[Fic] Life Lessons

[branchandroot]

Cross-post from my archive.

Fandom/Arc: Avalanche, Naruto
Characters/Pairings: Hatake Kakashi, Kakashi/Iruka, Umino Iruka
Summary: Knowing that you're sending twelve-year-olds into the field to fight, what do you need to teach them before they go? And what do you do when it never seems to work? Sometimes Iruka has trouble with that second one.
Meta: Drama, Angst, Fluff, I-5
Wordcount: 1703

Warning: Discusses aftermath of trauma.

Umino Iruka loved to teach. He really did. He'd taught at the Academy for years, and with every new class he felt again the wonder of shaping Konoha's future through his students.

There were also weeks when he needed to remind himself of this strenuously to keep his hands from closing around their skinny, little necks.

Read: Life Lessons

Comments

[edenfalling]

Ack. Oh, god, yeah, that would be an issue, wouldn't it? And the kids wouldn't be anywhere near ready to listen, let alone really understand. I mean... okay, to take an example from my own life, I went through a church religious education unit called About Your Sexuality (was one of the last people to go through it, actually, because they switched to a somewhat different program a couple years later, called Our Whole Lives) when I was in eighth grade. So, 13-14 years old. It was a mixed-age group; the girls were in my grade, and the three boys were all one year younger, which did not help anything. And this was done in a safe space, which we were all used to having as a safe space, with explicitly no pressure -- if we were uncomfortable with any topic, the facilitators would let us go aside and do something else, or talk to them in private, or write anonymous notes and leave them in a blind drop box -- and still it was one of the most awkward and uncomfortable things I've ever done in my life. I cannot imagine trying to do something geared specifically toward trauma with kids even younger than that, and then testing them on what they learned.

And yet. It needs to be done, if they're going to be ninja.

I really like how realistic you made this feel -- the kids are acting like themselves and like kids that age -- and Iruka is very believably worn down and upset, and yet pushing through because somebody has to do this and if so, he's going to make sure it's done as well as possible. I like how he can't stop cataloging Shizuka's responses as textbook examples of how post-trauma response is meant to go, and how he does the same thing to Kakashi when he shows up. Because I get the feeling that both Shizuka and Kakashi genuinely mean their concern, but yeah, they ARE following a trained pattern, and it's got to be disconcerting to be on the receiving end while seeing the steps so clearly.

...

On a different subject, this is a Kakashi/Iruka setup I can almost believe in, rather than just go along with for the duration of a story -- mostly because it's based on them being ninja instead of them being in love.

So yeah. This hurts in all the best ways.

[branchandroot]

*sparkles at you* This, this, all of this. When I got to thinking about the sexual issues this story just about ran me down in the street. They /have/ to have this before they hit the field, because it's been shown that age won't save them. But will they pay attention? Fat chance! And I know how it wears me down just teaching /writing/, this unit has got to be hell for poor Iruka.

And yes, the weirdness of seeing what happens when people /have/ learned and listened and do it by the book, as it were. Which, at the time, probably just rubs in how the kids aren't but I think it also comforts him in a weird way; because clearly people /do/ learn this. Eventually. *shivers a bit*

*snickers* I admit, I'm having way too much fun with the notion that ninja active in the field have exactly this kind of approach to sexuality. It's like making someone a nice cup of tea. Only more athletic.