Disclaimer: disclaimed.
It wasn't often and there was no true pattern to when it would happen but every now and again Spock would get a strange feeling, like a sudden but subtle atmospheric change. And when this feeling occurred, he would invariably be urged by instinct to look up from his station and over at the captain to find the human looking around his bridge with an expression of awed wonder.
It was as though the man could scarcely believe that everything and everyone around him was truly there and not some elaborate dream of his own making, something that was too good to possibly be real.
Those already impossibly blue eyes would brighten with amazement, a small but painful honest smile would curve full lips that were slightly parted in delighted astonishment and that handsome face would be softened by the look, making the man seem even younger than he already was.
And sometimes, in those rare moments, Kirk would find his first officer watching him and that smile would become brighter - genuine happiness shining from every inch of him - as though trying to share the moment with the Vulcan.
Though maybe it wasn't about sharing the moment as much as it was about Spock simply being there that made Kirk smile more radiantly.
And maybe...
Maybe the fact that Spock could never look away in those moments had less to do with his long ago prepared excuse of "curiosity over the inspiration for the captain's odd mood" and more to do with Spock's discovery of just how beautiful James T. Kirk could be.
Not that he'd ever admit to such. After all, the captain's ego needs no further inflation.