A/N: Yay! All done!

Title: One and Another

Author: liketolaugh

Rating: T

Pairings: None

Genre: Drama/Mystery

Warnings: None

Summary: Dean stumbles across a strange child playing poker in a place where he does not belong. Shortly thereafter, the two of them walking together run across something even Dean's never seen before. Things only escalate from there. Stanford Era!Dean and Pre-series!Allen.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Supernatural is not mine. Neither is D. Gray-man.

"Sleep there," Dean told Allen, pointing at the unoccupied second bed. He always got one, out of habit. Never used it.

Allen smiled at him, silver eyes tired but bright. "Thanks, Mister Dean."

Dean grunted and went into the bathroom. When he came out, Allen's shoes were off, sitting at the foot of the bed, and the kid was curled up, asleep, under the covers. White hair brushed back to reveal the top of what Allen had mentioned to him earlier as a curse.

Goddamn. "Some curse," Dean muttered, eying the pentacle. Not that they were unheard of, but damn, that was a big scar for just one. "Wonder what happened."

Eh. He probably didn't want to know. Dean had problems of his own.

He deliberately looked away from the kid and climbed into bed himself. They'd have a hunt to finish the next day, and damned if he was going to do it while he was tired.

"Find anything, kid?" Dean asked after some time, glancing over to where Allen was leaning forward, intently looking at his screen.

Allen squirmed slightly.

"Come on."

"I… think so," Allen said haltingly. He smiled and turned the screen toward Dean. "See, Felicia… she had a brother."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, and? He's alive."

Allen tapped a few keys and brought up a picture of the brother. "That man was the akuma from yesterday."

Oh. Dean's brow furrowed. "Still, if he's an akuma, he can't be a ghost."

Allen's expression turned into a solemn, sad smile. "That's not quite right. See, when a person makes an akuma… The Millenium Earl comes to them while they're still mourning." His eyes clouded over with memory. "He offers to bring the dead loved one back to life, and the person's call summons the spirit, which is bound to the akuma skeleton. Then the Earl orders the new akuma to kill the person who summoned it and steal their body."

He smiled, and his eyes cleared.

Dean blinked. Once. Just once.

"Well, if that's not a violent death, I'm not sure what is." He scooted back from his chair and stood up. "C'mon, kid. We've got a body to burn."

Allen smiled and hopped up, hustling after Dean as he strode out of the library.

How's he know so much about how an akuma's made, anyway?

"How old was he?" Allen asked suddenly, looking up from where he was searching the road signs, looking for the one where the akuma's body had fallen in the alley.

Dean nearly tripped. "What?"

Allen smiled. "Your little brother. Or your nephew, maybe." Dean stared at him. "You're good with me. A lot better than most adults are. You must have had one."

Dean smiled bitterly. "Think so, huh?" Sam didn't, he didn't add. "Yeah, I had a little brother. Sam. Four years younger." And dammit, now he was thinking about it.

"What happened?"

Dammit, kid. "He and Dad had a fight." Shut up, shut up, shut up…

"That's the street." Allen smiled and pointed.

Dean nodded and found the body where it had fortunately fallen just out of sight, almost right into an overlarge cardboard box, still where it had been the day before. To drag or not to drag…?

Allen dragged a box in front of them and then smiled at Dean brightly. "Now that I know how, maybe I can burn it and pretend to be a random street kid who likes vandalizing things."

Dean snorted. "You? A street kid?" That's be like Sam trying to pull that off. Wait, goddammit, he did it again.

You're not thinking about Sam, Dean reminded himself sharply. If you remind yourself about Sam, you're going to get worried and go check on him, and then if Sam catches you, he's gonna be pissed.

Allen, for some reason, smiled brighter.

Dean laughed and they ended up salting and burning the corpse where it lay and getting in trouble with the police.

Dean wasn't surprised. Police didn't like him all that much.

They waited for a few hours before Dean gave up, picked the locks, and got them both out of there in less than ten minutes.

"Sorry about that," he said dryly. "Doesn't happen all that often."

Allen smiled. "That's alright. It's better than when Master does it." He wrinkled his nose.

"So, you, uh, know where he went?" Dean asked. "This hunt's done and done." About time, too. Normally on a hunt this simple he'd have been done the night before.

Allen sighed. "No…" He looked very depressed about it.

Dean chuckled. "Well, hope you find him soon." After that, he had a funny feeling that Allen knew how to take care of himself, at least for a little while. Also, he kept getting dragged into things.

Allen sighed again and smiled. "Yeah…" He waved. "Bye, Mister Dean!"

"It's Dean, kid!" Oh, wait. Dean jogged back and shoved a piece of paper into Allen's hand. "If you ever run into anything funky like that again…" He trailed off pointedly.

Allen looked down to the phone number he held in his wrinkled red hand and smiled again. "Thanks, Dean."

Dean grinned. "No problem."

Allen looked up and smiled.

For a moment, his eyes were hazel, and it didn't hurt. Dean grinned and waved the kid off and went his own way, on into the next town.

There was alsways another hunt to catch, after all.

A little abrupt in the scene changes, I think, but that's me. For my part, I'm fairly pleased with how it ended. Also: It ended! Yay, finally! *laugh* Let me know what you thought! Please review!