Archive of Our Own

Title: A Short Chat About History
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Jim Kirk/Pike, George Kirk/Pike mentioned
Rating: PG-13
Contents: Slash, classical history.
Warnings: Student/teacher relationships.
Disclaimer: So not mine, even when they're having a pillow talk.
Acknowledgements: With infinite thanks to lomedet for encouragement.

"What are you thinking?" Jim rolls over and asks, apropos of nothing.

Pike was contemplating Jim's naked shoulder and trying to decide whether he should let himself go for another round in five more minutes or shoo Jim out, claiming work, and take a nap. The boy takes it out of him, more than he'd entirely like to show; instead of saying so he props his head on his hand, rummages back a couple of thought topics, and says, "Ancient Greece." Jim squirms closer, arm just barely resting against Pike's chest, and looks up with expectant blue eyes. "Specifically, Ancient Greek pederasty and its relationship to education."

Jim grins prettily, of course. "Well, I'm always open to as much of my elders' wisdom as I can possibly absorb," he says, spreading his hands, which rests the back of the left against Pike's shoulder.

Pike catches his wrist, and Jim turns his hand over, pressing the palm across an old scar Pike kept for sentimental reasons. "Is that what you call it?" he asks, mostly to see that grin get wider and brighter. He indulges Jim terribly, sometimes.

"That's what they called it." Jim shifts a little closer, aligning their legs. "The older man was supposed to teach the younger everything he knew."

"Well, not everything." Pike slings his leg across Jim's, and by now this is probably officially cuddling, but Jim doesn't twist away. "Some things a man has to learn for himself." He smudges his thumb along Jim's cheekbone, over a half-healed scrape from survival training, and Jim stiffens beside him, glancing cross-eyed at Pike's hand, then relaxes and looks up again.

Pike smiles, wondering if this is how it would feel to hold a hawk half-tame on his arm. "To be honest, I was thinking more of the public, social aspects. The Sacred Band of Thebes went undefeated until Philip of Macedon, because they were composed of sets of erastes and eromenos, lovers and beloved."

Jim tilts his head slightly, pushing his golden stubbly cheek into Pike's palm, his mouth quiet and his eyes unreadable. "That's one way to build a a cohesive crew," he says entirely seriously, passing up the chance for a whole assortment of rude jokes.

Pike rewards him with another thumbstroke, those eyes stirring his memories. "It seems that they solved a problem we've reopened, of how to make a relationship between unequals in a hierarchy constructive and fulfilling for both parties." He wishes he could give Jim more than the occasional secret stolen hour in bed, more public encouragement than the dry regard of an advisor. Frankly, he wishes he could show off this beautiful boy. Jim looks steadily back at him, his smile warm and somehow reassuring, and Pike remembers how that expression feels, remembers giving George that smile in return for the same look he's wearing now.

Except that while Pike was staring into the middle distance Jim has started frowning, his tawny eyebrows drawn together. "This isn't the part where you start going on again about how old I'm not and how young you used to be, right?"

"No, you demolished that argument well enough," Pike says, trailing his fingers down Jim's throat to the dip of his collarbones. Jim flashes a triumphant grin that Pike can just picture him wearing after a successful battle. "Besides, I'd rather think about how good you'd look in a chiton. Perhaps with your limbs oiled and a laurel wreath on your head."

Jim laughs; then, just to annoy, he arranges his face in that pretty-but-dumb-hick expression he uses when he wants to be underestimated. "They said I looked good at the last toga party."

Letting himself be teased, Pike growls and watches Jim's eyes light up. "You're a half millennium off and you know it. I should require you to write a paper comparing the himation, the toga and the Antique Vulcan kol'ha, and to wear one properly for a whole day."

"It'd never work," Jim says serenely, riffling his fingers through Pike's scattered chest hair. "If the girls didn't rip it off me, you would. Though I guess then I'd have an authentic Olympian's outfit."

"That would probably violate regs, no matter how aesthetically pleasing." Pike presses his hand down further, over Jim's breastbone, as Jim's makes the opposite movement, sliding up around the back of Pike's neck.

"With all due respect, Sir," Jim says, tugging steadily, planting his other hand on Pike's waist, "regs aren't everything."

Pike responds by smirking, and kissing the boy into a second round.