A/N: Hey everyone!
So, I have a pretty good layout for this story and I know, for once, how I want to end it!
Rated M for language, sexual content later on.
Note concerning the title: This is a quote taken from Charles Dickens' novel 'A Tale of Two Cities.' I highly recommend it!
Prologue: Arriving
"You have to be fucking kidding me."
The three young men sat motionless in the old 2008 Corolla, staring out at the flat landscape that was no longer rushing past them.
Slowly, the man in the passenger seat opened the door and stepped out of the car. He examined the front right wheel of the little car while the other two looked at him worriedly.
"Well, Matt?" The one who had sworn, sitting in the driver's seat, called. Matthew Williams glanced up at them, his violet-blue eyes serious behind his glasses as he shook his head.
"Flat," he stated. The driver groaned and pounded his head against the steering wheel.
"How could you be so stupid, Alfred?" Asked the man sitting in the back seat. "Who gets a flat tire in the middle of nowhere?"
"Shut up, Gilbert," Alfred F. Jones shot back, his blue eyes tired. "Obviously I didn't choose to get one right here." Alfred glanced out the car door. "Mattie, can you call…?" But Matthew was shaking his head already, tucking his phone into the pocket of his jeans.
"No signal."
"That's brilliant!" Gilbert Beilschmidt laughed. "All because Alfred had the great idea of using our summer vacation to go look at mountains in the middle of nowhere."
"We were lost anyways," said Matthew quietly, leaning against the open car door. "Any suggestions?" Alfred sighed despondently and stared out the front window.
"I know we're in Nevada…" he muttered, glancing at the GPS, although it hadn't been receiving signal for the past two hours. Meanwhile Gilbert got out of the car and stretched out his toned arms, looking out over the flat desert-like landscape. He could see mountains out in the distance, toward the west, where they had been heading on the cracking, paved road. He brushed his hand through his shock of white hair, his red eyes narrowing against the high noon sunlight as he noticed something in the distance. What is that…?
"Hey, Birdie," Gilbert said, nudging Matthew's shoulder. "Look there. Doesn't that look like buildings out in the distance?" Matthew followed Gilbert's finger westwards. He saw the far away mountains and blue sky and that was it – wait, no, there were buildings. A really small town maybe? Matthew smiled hopefully.
"Hey Alfred, it looks like there's a town out there, eh?"
"Huh?" Alfred cried, his blue eyes flashing in excitement. He bounded from the car and stared westwards until he could see the town too. "How did we not notice that before?" He laughed then, and turned to his friends, a broad grin on his face. "See? This is what you get for doubting Alfred F. Jones." Gilbert groaned.
"Stuff it Jones. Let's just go."
"Should we all be going?" Matthew asked worriedly. "Shouldn't someone stay with the car?" Gilbert snorted.
"It's broken down and crappy," he said reassuringly. "No one will want it. Besides, does it look like anyone else is around here?" Matthew cracked a small smile.
So the three of them began walking along the road towards the town that had appeared out of nowhere to save them.
xXx
The three boys had a rather odd friendship.
Matthew was a Canadian, having lived in Montreal for most of his life before moving to Toronto to attend the University of Toronto. Alfred was American, born and raised in Ohio and was currently attending Ohio State. Gilbert was German, though he told everyone he was Prussian – something about one of his ancestors being a Prussian general years ago – and he was studying music at the Juilliard School in New York City.
The three of them had become acquainted in the summer of the eighth grade where they had attended an international summer camp in America for promising and gifted students. They had formed a fast and easy friendship, though Gilbert and Alfred did frequently antagonize each other with Matthew acting as the reluctant mediator. After the camp had ended, they exchanged phone numbers and email addresses and kept in contact over the next two years. Gilbert moved to America in grade eleven so then the three of them met up often on holidays. They attended each other's high school graduations and met all throughout university, balancing work, school and life in order to maintain the friendship that they had created.
Then, in the summer before their last year of university, the now twenty-two-years-old Alfred came up with the seemingly brilliant idea of going on a month-long road trip across his United States. He wanted to show Gilbert and Matthew the vast expanse of his country and they planned to make it all the way to the Pacific Ocean on the coast of California.
And then technology had failed them about halfway into Nevada. Alfred insisted that they weren't lost and he continued straight on the road they had been on when the GPS conked out, saying that if they kept going westwards, they would eventually reach where they were going. Matthew and Gilbert knew it was pointless to try and argue so they didn't say anything, keeping their mouths shut as the four-lane highway dwindled down to two lanes and then barely one lane, the last sign of civilization being a rundown gas station sixty miles behind them.
Then there had come a loud bang and the car had come to a stop, refusing to drive properly. Now the three of them were walking along a deserted road, approaching a small collection of roads and buildings not too far away that had almost seemed to spring up out of thin air.
