Chapter 1: Introducing, Miss Dollette
Warnings: (M) Mentions of Trafficking, Real-World Problems, Anxiety/Panic Attacks, Gore, Suggestive Content, etc.
Ratings: (T-M) Not for Children.
Pairings: L Lawliet/Candace Mary Dollette (Original Female Character), etc.
Summary: There are three things L was constantly reminded of about his scary Maid: She nags, she naps too much, and she fucking hates sweets. Or, a story about an overworked OC-insert that's tired of teaching the World's Greatest Detective what it means to be human. (Alternatively: OC being done with everyone's bullshit.)
A/N: Hi guys! Guess who decided to write another new story instead of continuing the unfinished ones like a decent person? Me! On a real note, have... this. The only reason this exists right now is because of the song Emo Boy by Ayesha Erotica. I thought, oh my god, hey, I should write about an OC that's super badass and takes nobody's shit, but she's like, totally in love with an emotionally constipated emo! Great, right? Yeah. I love empowering women. I felt like there wasn't enough of that in Death Note. Plus, I wanted to give my homegirl Naomi justice, so like... yeah.
This exists now.
Y'all know specifically what lyric I'm talking about too...
I hope y'all like it!
Oh yeah, I'm also well aware that L is super human. As in, he acts very human. Like. A lot. The Manga greatly depicts these flaws of his, so I'm gonna abuse that like a motherfucker. He won't be OOC. Hopefully. Tell me if he is because I sincerely hate OOC.
TW - Blood, Violence, and Child Trafficking.
[. . .]
"When you spend so long trapped in darkness, you find that darkness begins to stare back."
[. . .]
Chapter 1
Introducing, Miss Dollette
[. . .]
Her life wasn't always peaches and roses like it were now.
No, frankly the first memory she recalled was when she was six years old, shirtless in the cold, and shivering inside a cage in front of various men negotiating money. She remembered how the darkness of the furnished room encapsulated her anguished form, rushing dead trills of fear from the cold stone floors nipping at the scattered blood on her feet. The feeling resurfaced into a constant edge of fear, and she had felt hollow, staring expectantly at the body bag that held tools of things she had no knowledge of at the time.
Yes, she quite remembered that memory all too well. She also remembered the amount of time afterward, but not the events themselves. Her sanity precluded it, and perhaps now she favored it that way if only the periodic nightmares would desist, as they were progressively nauseating every time she happened to sit still for far too long. Recalling them was pointless in her waking points throughout the day she knew, but there were times they forced her to drink everything in again.
If only for a moment.
It was very, very vexing.
One thing she didn't remember at the very least—or rather, care for all that much—was her parents. Her father hadn't existed in her life and her mother...
Well. She hardly recalled her mother—at all—mostly due to the findings that, now incarcerated, led Miss Candace Mary Dollette to discover that she had been sold under her begging jurisdiction not to die, and so she had no true desire of knowing what came before her months spent starving inside a hideous gamble of torture and death.
Simply put? Her parents were dead to her.
As was Wammy, but she was being rather... harsh with that statement.
Truthfully, she had no qualms with the elder. He was kind, and patient, if not otherwise a bit stern when it came to following specific protocols to prevent any government accidents. She never knew or bothered figuring out why she, a trained maid, needed this protection, but she wasn't complaining about it. Well. That was mostly untrue. She knew the basis she required all this practicum was for the security of a man she came to despise, but she kept it to herself.
Though, despise was a... lenient term she'd use. Wrong, even.
Regardless, her random, monologuing topics arrived at a life-changing altercation she had with his ward many, many years ago.
L Lawliet.
He was two years her senior, an intelligent egomaniac, and her own twisted visionary of a Hero.
She didn't like him. Oh no, she rather detested his blunt nature and his inability to form any spirited kindness, but she didn't ridicule him. It wasn't out of fear. She did not care if she insulted him or not, and neither did he for that matter. It all came to a crucial fact she carried and cherished with her constantly; that L Lawliet had saved her life.
He had.
And she... loathe to admit it... respected the abrasive man.
