Work Text:
-- apiaryAlarmist [AA] began pestering gristlyGreaser [GG] --
AA: John
AA: John
AA: John Travolta
AA: Hey John
GG: What is it, Nic?
AA: John
AA: Will you play this new computer game with me?
GG: Can it wait a while? I need to go record a commentary track for that talking dog movie in a couple hours.
AA: Oh man you mean Bolt?
AA: That film was fantastic John
AA: You were fantastic in it
AA: Hey John that gives me an idea for a movie
AA: Do you want to hear it?
GG: Ugh. Sure, Nic. Go ahead.
AA: I think that Bolt should team up with Speckles
AA: Hes the mole that I voice in the upcoming Disney animated feature G-Force
AA: Coming out on July 24th
AA: You should see it in theaters John Its going to be incredible
AA: Its in 3D
GG: Sounds good, Nic.
AA: So youll do it?
AA: Youll be in my animated crossover movie?
GG: Sure, whatever.
AA: Amazing Ill have my G-Force people call your Bolt people and well work it all out
AA: This is going to be big John
GG: Okay, Nic. So we’re good here?
AA: John wait no you need to play that computer game with me
AA: Im thinking of buying the movie rights for it and I want to see what its all about
AA: I envision three sequels at the least
GG: Eh, sure, I’ve got a little bit of time to spare; I’ll play with you for a while. Why the hell not.
AA: Amazing John fantastic great
AA: I took the liberty of installing it on your computer when I was at your home the other day
GG: You mean when you invited yourself to my private family barbecue to pitch me a movie adaptation of… what was it again?
AA: Ducks
GG: Right, right, a book about ducks.
AA: No not a book
AA: Just ducks Like the concept of ducks
AA: I think thatd make a fantastic film
GG: Sure.
GG: Okay, I’m booting up the game now.
GG: So who’s the main character in this game? Who would you play in the movie?
AA: There arent any characters
AA: Its a game about building houses I think
GG: There’s no characters? How exactly do you plan to star in an architecture simulator?
AA: I just want to keep my options open John
AA: But I need to make sure the games good first
AA: Im nothing if not discerning about which roles I take
***
-- gristlyGreaser [GG] began pestering apiaryAlarmist [AA] --
GG: Things are getting pretty nuts now, Nic.
AA: Same on my end T-Man
GG: Don’t call me that.
GG: Seriously, though, these little black goblin things are getting pretty overwhelming.
GG: Especially since they’re all riding motorcycles.
AA: Yeah thats weird The thing is they werent always like that
GG: What do you mean?
AA: I could see some of them in your house once it got transported to wherever we are now
AA: And they were just normal goblin dudes at first
AA: But once you threw that DVD into your floating glowy circle thingy suddenly a bunch of them had motorcycles
GG: Huh. You said you put a DVD into your “glowy circle thingy” too, right?
AA: Yeah I did
AA: Thats when it changed into a glowy circle thingy with a hole in the center
AA: I put in one of my favorite movies Maybe the best out of all the ones Ive ever been in
AA: Ghost Rider
GG: I see. That explains why half the motorcycle goblins are on fire.
AA: Really cool right?
AA: I should really get talks going about a sequel to Ghost Rider
AA: You must have put in a motorcycle-y movie too huh? One that you starred in?
GG: Yeah, I was in a hurry, and it was the thing that happened to be closest to me.
AA: What movie was it?
GG: …Wild Hogs.
AA: Oh That explains why the guys who arent on fire look sad and old and dumpy
GG: Thanks, Nic.
AA: I wonder what would happen if we put other things in our things
GG: The glowy circle things, you mean.
AA: Yeah
GG: We need to come up with some better terminology.
AA: Would it make the goblins change again?
AA: Brb Im going to grab something and try it
AA: Okay I did it Any changes on your end?
GG: Nope, they’re still flaming motorcycle goblins.
AA: Flaming sad old dumpy motorcycle goblins
GG: So looks like the experiment was a failure.
AA: Not entirely
AA: My sprite did change
AA: Oh also she can talk now and she told me that shes called a sprite
GG: She?
AA: Yeah Shes a solid gold Eva Mendes
GG: What? Why her?
AA: I think its because she was in Ghost Rider with me
AA: And I think shes gold because the second thing I put in was my Oscar
AA: It was just lying around in a pile of my laundry so I figured why not
AA: Oh and she told me that you can prototype your sprite only two times
AA: You should do it too John! Put in your Oscar and make your sprite change from that boring DVD!