Alfred examined what he could see of the town as they walked towards it. There looked to be only one real street that went straight through the town, continuing out westwards to the mountains beyond. The street resembled any main street in the downtown portion of any small village back east, but this one was a lot less cozy. Two story shops lined the road on either side but most of them appeared to be empty and deserted, their windows boarded up. The bushes and flowers that were planted in the divider in the middle of the street were all dried up and brown. Though the day was sunny, the town seemed to absorb and extinguish all the light and colour of the world. Alfred suppressed a shiver, glancing at his two friends who were walking beside him. He felt he had to put on a brash, confident front for them.
They stopped at the edge of where the buildings started, staring at an old brown signpost at the side of the road. Welcome to Dis it read.
"Diss?" Alfred laughed, nudging Gilbert's arm. "As in the yo' mama jokes?"
"Actually," Matthew interrupted quietly, "Dis was a city in Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy." Alfred chuckled awkwardly.
"You literature majors…"
Gilbert rolled his red eyes and led the way into the town. However, as soon as all three of them stepped past the sign, there was a loud bang that stopped them in their tracks. A puff of smoke appeared a few metres ahead of them and suddenly two men appeared before them out of thin air.
Alfred yelped and jumped back. "What the – "
"Damn it Feliciano!" The man on the left cried out angrily. "I told you to tell me whenever you're going to teleport."
The man on the right looked properly chastised. "Ve, sorry Lovino," he said, his green eyes worried. "Are you okay?" Gilbert realized that both men were speaking with Italian accents and that they looked very similar to one another. Twins.
"Who the hell are you two?" He growled, stepping forwards, hoping his answer would shield his shock. "What was that smoke just now?"
Both men looked at him and his companions. The grumpy one, Lovino, scowled even more. "We should be the ones asking you that. How the hell did you get past our barriers?"
"Barriers?" Matthew asked quietly, peeking from around Gilbert. "What barriers?"
"Ve, Lovi, I think they are humans. Don't scare them! They're just like how Ludwig was when he showed up two years ago," said the other twin, the mild mannered one, Feliciano. He blinked at the three men with wide green eyes, a small smile on his face. "We are Feliciano and Lovino Vargas," he said kindly. "We are the warlocks that maintain the barrier around Dis. No one is allowed to enter or leave it as it is isolated from the outside world. Humans will walk past it, never knowing about its existence. This has been true for the past twenty years since it was created, only having been broken once two years ago."
"You guys are…magicians?" Alfred asked, frowning suspiciously, stepping up beside Gilbert, his bravery back.
"Warlocks, American," Lovino growled. "There is a difference."
Gilbert cleared his throat. "Okay then, we shall just go, if that's okay." He began walking backwards, motioning for Alfred and Mattie to follow him. Suddenly, it was as if his back had hit one of those invisible electrical fences. He felt the shock throughout his body as he was thrown forwards about ten feet, landing on his stomach with a gasp.
"Gil!" Matthew cried, rushing to his friend. Gilbert's shirt was a bit singed, but he was otherwise unhurt.
"You won't be able to leave," Feliciano said, almost apologetically. "Once you come in, which is strange enough as it is, it is impossible to leave until the Fates allow us to lower the barrier."
"What the hell?" Alfred cried. "We can't stay in this ghost town with you nutters. We have to find a phone and call a tow truck."
Lovino smiled grimly. "We do not have phone service here," he said. "We have no need of it."
"What are we supposed to do then?" Matthew asked, helping Gilbert to his feet. The Prussian looked rather pale.
Feliciano shrugged. "You can't leave until the curse is reversed," he said. "Ve, go see Francis at the hotel over there." He pointed vaguely down the street. "He will have to give you guys rooms."
"We can't stay here!" Alfred cried. But the twins were already walking away.
"Ve, do you think they're the ones Lovi?"
"Maybe. I just hope they don't die."
"I'll be glad when we can leave, ve…"
There was another bang and the two of them disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Silence.
"What the fuck just happened?" Gilbert muttered, rolling his shoulders a little bit, making sure that he wasn't too badly damaged.
"Magic…" Matthew muttered, almost to himself.
"Bullshit," Alfred insisted. "We have to get out of here."
"You saw what just happened to me," Gilbert pointed out. "If you wanna go ahead and try, be my guest."
"Why don't we go see this Francis," Matthew suggested quietly, looking at his two friends who were now starting to glare at each other. "Maybe he can answer our questions?"
Alfred and Gilbert looked at their friend who was staring back at them with calm violet eyes. Alfred groaned.
"I'm gonna regret this."
"Remember that this was all because of your brilliant idea," Gilbert pointed out, slinging his arm around Matthew's shoulder. "Come on Birdie."
Alfred followed behind them, grumbling petulantly about crazy Italians and stupid American ghost towns. They walked down the deserted street, their footsteps resounding in the silence.
Haha cameo of Lovi and Feli 3 XD
Review please! Let me know what you think! *hearts*