A child, a young prodigy as she'd been monitored to recount, L Lawliet had enormous plans for his future—and single-handedly proved himself above all political authorities when he had used her Missing Poster to uncover a gargantuan sequence of child trafficking inside Brazil.
She had been born in Paris and had no idea she'd been inside such a place, and after months encased in hostility, he had been the one to call his effects into play and pull her out of the mess she didn't ask to be put into.
Yes, she quite revisited those instances very well. Every day, in fact. Every time she gauged him with her lethargic, baggy eyes, she was sent back to the day they met.
She had already escaped when they came to find her dirty, bloody, and frightened form.
And she, at the time, had not trusted anyone but the child she saw inside the dark lenses of an old, British vehicle hidden behind large greenery. Well-protected when she remembered the sight, but at the time, she believed otherwise.
A whole process and a crazy shouting fest began when she grabbed a rock and began hitting the window, thinking that the boy was being taken away without anyone knowing. And because he looked like a haunted image, she screamed and hit until the window broke, uncaring that the blood poured across her palms and down her dirty arm.
An officer took her away before she could crawl inside and 'save' him.
Miss Dollette didn't care. She furiously fought against their hold and managed to draw blood, before she was eventually snatched away by a man with a covered face and a long black coat.
She didn't remember much after that. According to Wammy, she had sobbed that he was going to die and that she was just trying to 'protect' him. At every tempest, she refuted, because there was no way she'd come to openly admit so much care for someone as harsh as L.
Her dreams said otherwise. Upon coming to Wammy about those dreams, he'd always tell her more about her she didn't even know herself.
She was perpetually scarred, permanently under the belief that any child she saw unsupervised was being kidnapped. Wammy had seen promise in her; a child in need of help, and he a man that could provide it. Soft words, but Candace wasn't all for it. But this set of mind wasn't what completed the job she'd taken for life—no, this job came because she couldn't live inside a normal orphanage without breaking limbs or drawing blood and because she had incapacitated trained adults after she'd ruthlessly torn their skin to near death in an attempt to survive.
That, she believed. Her use for L. That if not for him, she'd probably be living a normal life.
Her savage incompletion and her inability to be calmed called Wammy back to the orphanage she was taken into in Brazil after a week again because apparently he had requested to take her in but was denied for reasons unknown.
He didn't calm her—not for a second, even after claiming L was fine after her sneering shout demanding about the boy—but he managed to understand her hellish nature and offered her a safe haven where she could protect everyone. A place full of children, like her.
Strange, intelligent, and unique.
She had denied it at first. She did not trust anyone, and she threatened to kill him if he ever dared make a request to her again. She wouldn't fall for the same trick.
But that didn't deter him. He had been respectful and had told her that it was okay and that if she ever needed anything, to tell the current orphanage's supervisor. He left as quickly as he came, and she didn't see him until a month later, but that was after she'd killed the Male director of the east wing for boys when children had come to her for help.
She didn't know about that. Wammy had.
Her hands were bloody. She had killed someone. Surely he wouldn't want her by then.
And worst yet, she hadn't felt a damn thing.
But alas, the man felt more inclined to convince the patrons otherwise. They readily agreed like the first time, and similarly, the last decision came to her.
She was prepared to decline. She vowed.
She had promised herself never again.
But it wasn't Wammy that came into her room that time. It was L. The same L she would never forget the chance of meeting and growing up with, the same L who had slowly inched his way into her locked heart and plucked it dry.
That boy.
Her caution shattered and she had softened her brute nature somewhat, marveling at the boy that turned out to be unharmed, and processing quickly that Wammy had indeed not lied to her when she said that L was fine.
He looked scary. Hollow-like. Sunken, wide eyes and loose clothes that decorated his freakishly pale skin. Matted hair clung to the sides of a goggled expression too, simply staring at her with a finger on the side of his mouth.
As if curious.
Fascinated.
She hadn't spoken a word. Instead, she stepped forward and snatched his hand, checking it for warmth after laborious minutes of just staring at each other. Checking, vehemently, if it was real.
