etheriaaly

aly | she/her | multifandom | 20 | BewitchedBeauty on AO3

[etheriaaly]

「𝖊𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖆𝖆𝖑𝖞'𝖘 𝖓𝖆𝖛𝖎𝖌𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓」

hii <3 my name is aly and welcome to my navigation list. my pronouns are she/her. i am 20. i write multi-fandom fanfics. here you can find the links to:

── .✦ 𝖎𝖓𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

── .✦ 𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙

── .✦ 𝔞𝔬3 𝔞𝔠𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱

[urelliee]

— i thought i saw your face today.

— type: one-shot, a request by an anon avid reader!

TAGLIST: @chocoloveheart @rlm-11 @daniela75201 @fanficreader33 @uknownn111 @rebelatbay

— genre: childhood friends to lovers, angst, slow burn, music industry drama, emotional romance, second chance love

— pairing: producer!reader x multiple eras of Michael Jackson

— contains: 1970s-1990s setting. reader grows up around recording studios because of her father, an old-school music producer, and meets michael jackson as children during a studio session with quincy jones. over the years, hayvenhurst becomes her second home and she slowly becomes deeply involved in michael’s creative process during off the wall and thriller. the two share an emotionally intimate bond built on music, late-night studio sessions, quiet longing, and years of almost-confessions. emotional dialogue, artistic intimacy, unresolved tension, grief, celebrity loneliness, fear of abandonment, vulnerable michael jackson characterization, late-night phone calls, rain-soaked studio scenes, emotional dependence, almost kisses, eventual confession, soft physical intimacy, and the kind of love that survives even after people ruin it the first time.

SUMMARY: two kids who once built songs together grow into strangers haunted by each other. after a cruel fallout during thriller, reader disappears from michael jackson’s life for ten years until one song drags them back together. backstage reunions, grief, old studio memories, and unresolved love force them to confront what fame destroyed and whether love can survive being left behind.

(A/N: this took so long to write because of my terrible writer’s block. i almost went insane. i also genuinely think this is one of the most painful things i’ve written because i wanted their love to feel old. like something stitched into them before they even understood what love was. i didn’t want michael to feel untouchable here, i wanted him human. awkward, scared, prideful, lonely. the kind of person who ruins things because he’s terrified they matter too much. and reader? she loved him so deeply that losing him became part of her personality for years 😭 this fic is basically about timing, grief, ego, and the tragedy of two people loving each other correctly way too late. also yes i absolutely suffered writing the grammys balcony scene thank you for noticing.)

the first time you met michael jackson , he was hiding under your father’s studio console like a stray cat.

you were ten. he was eleven. quincy jones had dropped by with the jacksons and your dad, an old-school producer with cigarette smoke permanently stitched into his sweaters was trying to keep the boys from touching expensive equipment.

michael disappeared halfway through the session. your father found him crouched beneath the mixing desk, knees to his chest, staring at the tangled wires.

“what’re you doing down there?” your father laughed.

“listening,” michael said simply.

you remembered that answer because it sounded strange coming from a kid.

“listening to what?”

“everything,” he replied. that was the beginning of it.

hayvenhurst became your second home through the seventies.

you knew which staircase creaked. you knew janet stole candy before dinner. you knew katherine would always ask if you’d eaten. you knew michael liked sitting on the kitchen counters at two in the morning while humming unfinished melodies into a tape recorder.

he was awkward before the world sharpened him into something untouchable. before the glitter jackets, before the myths. with you, he was just michael.

skinny legs folded beneath him on the carpet. curls damp after rehearsal. hands moving wildly whenever he got excited about music. and god, he loved music more than breathing.

you’d inherited the same sickness from your father.

while other kids learned algebra, you learned how to splice tape. how to layer harmonies. how to sit in a dark booth for six hours trying to make a snare sound like heartbreak.

by seventeen, you were producing demos for older artists under your father’s name because labels didn’t trust young women with control rooms.

michael trusted you anyway, he always did. during the making of off the wall, he dragged you into every late-night session.

“listen to this bassline,” he’d say, practically vibrating.

