This was an idea I brainstormed with my friends at lunch one day, so it's sort of also a little bit credited to them. Oh! And to my mom who gave me some of the best dialogue scenarios I've had in ages and used for this.

I don't own D. Gray-Man. I wish I did, but I don't. But if you only read this part-way through, I will inherit your soul. Beginning to end, please?

REVIEW!! AND ENJOY!!

Allen and the Finger Trap

"Ah, Head Officer," Reever began with interest swishing around his mouth. "How are the evaluations going?"

Komui was entranced by his paperwork, or whatever the clipboard held upon it. He didn't look up at the other man when he spoke. "Well enough, well enough. I've tested almost everybody."

"Almost?"

"Ah, well, my dear sweet Lenalee is clearly smart enough to handle any situation presented, so that would just be a waste, no?"

"... Riiiight."

"And Kanda... No... I won't risk this again. Lavi is smart, he'd catch on. But I got everybody else. Well... not everybody."

"So, who's left then, sir?"

Komui flicked the piece of paper with names scribbled on it to the back side and grinned madly. "Oh, just Allen Walker now."

--

Allen mulled around the Science Department for lack of anything better to do. Lavi was busy with Bookman, and couldn't be bothered. Lenalee was out shopping with Miranda, and Allen really didn't enjoy that activity. Kanda... was doing whatever it was that Kanda did when he wasn't on a mission. And, for mention of missions, there were none. Nobody had been sent out in weeks, and it was boring everybody to tears. And by everyone, he meant anybody who didn't find something to do with all the accumulated spare time.

Namely, himself.

He put his face dangerously close to a beaker of some bubbling blue substance and made a strange face at it. Even Allen knew it was very risky to play around in such a place. But God, he was bored. If he didn't find something quick, it was going to be very messy very soon.

"OH Allen~!" Komui waltzed in with a smile. Somewhere off in the distance, Allen could have sworn he heard angels trumpeting a song of victory and excitement. His requested had been accepted! "Aha! I thought maybe you'd be here!!"

"Oh, hello Komui-sama! You were looking for me?"

"Yes, of course you!!" The Chinese man took a small wooden box out from behind his back. When he opened it, Allen leaned over and looked at the little contraption. It just seemed to be some small, odd cylinder thing made of... plastic? Straw? Hard to say. It hardly seemed to be the answer to his adventuring prayers.

"Um... what exactly is it?"

"This, Allen, is a finger trap. Really it's just a kids' game nowadays, because SO many people have found the trick to it. But, as Lenalee did not want it, and you seemed like you needed something to do, I was wondering if you might like to give it a try?"

"What does it do?" He voice betrayed his wonder for the object. He was curious. Very curious.

"Well, you see," the man began, holding the trap. "You put one index finger in each side, and then you try to take it back off."

"That doesn't sound so hard," Allen smiled. He accepted the token from the hands of his superior and did as instructed. First, he removed his gloves, and then inserted the left finger, and then the right. "See, that's easy. Watch." But, when Allen tried to pull them back out, he couldn't free the flanges. He stood there for a moment, totally surprised and amazed that he couldn't get out. No matter how he tugged, it remained on his fingers like they'd grown together. Slowly his confusion grew to childish entertainment. "Wow, this is much harder than it looks!!"

Komui laughed and patted the white-haired kid on the shoulder. "Well, why don't you take that and tell me when you've figured out how to get it off, right?"

"Uh, yes sir!!" Not entirely aware of his surroundings anymore, the Walker boy wandered off while his eyes were still fixed on the puzzle that clung to him.

--

Seeking to find the infamous and elusive secret of the finger trap, Allen drew his nose up to his hands so that it nearly touched the device. It had no buttons or knobs or switches of any sort. So, in theory, on should be able to just pull it off without problem. But it wouldn't move. Had Komui put glue in it? Allen was sure he would have noticed if there was glue, and Komui surely would have very indirectly informed him first. But, even so, that really didn't matter. It was something to do, at least, and Allen was glad enough for it.

Really though, how the heck was it supposed to come off?

