FOREWORD

If you had to ask me what my favourite shounen manga series of all time was, my answer would vary depending on what genre I wanted. For action adventure, I'd choose Fullmetal Alchemist all the way. But for something more cerebral, I would choose Death Note. IGN once called the adaptation a thinking man's anime, and it's easy to see why.

That being said, I hadn't found many interesting Death Note fics on this site, or at least any that didn't have slash, which isn't my thing. And then, I had this weird little notion, which I have presented to you now. Given L's noted fondness for sweets, and Muffet's peddling of sweet things…yeah, you get the idea. In this story (where Kira never appears), L is about 13, and Muffet is about the same age.

Anyway, time for the usual disclaimers. Firstly, there will be spoilers for both Undertale and Death Note. If you want to avoid spoilers for the former especially, don't read. This is also something of an AU for both, so please don't complain.

Secondly, there will be heavy annotations, as is usual for my works. You have been warned.

Finally, the following is a fan-written work. Undertale and Death Note are the properties of their respective owners. Please support the official release. Otherwise, Muffet will feed you to her pet…

QUEEN OF SPIDERS AND GREATEST DETECTIVE

Even now, months later, L Lawliet, better known to the world in general (at least that that knew of him) as the detective L, could scarcely believe it. Monsters were real, magic was real, and the one who brought them out from underneath Mount Ebott was a girl he had known at the Wammy House, Frisk. L had actually been saddened when Frisk ran away from the Wammy House, after some bullies attacked her.

Of course, L was also somewhat angered about the fact that the monsters had killed six children, but none of them were being punished. It was Frisk who persuaded him to let it go, that they had been punished enough by their imprisonment beneath the surface. And L did let it go. Frisk was always a forgiving child, a bit of a crybaby, but a brilliant negotiator. The monster did have to pay compensation for what happened, though, and they were kept under watch.

L had met a number of the monsters already. Indeed, a few of them were now working at the Wammy House, after having been vetted by Quillish 'Watari' Wammy. One of their new teachers was a kindly goat woman called Toriel, formerly the Queen of the Underground, and one of those completely opposed to the plan to gather the seven human souls needed to escape. She was easily likeable, and L actually enjoyed her company. The fact that she baked him a number of sweet things he enjoyed helped. Toriel's ex-husband, the King of the Underground, Asgore, was another matter. L accepted that the man was wracked by guilt over his actions, and was trying to redeem himself. He seemed oddly content to be a gardener at the Wammy House, despite being royalty. That being said, L kept his distance, letting Frisk speak to him in his stead.

He wasn't so sure about the new PE teacher, Undyne, a fish woman of considerable energy, enthusiasm, and loudness, or the shy and furtive Alphys, a lizard woman who worked for the government now, though she visited. Frisk had told him that Alphys had a few skeletons in the closet (well, Amalgamates in the basement, but that was semantics), but was trying to redeem herself. L did find himself bonding with the lizard woman more than Undyne, who was her lover, despite Alphys' mistakes. Though Undyne was impressed somewhat by L's ability to use Capoeira.

Then, there were the Font brothers, as they were dubbed. Papyrus, a loud, enthusiastic, and kind-hearted skeleton, tall and lanky, with a fondness for spaghetti. L thought him harmless to everything but L's ears: like Undyne, he lacked an indoor voice. Like Undyne, he helped with physical education. Sans was lazy, laid back, but scarily perceptive for a dumpy skeleton. L didn't mind him, save for those godawful puns he would trade with Frisk and Toriel. Sans worked in the library of Wammy House, and was one of the few monsters who knew that L was a detective.

And, of course, there was the rising star, Mettaton, whose robot body could alternate between a blocky man-sized calculator on a wheel, to an androgynous form that looked like the offspring of David Bowie and the robot Maria from Metropolis. Then again, the latter suited him, given how camp he was. An obnoxious attention whore, whose main saving grace was the affection he showed Frisk and Alphys.

There were many other monsters of many kinds. They were integrating with human society. Not completely smoothly, but it was better than the war that could have eventuated, like the war that ended with them being imprisoned in the first place. He also heard from Frisk the awful injustice of what happened to Chara and Asriel. Local myth turned out to be true, though the so-called attacking monster was not returning a victim to taunt the people, but rather, fulfilling a last request. It ended badly for Asriel.