“it’s too clean,” you would say to him, and he would always respond with, “clean is good.” yet, you would then add, “clean is boring.” he’d gasp dramatically like you stabbed him.

then two hours later he’d quietly admit you were right.

you became part of the album without anyone really knowing. tiny fingerprints hidden beneath the credits. rearranged bridges. vocal layering ideas. percussion textures.

when thriller happened, it got worse. or better? depends who was telling the story.

the studio became your entire life. you and michael lived inside those recording rooms like nocturnal animals.

half-eaten takeout. synthesizers buzzing at four a.m. quincy yelling from behind the glass. michael dancing while tracking vocals because he physically couldn’t stand still.

sometimes he’d collapse beside you afterward, sweaty and breathless. “you think people are gonna like it?”

you’d stare at him like he was insane. “michael, you made billie jean.”

“yeah, but what if it’s not enough?” that was the terrifying thing about him. nothing was ever enough. not applause, not records, not the history itself.

he chased greatness like it owed him money and somewhere along the line, you started falling in love with him quietly enough that even you didn’t notice at first.

it happened in fragments. his hand brushing yours over a soundboard, him falling asleep on your shoulder during playback, the way he always searched for your face first after finishing a take.

everybody assumed something was happening between you two. nothing ever did.

maybe that was the problem.

hayvenhurst was loud downstairs. people celebrating and phones ringing nonstop.

thriller had become something monstrous. bigger than music. bigger than michael. upstairs, his bedroom was dark except for the television glow.

you sat cross-legged on the floor flipping through recording notes while michael paced restlessly. he’d been weird for weeks. quieter, sharper around the edges. fame looked good on him publicly, but privately it was eating him alive.

“they already want another album,” he muttered. “of course they do.”

“they want something bigger than thriller.”

you snorted. “good luck with that.” he didn’t laugh. you glanced up. “you okay?”

he kept pacing. “what if i can’t do it again?”

“you will.”

“you don’t know that.”

“yeah,” you said softly. “i do.” he stopped near the window. for a second, he looked exhausted enough to collapse. then his expression hardened.

“diana says i need to stop hiding behind people.”

you blinked. “what?”

“she says i rely too much on quincy. on the engineers.” he hesitated. “on you.”

the room changed temperature instantly. “okay…”

“she thinks i need to prove i can do things alone now.”

you laughed once, disbelieving. “and what exactly does that mean?”

“nothing.”

“michael.” he rubbed his face. “it means maybe people give you too much credit sometimes.” silence. terrible silence.

he realized it immediately. you saw the regret flash across his face before pride swallowed it. “wow,” you said quietly.

“that’s not what i meant.”

“no, i think it is.”

“you know people talk,” he snapped suddenly. “they say i have handlers. they say i’m manufactured.”

“and somehow that became my fault?”

“that’s not—”

“i spent years helping you because i believed in you.”

“i know that.”

“do you?”

his jaw tightened. “you’ve never even put your own name on anything,” he said. “maybe that bothers you more than you admit.”

that one landed hard because it was true.

you stood slowly. “you know why i never put my name on anything?” your voice shook. “because men in this industry hear one good idea from a woman and suddenly act like she stole it from somewhere.”

“i didn’t say that.”

“you didn’t have to.”

“you’re twisting this.”

“am i?”

he looked furious now. cornered. “you think you know everything about me,” he said. “you think because you were there before all this that you somehow own part of it.”

the words hit like glass. you stared at him for a long moment then nodded once. “okay.”

his anger flickered. “okay what?”

“okay, michael.”

you grabbed your jacket from the chair. finally, panic cracked through his expression. “don’t leave like this.”

“why not?”

