A/N: This... is something of a character piece. I think. If I'm honest, I don't know what it is. But I like it. Please read!

Title: What's in a Name?

Author: liketolaugh

Rating: K+

Pairings: None

Genre: Family/Spiritual

Warnings: None.

Summary: When Mana took Red and named him Allen, his world shattered.

Disclaimer: I only wish I owned D. Gray-man.

"Come on, Red, you're slowww!" whined Mana, tugging the boy forward by the hand.

"Shut it!" snapped Red, glowering at Mana. "Where the hell are you even taking me, ya crazy?"

"To my tent, of course!" Mana said cheerfully.

"Why?!"

"Well, you're dirty, Re-ed," Mana huffed. "You can't be dirty all the time, you know!"

"I'm perfectly fine with my dirt!" Red snapped, pulling at his hand fruitlessly. "Leave me alone, crazy! I gots chores to do!"

"And you can do them when you're clean," Mana informed him haughtily, finally tugging him through the flap of a small tent.

Just inside, a large bucket of water sat off to the side, a cloth draped on the side. Mana plonked Red down beside this, sat across from him, and picked up the cloth.

"Take off your shirt," he instructed Red.

Grumbling, Red stripped the shirt over his head and tossed it to the ground carelessly. His left arm flopped right back down to his side, utterly useless, and he slumped over himself, scowling grumpily at nothing.

"There we go," Mana said cheerfully, reaching forward and scrubbing the cloth against Red's skin. Red just sat there, scowling. "So what's your name?"

Red scowled harder. "I told ya, they call me Red."

"That's not a name," Mana pointed out mildly, turning Red around to get at his back and not reacting even as his hand clamped firmly over strange, blood red flesh.

Red huffed. "I don't got a name, alright? I'm nobody."

"You're not nobody," Mana objected. "If you were nobody, then I would be talking to myself right now, and I try not to do that."

Red twisted to give him a disbelieving look. Mana smiled and plopped the cloth over Red's head, half covering his face.

"Hey!" Red objected, scrabbling at the cloth to get it off. As soon as he'd managed that, though, hands were at the back of his head, pulling out his messy ponytail and making his hair fall even more messily about his face. He scowled at Mana again.

"You need a name," Mana said decisively, as though he wasn't making Red from a presentable mess to an unpresentable mess. He snapped his fingers. "I know! I'll call you Allen." He smiled.

Allen gaped at him.

Allen resisted his new name at first – for the whole first day, in fact.

It was understandable, really. Allen had never had a name before, and was well within his right to refuse any name Mana might give him. After all, who was Mana to name the boy/freak/demon child? No one at all, that's who.

The day after, though, Allen seemed to have grown not only used to the idea, but he defended his name with all the ferocity of a starving tiger, surprising even Mana with his vehemence.

"Hey, shrimp! Red! Get your lazy ass over here!"

Where before, Red would have dropped his head and mutinously, but silently shuffled over, now Allen raised his head and glared at Cosimo defiantly.

"My name is Allen," he snapped, crossing his arms – a little awkwardly, due to his paralyzed arm, but no less bold for the impairment.

He hadn't put his ponytail back in since Mana had neatened his hair the day before, and he'd found a large glove somewhere to hide his left arm in. Now, gray eyes dark with defiance as he scowled at Cosimo, he looked almost like a whole other person.

"Red," repeated Cosimo pointedly, tapping his cane against the ground. "Get your ass over here, dammit."

"My name is Allen!" Allen was practically steaming from his ears, right fist clenched and stance aggressive as he fumed.

For a moment, both of them just glared at each other.

Then Betsy, one of the animal tamers, reached over and smacked Cosimo over the back of the head.

"He ain't your servant, Cosimo," she scolded, looking at him crossly. "Give 'im a break. And if 'e wants to be called Allen, call him Allen, what's wrong with you?" After a moment, she added, just as crossly, "And put that cane away, what d'you think you're gonna do with that, huh?"

Cosimo had always been afraid of the animal tamers, and Betsy was no exception. Allen thought it was because he was a coward. He put the cane away.

Allen stared at her.

No one had ever done that when he had just been Red.

He supposed you needed a name to be a person.

You needed a name to be a person.

Allen had understood that, for almost as long as he had understood that he himself had no name. Without a name, you had no identity, just epithets – freak, boy, demon child, you. Red was a step up, but not by much.

Like Mana said, Red wasn't a name, either.

Everyone at the circus forgot sometimes. Slipped up, called him Red again. But Mana – Mana never forgot.

"Hey, Al-len!"

"What d'you want, ya crazy?"

Mana stuck around for longer than he had claimed to intend, coming along with their circus. The following Christmas, Mana gave Allen a second name to go with his first.

Allen Walker.

Allen liked it, Allen loved it.

No, that wasn't quite right.

Allen held his new name close to himself like the air he breathed, he needed it, he depended on it. He made it his.

From his new name, he constructed an identity – a self. Red had been a nobody, a street rat. Nothing of real importance. Red had no real name and Red was just a freak.

Allen Walker was Mana Walker's son. He always hid his left arm from sight and he was pretty rough-spoken, but he tried when Mana asked. Allen was rude, but he knew how to be polite, if Mana insisted. He liked to eat and always slept near Mana, and sometimes he got exasperated because adults kept cooing over him. Allen Walker was not a freak.

Allen Walker was somebody.

"Mana? Mana, wake up!"

As Mana failed to respond, Allen's world crashed to pieces around him.

Everything that Allen Walker was revolved around Mana. He had no family except Mana, no friends besides Mana, nothing of worth that made him him without Mana Walker. Without Mana, all that Allen had left was Red.

Mana couldn't leave Allen.

Allen needed Mana.

Allen needed Mana more than the air he breathed.

When the Millenium Earl came, Red didn't spare a moment for thought to the consequences, to what could happen. Red just reacted, because that was what Red did.

"Mana!"

And Mana cursed Red, and left with him a new path, a new task, a new identity.

Red wasn't Allen again, not yet, but he could be.

He didn't have Mana, but he had Mana's curse, and that was enough for Allen.

Slowly, very slowly, Red became Allen again. But Allen was different this time; there was no Mana to guide him, so he would have to be his own Mana, because without Mana, there was no Allen.

Allen's Master Cross didn't call him Allen, but he didn't call him Red, either. He called him 'idiot apprentice', 'stupid pupil', and sometimes just 'you'.

Allen, for the first time in a long time, found that he didn't mind, at least not at first. He didn't want Red to be called Allen; Red had no identity and Red didn't deserve a name.

Later, he did mind, but not as much as he used to. Cross had known Red, even if Cross himself didn't know it. Cross would always remember Red – Allen was certain of it. Maybe that was why he never called Allen by his name.

But other people, they called Allen by his name. People Cross took him to, to learn from, to meet, to imitate or avoid or study.

And eventually, Allen found that Allen Walker was its own identity.

Allen Walker was Mana Walker's son – but Allen Walker was also Cross' apprentice, Allen Walker was the boy with the cursed eye, Allen Walker was a card shark and Allen Walker was a scarred, all-but-innocent child.

And eventually, Allen Walker was an exorcist.

Allen Walker was somebody again.

"Hey, beansprout!"

"My name is Allen!"

So there is fluff to be found in D. Gray-man... I had wondered. I don't know about any of you, but this piece helped me work out a lot of Allen's character. I'd like to hear what you thought of it - please review!