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Neck of Gold & Heart of Stars by pretentiousashell
There was Michael, rejected from her first dream—her first love, found in the stars—and scrambling to protect her next dream—her second love, found in the rush of blood in her veins and bruises on her skin.
There was Michael, winning.
She was here at the Federation’s Twenty-Second Olympics, and she was wearing the red robes of Vulcan, and she may have even belonged here.
Chapter 3
The dust had settled, at least for the night. Michael’s skin buzzed with life as she laid awake, curled on her side in her own bed, tracing Tilly’s unconscious features with her eyes. She’s alive, alive, seemed to be the chorus of her heart, spreading through her veins, making her warm and ache all at once.
She turned her head into her pillow and felt her chest constrict. It was all, so profoundly, so deeply too much.
These past few weeks, Michael had been cruising on autopilot, incapable of thinking about the condemnation in Amanda’s eyes and Saru’s devastating death wish and Ash’s sudden disappearance and reappearance and Georgiou’s snaking worming twisted deceit and Tilly’s crushing terrible absence.
And now, it was too much.
Michael quietly got out of bed, silently left the room, and only just stopped herself from running on the way to her favorite, most deserted observation deck. She was breathing so harshly that she couldn’t hear the rush of blood in her ears, and she collapsed into a crumpled slump at the window, pressing her forehead against the cold barrier between her and space. A tear, unwanted, rolled down her cheek, and she pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to keep herself silent.
Hours earlier, Tilly had cried to sleep in her arms, and Michael had ached and emptied out and thought, I wish I could do more for her. But, god, she was so tired.
Seconds and eons passed, and Michael felt herself ache and then empty out again, a familiar feeling. She stayed in her crumpled position, not moving her forehead from the glass, and she felt more than saw someone settle in to sit beside her.
Doctor Culber.
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked, trying to make sure her tone conveyed sufficient alarm. “You shouldn’t be out of bed yet. Where’s Paul?”
Culber shifted, deliberately not responding. “You look sad,” he said easily, instead.
Michael felt herself go rigid, expression smoothing out into placid indifference. “I apologize, Doctor.”
She finally looked at him, and it was surreal. She’d seen so many ghosts in her lifetime, but none so literal as him. He looked tired but content, at least as much as he could be, and Michael felt a soft pang of aching happiness for him. He was looking at her how she imagined she was looking at him: like looking at a ghost.
“I’m feeling fine,” he said, tone curiously detached, as if he’d only just realized that Michael had ever asked him anything. “Michael, what happened?” He was searching her face like there was something devastated written there.
“What do you mean?” Michael demanded blankly. “Nothing. Nothing happened.”
He frowned, narrowing his eyes. “You...” He reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You look...”
Michael crumpled, bending her entire body to lean into the touch. She tucked her chin into her chest in the hopes of hiding the sudden onslaught of tears, gasping. “I just---”
“Oh, dear,” Culber said softly, and he pulled her into a hug, tucking Michael into his arms like she was seven years old again. “It’s okay.”
Michael bent into a full-body sob. “It’s too much,” she managed, nonsensically. “I’m so tired. I---I can’t---”
“I know,” Culber murmured, and Michael let herself succumb to the tears, let herself melt into the hug. “I know.”
Michael felt the emptiness in her chest recede at the edges, if only just a little bit.
Saru?
@kmabe @queen-beastie
(ao3)
The day Saru saved his people, confronted the Ba’ul, and saw deathand the Red Angel at once, he found Michael sitting with her back against thedoor to his quarters, legs crossed, looking vaguely lost.
She clambered gracefully to her feet as soon as she saw him,which he noted was not as soon as Saru had come to expect, given Michael’snear-annoyingly high level of perception. “How are you feeling?” she demandedgently, reaching out to briefly touch his wrist.
“Tired,” he admitted. Really, he was exhausted. He swallowed roughly, considering the longing he hadfelt just five minutes ago of being alone at last. “Would you like to comeinside?”
Michael nodded mechanically, hovering at his back while hekeyed in the code to open his door.
Saru walked over to his bed, wavering into a dignified sort ofheap, trying to listen as Michael began to talk logistically about hisresponsibilities. “I can help,” she was saying. “Just tell me what happened,and I’ll take care of your logs.”
Wearily, Saru acquiesced, and they worked quietly into theevening. After Saru had finished his part, Michael moved to his desk, continuingto work as he dozed off.