“because—” he stopped. because what? because he loved you? because he needed you? because neither of you knew how to exist without the other?

he didn’t say any of it.

and you were too angry to stay long enough to wait.“congratulations on thriller,” you said with a lump stuck on your throat.

then you left.

three weeks later, your family moved to the east coast.

michael called the house for months and you never answered. eventually, the calls stopped. years passed anyway. because they always do.

by 1991, michael had become impossible to describe with ordinary language. he wasn’t a man anymore, he was an event. a religion and a spectacle. somewhere in new york, you watched him from afar while building a quiet career producing records under your own name this time.

artists loved you, and critics loved you more. the industry respected you carefully now, like people handling fire. still, you never sang. you never wanted nor intended to.

until one winter morning when you walked past a man on the street wearing the same cologne michael used in 1983. you turned so fast your neck hurt.

but it wasn’t him. just some stranger disappearing into traffic and suddenly you couldn’t breathe properly.

that night, you wrote i thought i saw your face today. not intentionally about him. that’s what you told yourself, but the lyrics betrayed you.

“your shadow still knows my name.”

“funny how time don’t forget.”

“some people leave the room.”

“some people never left.”

you recorded the vocals in one take. raw and barely polished.

when the song released in early 1992, it exploded. people became obsessed with you overnight. the mysterious producer finally stepping into the spotlight herself.

interviewers asked who the song was about constantly. you always smiled. “nobody you know.” but michael jackson himself knew.

the second he heard it on the radio in the back of a limousine somewhere in tokyo, he knew. because nobody else would’ve layered harmonies like that beneath the chorus.

nobody else would’ve hidden grief inside reverb so carefully. and nobody else had ever looked at him long enough to write lyrics like those.

1993 grammys.

the best new artist. your first major public appearance. backstage smelled like hairspray, expensive fabric, and nerves.

you stood near catering pretending to care about champagne while reporters swarmed nearby. then the room shifted. that kind of shift only happened when michael entered somewhere.

people parted automatically. you looked up before you could stop yourself. and there he was. older and sharper. beautiful in a way that almost hurt to witness.

for a second neither of you moved. all the years between you suddenly felt fake. manufactured.

his eyes found yours instantly. still the same bambi eyes that you used to adore. and that ruined you a little.

he approached slowly, like you might disappear if he walked too fast. “hi,” he said softly. your throat tightened. “hi.” ten years gone and your body still remembered him immediately.

he glanced down briefly, nervous in that old familiar way. “i like your song.” you laughed quietly. “sure you do.”

his mouth twitched. “i deserved that.”

silence settled. not awkwardness, it was just heavy. crowded with ghosts. “you look good,” he said.

“thanks, you too.” that was a lie. he looked tired beneath the glamour. lonely in a way cameras would never catch.

he shoved his hands into his pockets. “i almost called you a thousand times.”

“almost?”

his eyes dropped. “i figured you hated me.”

you thought about that night constantly for years. every sentence dissected to death in your head.

but standing here now, looking at him older and quieter and painfully human beneath all the fame, hatred suddenly felt too simple.

“i tried to,” you admitted. something fragile crossed his face.

the announcer called people toward the stage area. neither of you moved.

“when i heard the song,” he said carefully, “i kept wondering if you missed me or if you missed who i used to be.”

you looked at him for a long moment then smiled sadly. “i don’t think there’s a difference.”

his eyes closed briefly like the answer wounded him or relieved him. maybe both.

somewhere beyond the curtains, the audience erupted into applause. your category approaching. the world waiting.

but for one suspended moment backstage, it was just two former kids from recording studios again. just you and michael. and the unbearable ache of almost.

the presenter was still talking when your name echoed through the auditorium. applause crashed around you and camera flashes burst like lightning.

you barely heard any of it because michael jackson was still standing in front of you, looking at you like he’d uncovered something he lost years ago beneath floorboards.