The thing had left him handicapped for the better portion of his day. He'd been forced to open doors with his elbows, which was, to say the least, very tiring. He'd found a chair conveniently located in the lounge. It was pretty quiet there for the time being; a perfect atmosphere to concentrate in.

But, when the boy was about to reach what he assumed to be the peak of his amusement, a smell drifted into the lounge. Oh, it was undeniably gorgeous! The aroma swirled around Allen and kissed him on the cheek. He wanted it, and it most undoubtedly wanted him. The memory of it dwindled inside of his mouth and planted the fast-growing seeds of salivation.

It was lunch time.

He saw everything happen before he was even in the cafeteria. He was hungry that day, for sure, and Jerry was sure to love the variety of glorious foods he was ready to order. And, just before he reached out to open the door to his heaven, Allen realized something sickening.

It was insanely difficult to hold utensils without hands.

He stared at the finger trap. That which was once a game had suddenly become a curse, a demon latched onto his digits. He stomach rumbled, in both agreement and agony. It needed food. NOW. And if it didn't get food, it was sure to do something very drastic.

Allen cried out a bit as he tried to pull his fingers apart again. "GET OFF!! OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF!!! NAAH!!" He bit into the object, but even that was useless. It had him snared just the way it wanted, and nothing would make it let go of its prey now.

Allen was prepared, however, to use every weapon in his arsenal to reach the cafeteria in time to eat. He reached his arms out as far as he could and pushed hard on the finger trap with his foot. "Ah!" Allen gritted his teeth. He succeeded only in making his arm horribly sore, and possibly dislocated it.

Arm? ARM! That's right!! "Innocence, invocate!!" The left arm grew and morphed before Allen's eyes. "This is it," he thought. "This is it!!" But there was a horribly squeezing sensation when the invocation was not-quite finished. There just wasn't enough room in that little finger trap for such a large finger, and it was quite pleased to crush it into the right form. Allen shrieked in pain. "Gah! Deactivate! DEACTIVATE!!"

The teen was about ready to cry. He was stuck. He would have to eat the rest of his meals in his undeniably short life through a straw, and Akuma were sure to kill him at first sight. Allen Walker, a most troubled person right then, released a pathetic sob. What good was mitarashi dango if you had to put it into the blender before you could eat it? No, it was an unspeakable horror, the likes of which poor Allen couldn't even bring himself to think of. What he needed was help, and quickly. He needed somebody who could get him free. He needed to eat. NEEDED.

Allen ran off to the library to find Lavi. Bookman-shmookman. This was an emergency!

--

Allen slid around the book shelves with incredible stealth. In any other room, he might have just shouted for his friend and been done with it. But this, my friend, was the library, and Allen didn't want an angry librarian, or Bookman, headhunting for him. Not on an empty stomach.

"Lavi," he whispered urgently. The short, old man didn't seem to be anywhere. But, nor did Lavi. "Lavi?! Are you here?! Hello?"

A pile of books tumbled to the floor and revealed the Bookman apprentice, looking like he was half-dead. Drool dripped from his mouth, and his eyes showed none of their familiar luster. Allen barely noticed.

"Omigosh! Lavi, you have GOT to help! Please!! LAVI LAVI LAVI!!! LAVI!!!"

The older boy snapped from his trance and sat bolt upright. "Gah!" When he looked around and saw not a furious panda-man, but instead a weeping moyashi-kins, Lavi knew he'd missed something horrible and vastly important.

"Eh? What's wrong, buddy?"

"WAAAAH!!" Lavi jumped back. Allen looked more miserable right then than he had in, well, forever. "I can't get it o~ff!!!" The multicolored bringer of torment was waved next to the redhead's face repeatedly.

"Hm? What is it?"

"It's a finger trap! Komui let me borrow it and now it's stuck!!!"

Lavi looked it over, rubbing his chin and pulling Allen's hands into different positions to get a greater variety of views. "Hm... interesting... ah, that is odd... oh!"

"AH!!" Allen sprung up. "You can get it off?!"

