I actually put some effort into this one, since I think Shamal deserves more credit than he's gotten. ^__^
All characters (c) Amano Akira
An Apple a Day
Shamal learned from the earliest of ages that you could have all the power in the world, but be nothing without your health. He had never entered the medical field intentionally, but rather opened that door as a necessity to his survival. It was only later that he realized he could render an entire mafia arsenal useless by something no bigger than a micrometer. What good were box weapons and family rings if they couldn't be wielded?
Oh, but such a power came with its shortcomings; doctors were rare to come by in the mafia, which was odd considering the amount of injury sustained in that particular line of work. When one finally did come along, he was engulfed like food in a hungry amoeba's phagocytosis.
Shamal knew the human body better than anyone, and someone with that kind of knowledge was better captured quickly. Biological warfare was one thing the mafia feared above all, because it was something they didn't understand. Besides, a necrology in the wrong hands was as deadly as the thing that caused it.
So he became the Vongola's medical advisor. It had its perks, one of them being the steady increase to not only his cache of pathogenic knowledge, but to his cache of human knowledge as well. Shamal was ready for his vivisection: just who was in the Vongola, what did they need to thrive, and what broke them?
"I've already seen you two times this week," he grumbled, not even looking up from his stack of prescriptions at the sniveling boy in the waiting chair.
"I-I'm s-s-orry," the sandy-haired boy hitched, "I just f-fell."
Shamal sighed. "Again? What's your name, kid?"
The sandy-haired boy swiped at his eyes with a bruised hand. "D-Dino," he replied, in a somewhat stronger voice. "Dino Cavallone."
Another sigh blew itself out from between Shamal's lips. "Right," he said, and looked over to the young man standing behind the boy. "Are you his guardian?"
"Yes, sir," Romario replied, bowing and straightening out his glasses.
After running a hand through his coarse, mudpie hair Shamal opened a drawer and tossed Romario some bandages.
"He's got a fractured wrist and a bruised left shoulder," he said. "Some ice and bandages should do fine. Now go home and don't bother me anymore."
"But you didn't even examine him," Romario protested. The concern was evident in his eyes and his palms were open at his sides. "How do you know anything's not broken?"
Shamal stared at him pointedly through a face teeming with week-old stubble, with a look that made Romario decide not to question further. The man discovered later upon further inspection that it really was only fractured, and the left shoulder, though it had not begun to bruise until a few days later, was in fact bruised.
Shamal had watched the pair leave his office, somewhat confused by the sinuous, almost catlike grace in the boy's movements as he departed with his guardian.
It also didn't help that all of his patients were men.
Shamal preferred women, since they were the less stubborn of the two genders. They didn't go out looking for fights, they didn't undermine their conditions with tasteless bravado, and they allowed themselves to be cured. But women were a rarity in the mafia, probably, Shamal suspected, because they were smart enough to not get themselves involved with such things in the first place.
If this hadn't been the Italian mafia and he not a trained hitman, Shamal would have long since called security.
Even with the scarred, dark-haired man and the semi-bald fruitcake with sunglasses holding him down, the albino one was still trying to break free.
"I'm not sick, you fuckwads!" Superbi Squalo growled, trying to kick his boss in the gut to clear a path to the door. "So you can get your goddamn hands off of me and let me GO!"
Shamal jiggled a toothpick between his teeth nonchalantly. "Shall I add office damages to the bill I'm sending to the Ninth?" he asked, raising his pen lazily in the air, as Squalo managed to knock over a filing cabinet.
Xanxus looked positively livid. With a swift movement he took out his gun and knocked the butt of it across Squalo's temple. It made a dull whump, like a load of laundry falling into a hamper. The other's celadon eyes glazed over, but he amazingly remained semiconscious.
"Now," Shamal stroked his prickly chin as Squalo was set down on the table, "what seems to be the problem?"
"He's been coughing and sneezing nonstop for two weeks," Lussuria answered.
Shamal looked bored. "You brought him here for a cold?"
"Tell him about this morning," Xanxus muttered.
"No, you tell him about this morning."
Xanxus raised his gun again and Lussuria blanched. "Fine, fine," the other sighed. "He's had a fever of 39 for four days, and this morning he was talking….about…ah, lollipops."
"Lollipops?"
"Coughing up some weird shit too," the Varia leader added offhandedly, as if he didn't care. Shamal, his gaze abstrusely cool, failed to miss how Xanxus's eyes would stray to the panting figure on the table every now and then.
The doctor yawned, getting up from his rolling chair and surveying the snowy winter world outside his window. "And you've let this go on for two weeks?"