“you should go,” he murmured. his voice sounded strangely small.

you nodded automatically, but neither of you moved right away. it was ridiculous, honestly.

millions of records sold. world tours. screaming crowds. and somehow michael still looked terrified over simple things. like eye contact, like regret, or like you.

finally, he stepped aside. his hand brushed lightly against your back as you passed. the touch was brief enough to be accidental. it still nearly stopped your heart.

you lost. some nineteen-year-old with a guitar and tragic cheekbones won best new artist instead. the audience applauded politely while cameras caught your gracious smile.

you didn’t care. not really.

because the entire time the winner gave his speech, you could feel michael watching from somewhere offstage. and somehow that felt more depressing than losing.

after the ceremony, the industry dissolved into one of those massive afterparties where nobody actually relaxed. producers pretending not to network. actors pretending not to do cocaine in bathrooms. everybody pretending not to stare at michael whenever he walked by.

you escaped to the balcony for air, and los angeles glittered beneath you. all the gold lights, smog, and ghosts. the city looked exactly the same as it did when you left it.

that annoyed you. the balcony door slid open behind you. you already knew who it was.

“you disappeared fast,” michael said. you leaned against the railing without turning around. “occupational hazard.”

he laughed softly. damn. you forgot how warm his laugh used to feel. for a minute, neither of you spoke. traffic hummed below. inside, bass thudded faintly through the walls.

you finally looked at him. he’d removed the suit jacket. loosened the tie. curls falling slightly into his face now. less michael jackson. more michael.

it made your chest ache unexpectedly. “you really listened to the song?” you asked.

his expression turned almost offended. “i listened to it thirty-seven times.”

you stared. “thirty-seven?”

“probably more.”

a smile threatened at the corner of your mouth before you stopped it. he noticed anyway. he always noticed everything about you. “there you are,” he said quietly.

“what?”

“that smile.”

you looked away immediately. fuck ass territory. always dangerous with him. “don’t,” you muttered.

“don’t what?”

“talk to me like nothing happened.”

his face shifted. the softness disappeared beneath something heavier. “i know what happened.”

“do you?”

“i said terrible things.” you crossed your arms tighter against yourself. “yeah.”

he swallowed. “i was angry.”

“you were cruel.” that one hit him. you saw it physically as michael looked down at the city lights below the balcony.

“thriller scared me,” he admitted after a while.

you frowned slightly. “what?”

“everybody thinks success feels good all the time.” he gave a humorless laugh. “it doesn’t. sometimes it feels like standing in front of a train.”

you stayed quiet because nobody ever talked about michael like this publicly. they talked about genius, they talked about fame, they talked about madness, but never fear.

“people kept telling me i was untouchable,” he said softly. “and all i could think was… what happens when they realize i’m not?”

you remembered those years too well. the insomnia, the pressure, and mostly the way he kept chasing perfection until his hands shook from exhaustion.

“diana kept saying i needed to separate myself from everybody,” he continued. “make people see me as… singular.”

“so you pushed everyone away.”

his eyes flicked to yours. “mostly just you.” that hurt more than you expected because it was true.

you remembered the months after the fight vividly now. how every song on the radio sounded wrong, how studios suddenly felt cold, and how you kept reaching for the phone before remembering there was nobody left to call.

you’d lost more than a friend that night. you’d lost your home inside another person. and the worst part? you never stopped understanding him even while hating him. especially then.

“you know what the stupidest part was?” you said finally.

he shook his head slightly.

“i kept waiting for you to come after me.”

his expression cracked instantly. raw enough that you almost regretted saying it. “i wanted to.”

“you didn’t.”

“i didn’t know if i deserved to.”

“that’s a cop-out.”

“i know.” the honesty startled you. old michael would’ve defended himself for hours before admitting fault. this michael just looked tired. humane.

“my father got sick right after we moved,” you said suddenly. he blinked. “what?”

you hadn’t told anyone this part before. not interviewers, not friends, nobody. “lung cancer,” you murmured. “two years after we left california.”

michael went completely still. you stared out at the skyline because looking directly at him felt impossible now. “he died in ‘87.”

silence settled until, “why didn’t anybody tell me?”his voice sounded devastated.

you laughed quietly without humor. “would it have mattered?”

“of course, it would have!”

you looked at him finally. absolutely looked. and there it was, the guilt. real guilt. not celebrity guilt. not performance. actual grief.

“i called your old number after bad came out,” he admitted shakily. “i wanted to fix things.”

your chest tightened painfully.

“a woman answered and said your family was gone.”

“we moved around a lot after my dad got sick.”