AA: Its amazing Itll be incredible.
GG: …
AA: Come on I bet itll really help you out
GG: Nic.
AA: Whatre you waiting for
AA: Oh shit
AA: Sorry buddy I forgot
AA: A Golden Globe is just as good though
AA: And really its an honor to be nominated right
GG: Whatever.
GG: Gonna go do that now, ttyl.
GG: FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU
AA: Whats wrong What happened
GG: I took your asinine advice and put my Golden Globe into the thingy. The sprite.
GG: But Wild Hogs didn’t have Eva Mendes in it.
AA: So whod you get? Martin Lawrence?
AA: Hes pretty cool too
GG: No, not Martin Lawrence.
AA: William H Macy then?
GG: Nope.
AA: …Ouch
GG: Yeah. Now I’m being followed around by a floating gold orb with Tim the fucking toolman fucking Taylor’s face on it
AA: Thats rough man
AA: But now that it can talk you can get all that info on the game from it right?
Timspheresprite: Ahroooouh?
GG: Fuck you, Nic.
Timspheresprite: A-rumph a-rumph ruhhhhhhh.
Timspheresprite: Huhh a huhhhhruh?
GG: Fuck you.
***
-- gristlyGreaser [GG] began pestering apiaryAlarmist [AA] --
GG: So I found that quest bed you were telling me about, but I think there’s something wrong with it.
GG: It’s way too small for me to fit on. It’s more like the size of a pillow than a bed, really.
AA: No thats how its supposed to be
AA: Just stick it in your inventory and bring it with you to my planet
AA: You use the glowing briefcase fetch modus right? Thats a good one
GG: Nic, you’re not telling me everything here, are you?
AA: Would you say Im being
AA: Cagy
GG: …
AA: Okay okay youre right
AA: I was working on my personal quest to steal a particular priceless historical document from my denizen
AA: And EvaMendessprite and I started talking
AA: Shes a fantastic sprite John So charismatic
AA: Once we rebuild society all four of us should make a film together
Timspheresprite: Grrroo-umph?
AA: …Three of us should make a film together
GG: Get to the point, Cage.
AA: Oh right
AA: Anyway we were sneaking into the denizens library of priceless historical documents
AA: There were thousands of them in there Why would someone ever need that many priceless historical documents
AA: As far as Im concerned no one needs more than eight or nine priceless historical documents tops
AA: So while we were looking for the right one EvaMendessprite mentioned that
AA: How should I put this
AA: You arent the space player of this session
AA: Technically you arent a player at all
GG: What do you mean I’m ‘not a player’?
AA: Your face is the player
GG: …
AA: Its the Face of Space
GG: …
AA: And for us to complete our session both of us need to ascend to the god tiers
AA: By both of us I mean me and your face of course
GG: Of course.
AA: Itll be fantastic
AA: But heres the thing
AA: That priceless historical document that I stole is priceless because it has a prophecy written on it
AA: And it says that the only way for us to win our session is for the Nick of Time and the Face of Space to merge into one being
AA: I know that it totally sucks man but I think the prophecys right
AA: I mean the document that it was written on is so priceless and historical
GG: Let me see if I’m understanding this correctly (and I sincerely hope I’m not):
GG: You’re saying that you need to put my face on your body.
GG: You need to take my face off.
AA: You could put it that way yes
GG: Figures. I always knew that movie would come back to haunt me.
AA: What movie?
GG: Listen to what I’m saying: you want to take my face off.
AA: Yes I want to remove your face from your body
GG: Take my face… off.
AA: Right separate your face from the parts of you that are not your face
GG: Face. Off.
AA: Exactly Take your face and move it to a new location while the rest of you remains in your current location
AA: I dont know what youre getting at here John
GG: Okay, look: what’s the only movie that we both starred in together?
AA: John Ive made so many movies that I honestly cant remember most of them
AA: Sometimes I even forget what movie Im in while Im in the middle of filming it
AA: Remember the part in Bangkok Dangerous where I tried to kill the prime minister of Thailand?
AA: That scene was originally written for The Ant Bully
AA: I think Ive actually gotten the lead in three films since the time we got here
GG: That seems unlikely to the point of absurdity.
