The response of no comes immediately to mind, but something in Diavolo stops him from going there. He’d usually be too prideful to accept help in any form, but the overwhelming horror of his recent death has left him feeling defeated. Instead of rejecting the offer for the sake of his pride, he lets out a low and raspy, “I don’t know.”
From above, the rain still pours quite heavily. Both of them are drenched from head to toe by now. Diavolo feels absolutely waterlogged, and the feeling of his (Doppio’s) outfit being completely soaked isn’t really helping his mood.
The woman’s hands fidget as she seems to weigh her options. Then, she asks, “Do you, uh… want to take a ride with me?” She smiles slightly, wincing. “I know we literally just met, but if there’s something I can do, I want to help.”
Diavolo feels a sharp pang of anxiety threatening to boil over. His jaw tightens and his hands remain balled into fists, back slouched more than usual. Silently, he weighs his options. He can accept this complete stranger’s offer out of a morbid curiosity for where this encounter will go, or keep walking along the roadside towards the path of a slow death. All roads effectively lead to the same end, but…
No, he’ll take advantage of the opportunity. It’s at least more interesting this way. Diavolo rises, albeit without much grace in how he holds himself. When he casts his green gaze upon the stranger, she is met with someone that towers over her. She must only be about 5’5” or so, nearly a foot shorter than himself. Not that it means much to him, though he sees how she raises her eyebrows when he stands.
If she is afraid of him, she does nothing to show that she is. If she’s bothered, she certainly does not say anything about it. Instead, she swings open the door to the passenger seat, and gestures to the empty space, welcoming him. “Okay. Hop on in.”
Notes:
thanks for reading! feel free to drop a comment if you enjoyed it. i have a lot more of this already written and may post more if anyone else likes it <3
Chapter 2: i began my struggle
Chapter Text
This is much different from previous loops. Diavolo has doubts that Requiem would grant him enough mercy to let him last much longer, but he accepts the offer for help. Taking a seat and closing the door beside him, he feels glaringly out of place in such a small car. He doesn’t quite startle when the woman sits down next to him, but the presence of another person still feels inherently threatening, or at the very least, off-putting.
He hears a seatbelt click beside him, the sound of the woman adjusting her driver’s seat, and then, “You gonna buckle up?”
Diavolo barely recognizes the question. Such mundanity is foreign to him by now. There was a time where he’d seen himself as above interactions like this. Dying a countless amount of times had changed him, it would seem. Nodding emptily, he humors the woman by putting on his seatbelt, strapping it over his lace-clad chest. There’s something rather surreal about being asked to put on his seatbelt, instead of being threatened within an inch of his life. He keeps anticipating something horrible, but the worst has yet to come. As he sits there, he realizes just how cold he feels. After becoming drenched, he cannot help but shiver from the combination of cold rain and the air conditioned car.
“Are you feeling cold?” she— whoever she is —asks. “I can turn on the heat for a bit, if you’d like me to.”
Consider Diavolo surprised that she isn’t a sadistic individual. It seems like a genuine offer, an expression of concern on her behalf. Diavolo won’t turn down the offer. “Please,” he manages in a voice that comes out smaller than he anticipated, more quiet and faint than his voice should be. Folding his arms over his chest, his body trembles more. If he’d known that he would be sent into eternal suffering, he might’ve kept Doppio’s knit sweater on. Not that it’d do much to help now, soaked by rain and covered in mud, but still…