“i tried asking people where you went.”

you stared at him. “you looked for me?”

“of course i did.” his answer came so fast it almost knocked the air from your lungs, he sounded so despaired.

like the question itself offended him. of course he looked. of course, as always. suddenly you remembered something stupid from childhood.

you were thirteen, sitting on the hayvenhurst roof together after sneaking out a window. you’d asked michael what scared him most. without hesitation, he answered: “being forgotten.”

back then, you thought he meant by the world. now you realized he only meant by people he loved. the balcony suddenly felt too small. too crowded with memory.

“i hated hearing your music after we stopped talking,” he confessed quietly. you raised an eyebrow. “that seems dramatic.”

“it was awful.”

despite yourself, you laughed. he smiled immediately at the sound like sunlight hit him directly.

“seriously,” he continued. “i’d hear songs you worked on and know exactly which parts were yours.”

“you can’t possibly know that.”

“yes i can.”

“michael-”

“the vocal stacking. the synth textures. you always leave space before the final chorus because you like tension.” your breath caught because he was right.

he stepped closer carefully. “i heard you everywhere for years.” the air changed again. you hated how easy it still was between you.

how naturally your body remembered standing close to his. you hated how one conversation threatened to unravel a decade’s worth of anger.

“you broke my heart,” you said before thinking.

his face fell instantly. and there it was finally. the truth neither of you ever said aloud. not in 1984. not now.

his voice dropped almost to a whisper. “i know.”

your eyes burned unexpectedly. damn him. damn this entire night.

“i loved you,” you admitted quietly. “and you made me feel disposable because of that stupid diana!”

michael looked like you’d struck him across the face. for a second he genuinely couldn’t speak. then finally, “you were the least disposable thing in my life.”

your breath hitched. too late. that was the tragedy of it.

he should’ve said that ten years ago in a dark bedroom at hayvenhurst before pride ruined everything.

inside, applause erupted again from another award announcement. the world kept moving always, but neither of you did.

michael stared at you with something unbearably fragile in his eyes now. not fame, and just grief.

just love with nowhere left to go. “i don’t know what happens now,” he confessed softly. you looked at him for a very long time. then answered honestly. “me neither.”

the balcony had gotten colder, or maybe it was just the conversation finally stripping everything down to the bone.

inside, somebody started laughing too loudly. glasses clinked. another celebrity made their entrance to applause that sounded rehearsed.

out here, it felt like the entire world narrowed into the space between you and michael jackson. he leaned back against the railing beside you, shoulders slumped in a way cameras never captured.

you realized something then. michael had spent so many years becoming larger than life that people forgot he actually had one. “you know what’s funny?” he murmured.

“what?”

“when we were kids, i thought success meant eventually getting everything you wanted.” you looked down at the city lights. “and?” his laugh came out hollow. “turns out you can get almost everything except the right things.”

that sentence sat heavily between you because both of you knew what he meant. you remembered watching him during the thriller era when the world practically worshipped the ground he walked on.

girls crying outside studio gates, bodyguards everywhere, and the magazines treating him like he descended from another planet. still, at three in the morning, he’d sit beside you in oversized sweaters asking impossible questions in a tiny voice.

“what if people stop loving me?” you used to answer immediately back then. ‘they won’t’

but somewhere over the years, you realized that wasn’t the point. the real tragedy was that michael never learned how to believe love could survive imperfection. one mistake, one argument, and one wound.

and suddenly he’d rather burn the entire bridge down than risk standing vulnerable on it. you understood that now because, truthfully, you weren’t much different.

“i almost wrote you letters,” you admitted quietly. he turned toward you instantly. “what?”

you shrugged slightly, embarrassed suddenly. “after we moved. sometimes i’d start writing and then…” you shook your head. “i never knew how to finish them.”

his expression softened painfully. “what’d they say?” you laughed once under your breath. “mostly angry things.”

“i probably deserved them.”

“yeah.” a small smile touched his mouth then faded again.

“i used to keep expecting you at sessions,” he confessed. “like muscle memory.”

you frowned slightly. “what do you mean?”