L slouched along the footpath towards his destination. He looks unimpressive, and most would not consider this teenager to be the famous detective. A messy shock of black hair frames a face that betrays a mixture of Eurasian and Oriental ancestry. It could have been handsome, but his pale skin and dark circles around his dull, dark, eerily unblinking eyes, caused by his perpetual insomnia, mar any potential attraction. He dressed habitually in a plain white shirt and jeans, and wore battered sneakers whose laces he never tied up properly. He seemed to have a perpetual slouch (Sans, who often had a slouch himself, gave him a 10 out of 10, to L's distinct lack of amusement).

Frisk and Toriel had suggested that he head to a new café that had been opened by a monster recently. Which was why he found himself at what had to be the place. Muffet's Tea Parlour.

He opened the door and went inside. The rather lavishly-decorated café wasn't packed, but that was partly because it had only opened recently. That, and the owner was one of the monsters, who was currently serving one of the tables. Once she had finished, she had turned around, and clapped her hands together when she saw him. All six of her hands, in fact.

"Oh, we have another customer! And a cute one in dire need of tea, as it seems. Ahuhuhu…" the monster chortled at her own joke. "I'm Muffet, the owner of this fine establishment. What would you like?"

L merely scrutinised Muffet. Superficially, she seemed like a slender, slim girl about his age, dressed in an old-fashioned red dress that had pantaloons, and with her black hair in a pair of pigtails in a rather childishly endearing hairstyle. Of course, you couldn't mistake her for human, what with the purple skin, six arms, five eyes (all of them black, with no visible sclera, that is, whites) and a pair of small but noticeable fangs jutting from her lips. She thus was a kind of heavily-anthropomorphised spider girl.

L then took the time to scrutinise her wares. Pastries and baked goods of all kinds, many of them rather appetising-looking. Apparently, according to Frisk, Muffet used to bake spiders into her goods, but regulations prevented her from doing so up here. "May I have a cup of Earl Gray tea, a supply of sugar, and a chocolate mud muffin?"

"Certainly!" Muffet chirped, before heading behind the counter. As she began using her arms to prepare his order, she said, "You're Frisk's big brother Lawliet, aren't you? She told me about you, but she never said you were so cute. Ahuhuhu…"

L blinked. A spider girl was flirting with him? Sadly, that was far from the weirdest thing to happen to him, even outside of his cases.

"She warned me about how much sugar you consume, so I've been keeping aside some sugar in case you come into my parlour," Muffet said, her smile becoming more flirtatious, as she plucked a large bowl, filled to the brim with sugar cubes, from beneath the counter. "Though I have to ask, how do you stay so slim on such a diet?"

L gave his stock answer as he handed over the money. He wasn't sure if it was wholly right, but it was the best theory he had. "The brain uses a lot of calories, even with normal people. My brain is particularly ravenous."

"Well, take a seat, dearie, and I will be with you as soon as possible. Ahuhuhu…"

L did so, though the other customers looked askance when he all but leapt onto the chair at his table, and then squatted down, his feet on the seat. He heard one of the nearest customers say to his dining companion, "Bad enough that they have spiders serving tea, now we've got Wammy's freaky brat putting his feet on the furniture."

L rolled his eyes. He knew this idiot. Dartnell, his name was. One of the locals who was perpetually trying to impress any woman he could. He felt like God's gift to women (he was handsome, but had an ugly personality), but thankfully, he never went beyond verbal attacks. Too scared of getting caught if he tried to rape someone, L thought, though he seemed to have anger management problems, and the potential was still there. L decided to pay him no mind. Instead, as L waited for his tea, he went over, mentally, some of the more interesting cases happening at the moment, or at least the ones Watari had brought to his attention. About the only one that did catch his attention was the cluster of strange deaths in Manchester. It would make an interesting diversion before something truly engrossing happened.

He very nearly didn't notice Muffet placing the tea, muffin, and large bowl of sugar on the table, so engrossed was he in thinking about these cases. However, when she did so, he looked at her, and smiled. "Thank you, Miss Muffet."

"You're welcome, ahuhuhu…" Muffet said, before walking away with a slight sashay.

"Great," Dartnell sneered, not quietly enough. "The freak is flirting with the other freak. Come on, let's get out of here."

"Stop talking about them like that," the woman snapped. "Dunno why I bothered to bring you here for a date. Or agree to a date at all. Now I know why Audrey warned me about you."

"Audrey's a stupid bint who doesn't know a good thing when she sees it," Dartnell retorted. "Then again, I don't think any woman does."

"Well, you can forget about calling me again." The woman stood, only to have her wrist grabbed by Dartnell.

"You're staying with me," Dartnell growled.

