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Jim's heart is racing, the sudden clarity of his feelings hitting him like a photon torpedo to the chest. The bridge crew continues their routine around him, oblivious to the internal hurricane now raging inside their captain.
Spock had been mid-sentence about the intricate pollination patterns of a rare botanical species on the planet below, his voice a measured cadence that Jim had somehow stopped hearing as words and started hearing as music. The way Spock's hands moved slightly as he explained, the precise tilt of his head, the mathematical precision of his explanation - it all coalesced into something breathtaking.
'I love him,' Jim thinks, an easy smile on his face and half moon eyes as he watches him, and the thought is so sudden, so absolute, that it physically rocks Kirk to his core.
He straightens in the captain's chair, his smile vanishing, the blood draining from his face. For a moment, he's certain everyone can hear the thundering of his heart, can see the truth written across his features in bold, impossible-to-ignore letters.
Spock's eyebrow raises, that familiar gesture of concern cutting through Jim's spiraling thoughts. "Captain, are you alright?" He asks, and Jim's heart can only beat louder in his chest.
Jim's laugh comes out strangled. "No! I mean, yes. I mean—" He's already moving, desperate for escape as he almost tumbles from his perch. “I forgot I have to do something, sorry.” His eyes stay on Spock and he hates it, "You have the con, Commander." He forces himself to look away, to not gaze about the bridge and know that people are looking at him.
The ready room door whooshes shut behind him, and Jim slides down, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to push back the tsunami of emotion that threatens to overwhelm him.
Spock. Of all people. Spock.
And he can't un-know it now.