fandomhigh | Ethics [Monday, April 9, 5th period]

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Ethics [Monday, April 9, 5th period]

Anakin leaned against his desk as he waited for the students to arrive. "Okay," he said, clasping his hands together. "We spent a few weeks talking about the Seven Deadly Sins. Today we'll talk about the Seven Virtues: chastity, abstinence--which aren't the same thing, believe it or not--liberality, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility."

Anakin...was good at pretty much none of those. "These words could all be used to describe Jedi," Anakin continued, walking around the room, "though, admittedly, not me as a young apprentice. As difficult as it is to avoid the pitfalls of the sins, the ideals of the virtues are equally as hard to attain." He waved a hand. "Pair up and discuss which of these virtues you'd excel at, and which one you would find the most difficult."

He turned a warning eye towards Dean and Sam. "If you two get into another argument today, Force help you," he warned. "Patience has never been my particular virtue."

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Anakin raised an eyebrow. "So it's all Sam, then?"

"I didn't say that. But he's usually the one who starts it."

"Be the bigger person," Anakin recommended.

Not advice he'd ever been able to take, but that was totally beside the point.

"I was," Dean said. "I walked away."

"That time," Anakin said. "It's the younger brother's job to drive the older one around the bend. Force knows I did it, though Obi-Wan and I...were slightly more complicated. Make it a habit not to want to beat Sam over the head with a two-by-four until he listens. It won't make a difference."

Dean sighed. "That's what's so hard to swallow. That nothing I saw or do is going to change his mind."

"Pushing him on it will just make him dig in his heels," Anakin said quietly. "You're too close." He ran his hand through his hair. "I got married partially because I wasn't allowed to."

Dean stared at him. "Okay dude, that's stubborn."

Anakin blushed. "It was mostly because I was in love with her," he said, "but thumbing my nose at the Jedi Order--even if they didn't know about it--had its appeal, too."

"Was there anything they could've done to change your mind?" Dean asked, his expression turning thoughtful.

"Treated me like an adult," Anakin said finally. "I was still an apprentice, but I wasn't a youngling. I felt like I was being seen as being ten years old indefinitely."

Dean turned that over in his mind in relation to Sammy, but it didn't ring quite true for his little brother. They had never really been treated as children -- hell that had always been one of Sammy's complaints.

But there had to be something, some way to change his brother's mind.

He suddenly realised he'd been silent mulling this over for a while and that Anakin was watching him.

"I... Sammy wants to leave when he graduates. Go off somewhere and be normal," Dean explained. "That's what we were arguing about."

"Going off doesn't necessarily equate to 'a pox on you and and everything you stand for,'" Anakin said gently.

"When it comes to hunting and everything associated with it, that's pretty much what Sammy does think," Dean said. "Which since, that's what I'm planning on keeping doing..."

"You can't be just your job," Anakin said firmly. "If you listen to nothing else I ever tell you, trust me on that. Because the moment it is, and it's gone...you're lost."

"It's not just the job," Dean said. "It's family too. Even more than the job. But they're... all tangled up together."

Anakin sat down in a chair and waved Dean towards one as well. "How much did I tell you about how the Jedi used to work?" he asked quietly.

Dean sat down. "You told me that you weren't supposed to form attachments. Or own things." He grinned suddenly. "I had to talk really fast to get you to take the model car when you left."

"I was better at the second thing than the first," Anakin said. He made a face. "But I guess Luke kind of proves that. The Jedi combined the job and family thing," he continued. "Obi-Wan was more than my teacher. He was a brother. An older, know-it-all brother."

There was unacknowledged pain in his voice when he talked about Obi-Wan.

"Just because Sam is choosing a different path than yours doesn't make either one of them wrong," he concluded.

"I know," Dean said. "Really. It's just... I won't be able to take care of him if his path goes too far away."

Anakin smiled gently. "Train him up and let him go," he said. "He has to learn eventually."

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Ethics [Monday, April 9, 5th period]

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