GG: Dammit, Nic, we won the MTV Movie Award for best on-screen duo for it. Does that mean nothing to you anymore?
AA: Sorry man Im drawing a blank
GG: …
GG: So you really think that this is what’s gotta happen, huh? With the god tier thing, I mean. My face, and only my face, ascending?
AA: Yeah John I do
AA: Im sorry
GG: I’ll die on my quest bed, my face will come back, but the rest of me…
AA: It would be for the sake of an entire new universe T-Man
GG: I know.
AA: But I get it it is a lot to ask
GG: No shit.
GG: It’s not like I want to die or anything.
Timspheresprite: Grrrumph hruuuu?
Timspheresprite: Rrrrrrrhn bruh bruh bruh
Timspheresprite: Guh-runf-frmm garoooo?
GG: I’ll meet you at your quest bed in five minutes.
***
Nicolas Cage — no, he was more than Nicolas Cage now — floated above the surface of the Land of Wicker and Orchids. He was wearing the full regalia of the Nick of Time: a dirty maroon wifebeater with the symbol of a gear on it, and grimy jeans that were rumpled in such a way that one could tell by merely looking at them that their wearer had just landed an airplane and would momentarily be reunited with his loving wife and daughter. (Cage’s outfit had no need for a hood, since the curtain of long, stringy, greasy hair that hung to below his shoulders more than fulfilled that role.)
Nic peered down at his quest bed, where his own dead body lay. How tragically elegant it looked, lying there peacefully, eyes shut, hands folded, lips smiling. Next to it, John Travolta’s body was sprawled on the ground, face-down, his head jammed awkwardly on top of the tiny black slab of a quest bed. Nicolas drifted downward and rested a gentle hand on Travolta’s shoulder. “Thank you, my friend,” he said. He lovingly arranged Travolta’s body into the iconic disco pose from Saturday Night Fever. That’s the way he would have wanted it, Nic knew.
Soon, he felt something nudging his shoulder. He turned around eagerly. It was John Travolta’s face, hovering in the air beside him, and somehow wearing a tiny black cape. Nicolas Cage was awestruck. “You’re… beautiful,” he whispered as he slowly reached his hands out to the face. The face floated forward to meet his hands. Cage held it tenderly in his outstretched arms, stroking one of its cheeks with his thumb. Together, they soared up into the sky, while slowly spinning around each other.
“Are you ready?” Nicolas Cage asked. John Travolta’s face moved up and down in a nod. Nic took a deep breath and turned the face around. He gingerly, almost erotically, peeled off its black cape. The gross exposed tissue of the back of John Travolta’s face beckoned him with a magnetic pull. As Nic began to move the face closer towards himself, the two newborn gods became surrounded by a twinkling glow. Wind whipped around them, making Cage’s hair billow like a nasty bedsheet on a clothesline. A choir of celestial beings began to sing. Closer and closer Nic pulled the face, until it was just inches away from his own. The whole cosmos was holding its breath. And then— Nicolas Cage put on John Travolta’s face.
Immediately, a blinding burst of light shot out in all directions, vaporizing the planet beneath them, and, in a matter of seconds, the entire incipisphere. Cage/Travolta hung in the center of this newly-born star, their head thrown back, their arms outstretched. But no, it was more than the birth of a star. More than the birth of a galaxy, of the universe. A god of Time and one of Space united within one body; never before had such a thing been. Cage/Travolta were the alpha and the omega. “I am that I am,” they whispered.
And the world listened.
Because they were the world now. They are the world. They are everything, all times, all spaces. Nicolas Cage wearing John Travolta’s face has peered into the very fabric of reality, and then became that fabric. Every universe that ever was or ever will be is nothing more than a strand of grimy hair on Cage/Travolta’s head. There can no more be reality without Cage/Travolta than there could be a Subway sandwich restaurant without that weird stonk. More fundamental to existence than either energy or matter is this terrible and gorgeous being. Every quark, if examined closely enough, has John Travolta’s smiling face on it, and every photon is just Nic Cage’s body curled into a tiny ball. Cage/Travolta is the artist that paints the world into being, but also is the canvas, the brush, the paint itself.
They are everything. Everything is them. Always.
***
Infinite eons later (if a term such as “later” has any meaning relative to spacetime itself), the fabric of reality stirred. “Ohhh,” the universe said to itself in a voice that was composed of all voices that have ever existed. “I get it now! Face/Off. Is the reference.”