He budged casually and she didn't let go, but he stopped ultimately when she brought the palm to her cheek and closed her eyes as if caressing. Wammy said so, and when she heard Candace balked at it, but he had a knowing glint in his old eyes she wanted to punch away. L, he would say later, told him that.
He also told him about what everyone else said, and Wammy in turn digressed the events to her in a kind light, needlessly prickling a hole in her heart with a stupid, golden, hopeful needle.
L, the elder said, had heard voices at the door explaining her rude, disgusting nature of being too close to the children to be comfortable conveniently at the same time she did as such, and that, apparently, she didn't care that they spoke about that.
Candace thought it was bullshit. She'd remember something like that.
Wouldn't she?
All she could remember was the relief she'd felt after knowing he was okay. That Wammy had been the first adult not to lie to her.
Her hands trembled, and she opened her eyes, irrefutably grateful for his presence. "You're real," She murmured in french and tugged his hand closer to hold his arm.
She was not calm. Not yet.
But she was relieved.
He stared at her with a tilted head, and she saw the way he scrutinized the warmth she supplied to his side, a new form of foreign comfort that he had a sudden inclination not to break away from.
His voice later broke through the ongoing silence that was heftily spent with them holding each other, replying in a language she didn't know of, small but firm. Her response was nothing but the mum of the white noise, but he seemed to take it as some form of confirmation, because, if she remembered correctly, she swore she saw his dead eyes sparkle something akin to promise.
She didn't understand, and when he began treading to the door she followed him—but it was hand in hand, for she had let go to provide him movement. Anxiousness clawed her innards when she stepped out of the safe room and she glared hatefully at Wammy, who waited patiently, and with a kind smile. Her hand squeezed L's providing comfort that wasn't needed.
To that, she remembered. Vividly so.
How his palm was dry and cold, but never weak.
"Watari," The boy had said, and Candace was inclined forward, blocking his body from the elder.
"Home, please."
And she came to be here, after too many processes undergone to her mind and body to sufficiently be allowed near L. She learned—too many things, ranging from the innocence of baking to the ruthlessness of hand-to-hand combat. Apprenticed, secretly, under Wammy's guard. A powerful man of mind, but too soft in his heart to ever be a curse in her eyes.
It was confusing, degrading, and overall a humbling experience because not once did Wammy lift a hand to hurt her, nor that of Roger, and she hated that kindness.
She hated it so much that she eventually fell into the bottomless pit of acceptance.
His kindness led her to the woman she was today. A quiet, but no less blunt, woman with a gun strapped to her thigh underneath the softness of her dark skirts prepared for almost everything.
L's choosing, however, made her something else instead.
A Maid.
And not just any maid. No, she was special. His maid, he said.
As if she was something to be owned.
Her blank face twitched as she grabbed for the elegant silver tray of chocolate cake she'd made with her own two hands. Perfect, as described by L.
Wammy had been a little put off by his decision, and Candace had vocalized her refusal. Respectfully, of course. Her emotions were under a tightrope after all those... stupid lessons about the mockery of the human brain.
Eugh.
L had heard, and, typically, didn't care.
Right.
She was stuck not as L's personal guard—where she more than deserved it, even if it was near him—but as L's cooking machine.
Amazing. Truly. Fucking. Fascinating.
"Your chocolate cake, L," She spoke placidly as she entered the vacant room that inhabited a hunched figure staring intensely at a digital screen.
He didn't turn when she came close enough. Didn't acknowledge her when she set the tray and utensils in front of him.
But she was used to that.
She looked away, stood off to the side of the door to his special room, and waited.
Watching, secretly from the corner of her eye, how L slowly grabbed the spoon with his thumb and index, dug it gently into the mouth-watering dessert, and shoved the pleasant spoonful into his parched mouth.
He chewed, swallowed, and set the spoon down.
"Palatable," He commented. "Your dishes never disappoint, Miss Dollette."
Her stomach coiled from the praise, and she stomped the hateful flutters her heart should've never started all those years ago.
"Thank you, L."
Oh, how she hated that man.
[. . .]
A/N: Heyo, heyo! Thank you for reading my story, guys.
Toodles~
Ana.