"We didn't know he was that sick," Lussuria shrugged.
"Perfectly…fine….bastards…" Squalo's faint rasp was just barely audible from the checkup table.
"Obviously," Shamal muttered. He turned to the other two. "It's times like these that almost make me want to revoke my declining of your invitation. Can't you see to yourselves without me around?"
Xanxus, in one of the rarest moment of humbleness, decided to bite his tongue.
"Your friend there has pneumonia, which could have quite possibly killed him if you had waited another few weeks," Shamal continued to the dumbstruck faces of the other two.
So he prescribed Squalo some antibiotics, along with a few "supplementary" treatments (which included various restraining tactics if the patient were to refuse the medicine, which Shamal would not have needed to administer if the patient had been a woman).
Honestly, he wondered how the Varia were still alive if this was how they took care of themselves on a daily basis.
After one year, Shamal had assembled secret medical dossiers on the entire Vongola. He used the blanket of a checkup or a physical exam to collect sufficient information on everyone in the mafia. One wouldn't believe some of the things he had found. It had only taken twelve months with the famiglia; Dr. Shamal knew at least two ways to destroy everyone from the inside out. It would be so simple too, if not for his unwavering dedication to the Vongola.
So when the Ninth had asked him to work as a male nurse in a Japanese middle school, Shamal naturally had qualms despite the prospect of treating many underage girls. There would be nothing more exciting than your typical cases of exam stress, influenza, and scuffle injuries.
However, it was also on Reborn's request that he come observe the new generation.
"Thank you," the Arcobaleno said quietly, as Shamal handed him a steaming mug of espresso. The tendrils of mist, as pale and diaphanous as milk mixed with water, rose up and curled around his face. Even splayed, his tiny hands could barely cover the circumference of the cup.
In a swift movement the Arcobaleno flashed out his hand, showing the doctor a fistful of colorful objects stacked deftly between his fingers like playing cards. Shamal stared at the lollipops, oddly reminiscent of something he could not place immediately. The Arcobaleno slid them onto the desk in front of him.
"Gifts," he smirked, "from women who thought I'd lost my mother."
"Glad to see this new form is treating you well," Shamal replied, an eyebrow raised. "I had thought you dead. What has it been, two years?"
"A year and a half," the other corrected, setting down his mug and looking at the shallow lines in his palm. "A relatively short time to spend in exile. I presume the others are faring just as well?"
"I'm sure they are." Shamal sipped from his own mug (which contained something a little stronger than coffee). "It's good to have you back, Hitman—no, Arcobaleno." The other gave a little 'hn.'
"Now, what can I do for you after all this time?"
The smaller figure crossed his legs. "I'm finally ready to accept this body, and to start anew," he began, dark, fishbowl eyes veiled behind the brim of his miniature fedora. "It will be a new life, as one of the Arcobaleno.
"I wish to be called Reborn from now on, since that is what I will be."
Shamal grinned faintly. "Ah, you're a sly one," he mused. "Only you would have discovered that I had that ability."
"So?" The Arcobaleno's eyes burned, like polished coals, into Shamal's brown ones. The Sun Pacifier on his chest sparkled in the afternoon light. "Can you do it, Shamal?"
Shamal looked down at the hitman for a moment, a slight crease in his brow the only outward notation of conflict, before nodding.
"How much do you want erased?" he asked.
"All of it," was the Arcobaleno's prompt answer. "Only the Ninth and the six others among me will share my past." He looked up then, and even through diminished features Shamal could see his gratitude.
"Don't thank me yet, Arcobaleno," he sighed. "Our work is just beginning."
"Of course it is," the other replied. "And thanks to you, I will soon be Reborn."
It wasn't all that bad, working in the middle school. Shamal found that he could easily keep an eye on the children Reborn was so fond of. They weren't anything special yet, but oh, Shamal could see where the little Arcobaleno was coming from. Potential practically reeked from their pores in a thick and fast-moving cloud. They were young, and did not possess many medical setbacks—though that's not to say Shamal found a few treats here and there.
It appeared that the Head of the Disciplinary Committee, Hibari Kyouya, had a slight allergy to sakura as well as a mild case of ochlophobia. The Sasagawa boy was prone to dehydration, and the future tenth himself had high blood pressure for his age (not that Shamal blamed him at all). These things, although inconsequential on the surface, could be used in some way or another. And Shamal knew exactly how.