When he awoke, it was in the middle of ship’s night, andMichael was slumped over the desk, cheek pressed against her PADD, fingerstwitching uneasily, as if she were having a nightmare. Other than the subtleticking motion of her fingers, she was completely still, completely silent, andSaru took a moment to feel his grief for everything Michael had laboredthrough, alone, without help and even with antagonism (especially from him).Michael Burnham had changed since the Shenzhou,and Saru never felt quite satisfied with any words he attempted to use to describethe shift.
mylvia, 5
Tilly first noticed it about a month into their friendship.
She was chatting about some outlandish theory, Michael offering scathing comments that both felt like gut punches and pushed laughter up her throat like a fountain, and she reached out to lay a hand on Michael’s shoulder after a particularly icy comment, gasping with startled laughter.
Michael drew her shoulders tight as a bowstring, and Tilly withdrew. Michael’s expression did not shift.
She’d noticed something was wrong, and she made note not to touch Michael for fear of making her uncomfortable, but then they released Ripper.
Michael let out a hysterical laugh, staring upwards with the view of the universe reflected in her beautiful dark eyes, and Tilly breathlessly, unthinkingly grabbed her hand.
Michael froze for an instant, and Tilly’s mind short-circuited in fear, but then Michael just sort of…sagged into it, helplessly turning to tuck her face into Tilly’s neck. “Sorry,” she croaked, voice muffled. “Sorry.”
Confused, Tilly hesitantly brought her other hand to lightly touch the back of Michael’s neck, and Michael let this full-body shudder roll through her, and Tilly thought, Oh.
Oh, dear.
Feeling hesitantly more confident, Tilly looped her arm around Michael’s shoulders, pulling her into a more snug hug. Michael’s hand came up around Tilly’s back, and she felt it shaking.
“Sorry,” Michael croaked again, voice thick.
“Please don’t say that again.”
“I just…”
“You don’t have to explain, Michael,” Tilly whispered, pressing her cheek to the top of her head.
“Thank you.”
They stayed like that for a long, long time, Michael silently shaking for what felt like eons until the tremors evened out into something more relaxed, dripping with exhaustion.
The next morning on the way to breakfast, Tilly deliberately grabbed Michael’s hand, threading their fingers together for a moment. The world only stopped for a moment before Michael gave her hand a squeeze in response, smiling with the force of a supernova.
@koldunia @kmabe here’s just one for now!
(ao3)
Michael sat down heavily in what Sarek noted was her preferred chair. He tried to look dispassionate as Michael slowly made eye contact, unable to hide the fear written into the lines of her body.
“You must leave immediately, my daughter.” He did not mean for his voice to come out so soft. He clenched his jaw. He must remain objective now, more than ever. “We cannot delay.”
“Sarek, I—” Michael cut herself off, looking away. She ran flat hands down her thighs, an old nervous habit that she’d never even noticed enough to try to shake. “Father.” Now she looked back at him, and her gaze made Sarek feel exposed, as if all the layers of decorum and objectivity were nothing more than affectation. “I will not feed him to the wolves.”
“They are not wolves. They are human,” Sarek muttered, leaning into pedantry.
Michael rolled her eyes, and Sarek felt a small burst of warmth at the familiar gesture. She was still his daughter. She was still Michael. “You know very well what I mean.”
Sarek acknowledged this with a slight tilt of the head, letting out a slow gust of breath. “I suggest the present course of action because it will benefit you, Michael. We cannot afford another—”
“—failure,” Michael finished, hands balled into fists now. “I know.”
ok mylvia au where michael is an ex-navy pirate and fugitive who mutinied because she didnt want to fight for an empire and sylvia is a baker in a little port town who ends up giving michael shelter in her little inn.. they end up working together and building a pirate crew :~)
“It’s her again,” Ash said quietly. His observation would have been needless if Michael had not been distracted by Mudd’s outrageous price hikes for rum. She always seemed to be acutely aware of this woman, almost as if she had a separate sense dedicated to prickling to her presence. Ever since they’d met, and she had taken care of Michael, protected her with almost no evidence of her character, Michael had taken a strange interest in this woman.
As it was, though, Michael had been gearing up to negotiate with a scoundrel, and all of her senses had gone offline in preparation.
She cocked her head slightly in acknowledgement, not quite ready to fully abandon her train of thought, but she felt newly hyper-aware of everything, and Mudd, glaring pettily at her from across the warehouse, seemed to sense the expansion of her laser-focus, and he hesitantly grew more confident.
