two blanks after
the ‘Name:’ and finally filling deciding to just leave the second one empty.
Looking up, he stared at Zack resignation, knowing he was about to reveal a
particularly annoying bit of Shinra insider-information.
The dark haired man chuckled, seeing he was the center of attention. "The forms goes last-name first, you see. They need last names for
pay-roll, therefore he officially became ‘Mr.Sephiroth’ the minute he got his first month’s
check."
Zack leaned closer to the girls conspiratorially. "Even lesser known, is
the fact that the Shinra file clerks are required to verify all fields on the forms
when entering them into the personnel database. It’s actually not that uncommon
for new employees to come in without two names, so they have a procedure for
it. If you only had one name, you were simply assigned the other just for the
sake of record keeping." He folded his arms across his chest.
"So really, his full name was officially ‘Mr. John Sephiroth.’"
"Why ‘John’?" Cloud seemed as confused as
everyone else. Sephiroth simply shook his head, too old and too inured to the
farce to be embarrassed anymore.
"Any man who didn’t come in with a first name was called ‘John’. Women
were assigned as ‘Jane’s. For those unfortunates who came to the company with
what are traditionally ‘personal’ names, they were assigned the standard last
name of ‘Wong.’ So in a way I think I got the best of
the two options."
His friend snorted in amusement. "What, you don’t want to be known as ‘Mr.
Sephiroth Wong’?"
"No, no I think not." He rolled his eyes at the old tease.
"Either option was just clerical filler after all, no matter what the
other name was, I am, and shall remain, ‘Sephiroth.’"
"I dunno. A bit of a change could do you good." Zack mused as he ruffled Yuffie’s
hair. "You could start over with a new name and just disappear into the
hills never to be seen again!"
"Perhaps, but rest assured, when the time comes, the name I use will not
be something that the Shinra wage-slaves concocted for me." Sephiroth
smirked.
"We could always call you Bob." Zack grinned unrepentantly. "Or
you’re welcome to use Thompson. It’s not like I’ve cornered the market on it.
Nice normal boring name, Thompson."
"I don’t think anyone would ever mistake us for being related."
"We’ll tell’em we’re married."
How Zack could say such ludicrous things straight-faced was truly one of the
great mysteries of the universe. Sephiroth stood up at his full height and
looked down at the assortment of giggling, shocked, and horrified expressions
around him. He knew a challenge when he saw one. Looking one particularly Mako-enhanced man in the eye, he offered his friend a
patently cynical smirk. "Only if you’re wearing the dress; and you
promised you wouldn’t wear those any more after what happened _last time_.
Remember?"
Sticking around to watch the dark haired man gape at him in comic disbelief was
sorely tempting, but he knew better than to push his advantage. Nodding to
their stunned audience, he made his escape into the corridor and cheerfully
stalked onto the deck for some fresh air. Zack loved telling anecdotes from
their time in Midgar, he ought to have a field day
explaining just how he had come to be in full drag down in a bar on
Sephiroth shrugged. It wasn’t like he had anyone to impress anymore. If the
idiots from Avalanche learned how he had once, thirteen-years-ago raided a
costume shop for ‘incognito apparel’ to go rescue a sequence-festooned officer
from getting groped by Heidegger, well, they couldn’t possibly think it was
worse than his later attempt to blow up the planet. Really, like his 'name', in
hindsight it was actually rather hilarious.
He was still silently laughing over the memory of it when Zack eventually
joined him, leaning against the railing as he breathed in the fresh air.
"Now, I realize that I started it, with the whole marriage quip," the
man grumbled. "But may I just say that _that_ was a really low blow,
_John_?"
"Keep calling me that and I’ll go back inside to tell them about the time
you were caught in the women’s lingerie shop."
"You’re not really that sore about a stupid name, are you?"
Sephiroth shrugged again. "No, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell
them _all_ my humiliating secrets."
"That wasn’t a secret, it was public knowledge. It was on your friggin’ pay stubs."
"So was your one and only debut as ‘Miss. Zazu’."
Zack shook his head, then leaned sideways to bump
their shoulders companionably. "Fair enough. Just
so that you know, I wouldn’t tell them a real secret, I mean, there are some
things I would never-"
"I know." Sephiroth nodded, "Thank you, if I never said it before.
It was something I always appreciated."
"Don’t mention it." The normally chatty man seemed content to watch
the ocean sparkle as they cruised by.