So he watched over them, these boys who no more suspected their school health advisor to be a mafia hitman than fruit to jump up and do the polka. When he did encounter them, Shamal was sure to disguise his abilities under a womanizing ruse (but not enough to get him fired or arrested on charges of pedophilia). After all, a pervy doctor had to be an idiot.
Only one of them knew his true mien, and that was because this individual knew of the quiescent genius firsthand.
"What are you doing here?"
"Now Hayato, that's no way to talk to your school nurse," Shamal droned comfortably, as he walked into Namimori's main office room. He placed a stack of files in the office bin. "I could ask you the same question—but I already know.
"You're here to see the principal, am I correct? Poor conduct during class? Ah, I wouldn't be surprised."
The other's "tch" was as begrudging a confirmation as any other. Gokudera folded his arms, glaring perniciously at the desk secretary who had happened to glance his way. She quickly averted her gaze.
Shamal sniffed and crinkled his nose, ignoring the secretary. "I know they call you the human bomb now Hayato, but are you really trying to turn yourself into one?" he asked.
Gokudera frowned and blew a strand of flaxen hair from across his brow. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Shamal leaned over, reached into the pocket of Gokudera's school uniform, and emerged with a fist enclosed around a packet of cigarettes, half-empty.
"You're going to implode one day," he told Gokudera, "from the lungs out. They'll collapse like wet grapes under a shoe, and your throat will turn black. Or you'll die of cancer before that even happens, if you're lucky enough."
In truth he really was annoyed. Having a body with 666 incurable diseases made one value life even more, and it bothered Shamal that his best pupil was throwing his own away with every puff.
Gokudera said nothing; the silence grew hovering, and it was only then that Shamal really noticed the secretary behind the desk. She was pretty too, in an austere, business-womanish kind of way. Quite attractive.
He was about to open his mouth when Gokudera spoke up. "Don't even try, Shamal." Shamal grinned, stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his white overcoat.
"Come on, Hayato, I'm just enjoying a little spring fever. It's healthy for every man."
"Bianchi's still trying to get a restraining order filed on you."
"What's wrong with a little philandering, Hayato?"
Gokudera looked disgusted. "I think you just like being underestimated."
The secretary was starting to become noticeably uncomfortable. Gokudera and Shamal didn't seem to notice, too enveloped in the winds of their own little esoteric storm.
"What would the Tenth say if he knew you and his father were best buds in school?" Gokudera continued. "Or Hibari if he knew that—"
"That I injected him with the Sakura illness before the Koukyo raid?" Shamal chuckled. "Or you when you find out that I just put a souring tonic in your death sticks?" he shook the packet of cigarettes in his hand tauntingly. "You're still not seeing it, Hayato."
Gokudera blanched, though he should have known better than to let his precious nicotine fall into the hands of his quondam mentor. "Bastard…"
During the midst of all their conversation, the school-office secretary had slowly picked up her phone and was beginning to dial suspiciously. Gokudera glanced at her alarmingly, however Shamal only smiled. "It'll be fine," was the doctor's response as he pocketed the cigarettes and turned to leave.
"She won't remember a thing anyway," he said, as a single mosquito rose into the spring air above them.
Reminiscing now, Shamal realized that he wouldn't have chosen any other profession, even if he could have someway utilized the Bovino's bazooka to change his past. His body, significantly thinner than his doctor's whites suggested, was not the strongest. He opted to preserve lives in lieu of throwing them away in battle. And when he did need to defend or protect, he could just sit back and watch his enemies slowly corrode from the inside out, turning their own bodies into their greatest and most fatal weapon. He could—
"Come in, Shouichi," Shamal said at the soft knock on his door, jostling himself out of the spirals of his own contemplations.
A lanky, copper-haired man wearing a scarf entered. "Good afternoon, Shamal," he said, bowing.
"We're not in Japan anymore; you don't have to bow," Shamal sighed, though not impolitely, and fingered a lock of hair. Although graying at the temples now, it was still thick, nitid, Italian hair.
The young man laughed lightly. "I apologize," he said, running his own hand sheepishly through equally thick hair. "Do you have my prescription?"
"Naturally." Shamal opened a drawer (which he had to dedicate entirely to Irie Shouichi). "Let's see…Tagamet… Azelastine… Claritin… You know the drill by now. Oh—"he retrieved one more item—"your new bronchodilator."
"Thank you, Shamal," Irie replied, taking the bags and almost bowing, but remembering at the last minute to refrain.
Shamal leaned back in his chair, giving Shouichi a dismissive wave of his hand. "Tch. After all these years I still have to treat men."
Oh, well. At least he was getting paid.