The woman tore her wrist from his grip, only to be slapped for her pains. L chose that moment to get to his feet. "Apologise, please," he said quietly.

Dartnell wheeled on him. "Mind your own business, freak," he snarled. "You're a blight on humanity, like those bloody monsters."

"I asked politely for you to apologise. You have just assaulted a woman. I think the police should be called."

"You won't get the chance," Dartnell sneered, and threw a hard punch that could very well have killed L outright from the injuries from the punch, or hitting the ground hard. Of course, he telegraphed the punch so badly, L only had to duck, slip into a Capoeira stance, and then, as Dartnell tried to kick him, sweep the man's legs out from underneath him with a rasteira(1).

Just as the man sprawled, Muffet, who had watched what had happened, held out two of her hands in a halting gesture. Fine white threads hissed from them. Spider webs, L realised. Soon, Dartnell's hands and feet were secured to the ground by spider web. Dartnell bucked and roared, but he couldn't break it. "You're dead, you spider bitch!" Dartnell snarled, as his former girlfriend rang 999 and called for the police.

"Oh? Muffin, sweetie, could you come out here for a moment?" Muffet called. From the kitchens waddled an enormous spider. True to its name, it had a muffin-like body, from which legs depended, and a grotesque maw gaped and slavered. As it straddled him and drooled into his face, Muffet said, "Do you like him? He's my pet. He's going to guard you while we wait for the police to arrive. Don't worry, he won't bite, not unless I tell him to. He's very well trained…well, when it comes to biting people. Toilet training is taking a while, though. Ahuhuhu…"

The police soon arrived to take the thrashing and snarling Dartnell away. The police took statements from those present, and as their statements tallied up, but Dartnell's didn't, charges were going to be laid. And Muffet had the foresight to have CCTV cameras in the shop.

Unfortunately, by that time, L's tea had gone cold. Muffet brought out a fresh cup, and L was surprised to find her sitting opposite him after she served him. "It's pretty quiet," she said. "It usually is, but I've only been open a few days. Still, business is better than I thought. Humans aren't as stingy as I thought, ahuhuhu...actually, darling little Frisk was my first human customer. She bought some food and drink at the Spider Bake Sale in the Ruins, at the edge of the Underground. She showed me the receipt, too. She actually stayed a while and talked with me, spoke of her big brother Lawliet. She said that I'd have to stockpile sugar cubes for you."

L was placing what most people would consider a ridiculous number into his teacup, but he wasn't most people. He slurped quietly at the tea, and decided it was at the perfect level of sweetness. "You're very kind to do so."

"Ahuhuhu…well, I didn't think you'd be so cute. She said you were like a hero or something." She cradled her face in her hands in a coquettish demeanour. Well, two of her hands, anyway. One of her other hands was petting Muffin, who had come over with her, and the other was toying with a second teacup that she had brought along for herself. "What was that kick thing? It looks like a martial arts thing like those animated movies Alphys loves."

"It's Capoeira. I know Alphys like anime, but Capoeira is not Japanese, it's Brazilian, though it's actually derived from the fighting skill of African martial artists who were enslaved."

"Oh, that's interesting. Tell me more…"

It all but turned into a date without L really realising it until near the end. Then again, for all her flirtatious and childish ways, Muffet was at least pleasant enough company. And her tea and treats were delicious.

"I can't wait to see you again, dearie," she said as he slouched off out of the café, waving with three of her hands. "I do want to see you again."

L nodded, and left for home. That little interlude with Dartnell aside, it had been a pleasant meal. And Muffet had been accommodating to his tastes. Not many cafés and teahouses were. Yes…he would come back. And he would have to thank Frisk and Toriel for suggesting it.

He just had to hope that Muffet wasn't disappointed when she realised he wasn't interested in romance, though…

THE END

STORY ANNOTATIONS:

So, here you have it, a nice little story of the beginnings of a beautiful friendship. Probably not romance, L doesn't seem like the romantic type. Incidentally, this story takes place in an AU for both, so Light doesn't end up getting a Death Note. And for this story, I made Wammy House's location rather vague deliberately, as I don't think Winchester (its canonical location) has many mountains nearby. Hills, yes, according to Wikipedia, but not mountains. So I thought of it as being in the north of England for this story (Winchester is in the south).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story. It was just one of those ideas that never went away.

1. A rasteira is a Capoeira move that involves a leg-sweep. I had in mind a specific move, the Rasteira de Costa, but I didn't want to piss off any actual Capoeira adherents who actually would know the right move, so I made it vague.