"I doubt it," the Bookman-in-training shrugged and sighed. But, as he saw Allen's face turn downcast, he quickly reworded the answer. "But I'll try!"

"REALLY?!" The boy's eyes glittered like a disco ball in a well-lit room.

"Course! What could go wrong? Not like I could make it worse."

"No! Of course you can't!" Allen nodded in agreement. What could possibly make the situation worse? Not much, this was certain. He followed his more-than-trustworthy friend out of the library in a quest for freedom.

--

"GAH!!! Lavi!! What are you doing?!" Allen whined unrelentingly. However, it didn't seem to bother Lavi, who was trying very hard not to choke on his own hidden laughter.

Vaseline was a very good tool for getting things unstuck. As was butter, and occasionally water, and if you were desperate, Lenalee's hand lotion.

Lavi, not knowing which to start with, had used all of the items described above.

But, of course, being the Lavi he was, the boy had completely overlooked the fact that he only needed to grease up Allen's two fingers, and dumped the unappealing-scented concoction all over Allen. Mostly though, he'd managed to soak Allen's head. And when he'd tried to fix the boy's hair, it stuck up in every which way but the direction Walker liked it; relatively down. Allen's head now resembled that of a beach-blonde Road Kamelot with an access of rat nests on her head.

"Wha~t?!" Lavi at last managed to coo from behind the chuckles. "I'm just helping."

"HELPING?! The helping part I could understand, but this?! WHY DID YOU POUR IT ALL OVER ME?!"

"... Fun?"

"LAVI!"

"Seriously Allen! Look at yur'self! It's pretty silly!" Lavi grinned ear-to-ear as if it might fix the situation.

Allen glared, which did little damage, as ridiculous as he appeared at the time.

"Aw, Allen, don't be like that! See, I'll even prove my point! HEY! Lenalee!!" Allen felt his stomach start to devour itself. This happened for two reasons. First, he was still hungry. Second, one of the very last things he wanted was for Lenalee to see him in such a state. But, all the dislike in the world wouldn't have stopped it from happening. The girl rounded the corner and stopped dead in her tracks when she got no more than a brief glance at Allen.

The Lee girl, attempting with every fiber of her being not to laugh, seemed to be chewing on her own lips. "Ye-yes Lavi?"

"Lenalee-chan, doesn' Allen look funny?"

She squeaked a little as she tried to find her words. "Uh... well... YES!!"

"LENALEE!!" Allen almost wept at the betrayal.

"I-I'm sorry Allen-kun, but it's TRUE!! I'm only being honest!" She hid her smile with a free hand. "Um, Allen, do you... do you need some help?"

"N-no! Lavi was just finishing helping me get free, so... I'M FINE!!" Allen tugged on his hands again. It moved about as much as a boulder welded to the ground gives way to a seagull. The situation remained hopeless. "Mah! It's not working!!"

Another rumble was given off by the hungry boy's suffering belly. Allen leered at it accusingly for a moment before his face turned disheartened and the young exorcist slid off of the chair and found himself lying helplessly on the carpet.

Lavi rubbed his chin. "Hn... This is more serious than I thought. Lenalee, you get one of his arms, and I'll grab the other, okay?"

The girl had already rushed over to do so. "Right!"

Lavi inhaled, anticipation sending a shiver up his spine. "Ready? NOW!!" The two friends viciously yanked on the tortured Allen, who was screaming in agony the moment he realized what was going on.

"STOP!! No! NO!! OUCH!! GAAAAH!! YOU'RE PULLING MY FINGERS OFF!!!!"

Lenalee sighed with self-disappointment and dropped the victim's appendage. "This isn't working." Lavi followed suit and discontinued the brutal stretching. Allen was going to be quite sore in the morning. And he'd be able to reach that top shelf too! Well, at the very least, that was good. Not that one could grab much if they didn't have full use of their hand with which they planned to grab. Hm, now that was a thought.

"Well, what do you think we should do?"

The girl hummed to herself, biding time to search for an answer. "We need somebody who knows the trick to taking the finger trap off."