“I won’t pay half your rate,” Michael said as he approached. “I’ll just go to McCoy’s.”
It was a bluff, and it worked immediately. Mudd’s resolve crumbled under a thin veneer of arrogance, and within minutes of empty posturing, Michael had a deal.
And then she could turn her attention to the baker, Sylvia Tilly, standing a half-step behind Ash.
“Miss,” Michael said, nodding solemnly.
“I brought you a muffin!” Tilly blurted out in that endearingly distinct way of hers. “Banana pecan. I thought I heard you say they were your favorites.”
Warmth bloomed in Michael’s chest, unbidden. “You heard correctly,” she murmured softly, striding forward to gently take the offered muffin from Tilly’s uncalloused hands. Their skin brushed for just an instant.
Michael inspected the muffin with mock-intensity, lowering her free hand to the hilt of her sword out of habit as she did. “Acceptable,” she declared, faux-grave.
Tilly smiled, half-nervous and half-teasing. “I guess I’ll have to do even better next time you’re in town.”
Michael smirked. “My expectations are high, Miss.”
“I was counting on it.”
Ash didn’t even try to hide his eye roll as they all strode out into the market together, lingering at the mouth of Mudd’s barely-legal warehouse. Michael pressed her hand to Tilly’s shoulder, just for a breath of a second, before stepping away, walking backwards into the afternoon’s bustle.
“Maybe someday, I’ll show you the ocean in return for your efforts.”
She was gone before she could watch Tilly slowly press a hand to her chest, in awe and breathless, hopeful pain.
Mylvia and six! ;)
“Commander, get to engineering immediately!” Saru shouted as the bridge jolted violently. Michael released her death grip on her console to launch herself at the turbolift, somehow managing to slip inside unscathed.
“Engineering,” she rasped, leaning heavily against the back wall.
She pinched the bridge of her nose in distress, stomach dropping as she descended.
The turbolift jolted to an abrupt stop, and Michael barely had time to steady herself before Tilly appeared, rushing inside. “Michael!” she exclaimed. “Oh, thank god you’re safe! Are you headed to engineering too?”
“Oh–I–yes,” she managed. The turbolift started up again, and Michael stared at Tilly blankly. “Saru ordered you there?”
“Yeah.” She suddenly looked grim, leaning against the wall next to her. “What a mess, huh?”
Michael was about to agree when the turbolift came to another, much more jarring, shuddering stop. The lights flared for an instant before bursting in a shower of sparks over them. Tilly shrieked, and Michael instinctively grabbed for her, tucking her into her arms as she angled her body to protect her from the sparks. Michael gritted her teeth and gripped Tilly close.
She couldn’t see a thing, not even the bright shine of Tilly’s curls in the complete darkness. Her breath stuttered as the world came to a stop with it.
"We got put in the same group for the senior trip" - ash/michael
“So, we’re working to keep these gremlins in line together, huh?”
Michael turned around, registering that the new gym teacher was talking to her. “Mr Tyler. I suppose so.”
Tyler offered a slow, sort of half-sheepish smile, ducking his head to avoid Michael’s gaze. “Are they usually terrible?” he asked in a low voice.
Something in Michael softened at the genuine worry in his tone, and she allowed herself a small, sympathetic smile. “Yes.”
“Alright, everyone, settle down,” Principal Georgiou shouted over the crowd of over-excited high school students. A semi-hush fell over the group. “I’m going to say this one time, and one time only.” She held up a single finger, casting her severe gaze across the room. “Listen to your chaperones.” She let an ominous silence follow before glancing down at a clip-board. “Let’s get to roll call, then.”
“We are just going to a museum, right?” Tyler whispered, leaning down close to Michael, his breath raising goosebumps on the back of her neck.
“We are staying overnight at the most interactive and expansive museum in the world. It’s going to be a lot worse than you think,” Michael whispered back, not unkindly. She reached over to give Tyler a reassuring pat on the shoulder, not sure where the instinct to provide the gesture of support came from. “Don’t overthink it.”
“Says the English teacher.”
“Watch it, phys ed.”
Tyler cracked this soft, incredibly warm smile at her, and Michael’s heart gave a harsh stutter in her chest. Oh no, she thought.
“I am so sitting next to you on the bus,” he murmured.
Michael smiled back, thinking, Oh no, once again, for good measure.