"Well, who do we know who's smart, has enough free time to mess with those things, and would be willing to help us?"

Like a messenger from God, who didn't fit the explanation above in the least, Kanda happened to walk into the library right then. Before he was even on the other side of the frame, he stopped himself. 'Oh Hell no,' he thought with a hesitant glance at the area's occupants. 'That book can wait until tomorrow! Quick! Before they see me!'

"YU-CHAAA~N!!"

'God dammit!'

"What do you want, Baka-Usagi?!" He added in an extra touch of lemon to his voice's recipe.

"Kanda..." Allen had somehow sneaked up and was staring pleadingly into the samurai's eyes. He revealed the insignificant-seeming finger trap to the tall boy with a whimper that only added to the pitiable character's appearance. The horribly messy hair was almost enough on its own. "Can you help me get this off?"

'Gah! Why does he have to be so damn cute?!' Kanda showed no hesitation in his silence, nor did he show that his mental strength for the matter was wavering. 'Fight it Kanda! Fight it! Don't let it devour your soul!!'

"... No."

"MAA~W! Why not?!" Allen's eyes started watering.

"I have better things to do. Leave me alone." He was going to walk away without any harm when Lavi joined the conversation.

"Yu-chan! This is really important! I-" The bunny-boy didn't actually get to finish. At mention of his first name for the second time, like it was some kind of attack command, Kanda had unsheathed Mugen. Its tip was softly smooching Lavi's nose. "P-please?"

"..." There was a long wait for an answer while Kanda bombarded his prey with sharpened and compulsively polished angry-glare-knives.

Allen got into the picture, pushing up against Lavi and showing off his shiny, now reddened eyes. "Please Kanda?"

'NO! You're stronger than that Kanda! Don't look into its eyes! NO!! STOP NOW!!' In all of the concentration it took to avoid saying what the Moyashi was hypnotizing him into, Kanda found himself with an unusually deep frown. 'Damnit Kanda! I don't care how adorable he is! DON'T SAY IT!!'

"Fine."

'God Dammit!'

Kanda roughly grabbed the finger trap while sheathing his loyal blade. Che, it was just some stupid little tube-thing. What was the big deal? Before Mugen was placed completely back into its proper place, Kanda kicked the youngest boy into a chair and crushed his arms into the adjacent table. Allen, wondering, didn't fight and just waited to know what exactly it was that the potential-savior had in mind.

The katana that had come to haunt many an unfortunate Finder's dreams was raised ominously over Allen's fingers. It seemed to lick its lips at the thought of drawing blood and giving the cursed boy another deformity. He didn't need anymore, but Mugen was hungry. Sacrifices must be made.

"WAAAAH! Kanda NO!!!"

Before Allen could protest further, before Lavi could stop Yu-chan, and before Lenalee could so much as think the location of a clipboard, a sickening thunk echoed around the room. Allen cried out.

"GYYYYAAAAAAAHHHH!!!" The boy drew back and clutched his hands that had been so mercilessly injured. "NOOOO~! I..."

Ah, but his hands were perfectly fine! The remains of the finger-eating monster fell to the ground like feathers, and not a drop of blood was on them. Kanda was already escorting himself out. "Now leave me alone," he grumbled.

Allen blinked. Lenalee blinked. Lavi... winked? All three of them watched at the samurai's long hair whipped around the corner and out of sight.

"Allen, don't you think that was a bit... Allen?"

Lavi was too late, for the teen with disgustingly unkempt whit hair was already rushing full-speed to the cafeteria to catch a late lunch. He could still faintly remember that intoxicating smell that had to easily seduced him earlier, and he wasn't about to lose it again.

Even if he did look like he'd gotten into a fight in a hair salon.

--

Komui, having waited fruitlessly for the whole day for Allen to report back at having successfully problem-solved his way out of the trap, was sleeping at his desk and snoring loudly. The evaluation was given up in return for forty winks.

Did you like it??? Review, or something, and tell me. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's poker night and I'm doomed. ^_^;