“i’d play something new and automatically look behind the glass for your reaction.” his eyes lowered. “every time.”

that hurt because you knew exactly what he meant. for years after leaving california, you kept instinctively reaching for the phone whenever you finished producing a track.

wanting to call michael first, wanting to hear him say: play it again. you never told anybody that. never would.

the silence stretched long enough to become intimate. scarily intimate. then michael asked quietly, “why didn’t you sing sooner?”

you looked away. “didn’t think i had anything worth saying.”

“that’s not true.”

“it was then.”

he studied your face carefully, you could feel it without even looking at him. michael always watched people intensely when he cared about them. like he was trying to memorize something before it disappeared. “that song sounded like you were finally talking,” he said softly.

your throat tightened because he understood the song better than anyone else had. critics called it haunting, romantic, and more on nostalgic.

but none of them understood what it actually was. it was grief. the specific grief of becoming strangers with someone who once knew your soul by memory.

“you know the weird part?” you said after a while. “i didn’t even realize i was writing about you until halfway through recording it.”

he smiled faintly. “i knew immediately.”

“cocky.”

“only accurate.”

you rolled your eyes automatically. and suddenly there it was again. that old rhythm between you two. easy one and instinctive.

michael noticed it too. you could tell by the way his expression shifted, softer now, almost disbelieving.

like he forgot this was possible. “i missed making you laugh,” he admitted. your chest ached.

you looked at him finally and saw it all at once: the exhaustion beneath his eyes, the loneliness tucked carefully under fame, and the unbearable pressure of existing as michael jackson every second of every day.

people thought they knew him because they knew the image. they didn’t know the real michael hated silence because his thoughts got too loud in it.

they didn’t know he loved terrible horror movies and cried whenever animals got hurt onscreen.

they didn’t know he rehearsed compliments before giving them because he worried constantly about saying the wrong thing. you knew all of it. or at least you used to. “does it ever get easier?” you asked quietly.

he understood immediately. fame, expectation, and being consumed alive by the world. his answer came after a long pause. “no.” honest. “you just get better at pretending.”

you swallowed hard. for a second he looked less like the biggest star on earth and more like the boy under the studio console all those years ago. just listening and just wanting to be understood.

inside the ballroom, slow music began drifting through the doors now. people transitioning from awards to dancing and drinking and pretending they weren’t all deeply miserable.

michael glanced toward the sound briefly. then back at you. “dance with me.”

you blinked. “what?”

“one dance.”

you stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“absolutely not.”

“why not?”

“because this is already emotionally catastrophic enough.”

he laughed unexpectedly loud at that. real laughter with head tipping back slightly. and suddenly you were nineteen again sitting cross-legged on studio floors making him laugh between takes.

it hit both of you at the same time. the laughter faded slowly. his eyes stayed on yours afterward for too long. way too long.

your stomach twisted painfully. there were things here neither of you were saying yet. big things. scary things.

michael stepped closer before he seemed to realize he was doing it. close enough now that you caught the faint scent of his cologne beneath the cold night air. your heartbeat stumbled traitorously.

“you know,” he said softly, “all these years i kept thinking if i saw you again, i’d know exactly what to say.”

“and?”

his gaze dropped briefly to your mouth before returning upward. that tiny movement nearly destroyed your composure. “turns out i still don’t know.”

your breath caught because suddenly the space between you felt incredibly fragile. one wrong movement from collapsing completely. and the terrifying part? you weren’t sure you wanted to stop it anymore.

not after ten years, not after writing songs about ghosts, and not after spending a decade pretending he didn’t still exist somewhere inside you. “michael,” you whispered carefully. the way his name sounded in your mouth visibly affected him. you saw it.

his entire expression softened into something almost aching. then, “there you are!” the balcony doors burst open. both of you jolted apart instinctively.

a producer stumbled outside holding two champagne glasses. he froze immediately upon seeing the two of you standing there together. his eyes widened with the exact expression of a man realizing he accidentally interrupted history. “oh,” he said weakly.

you stepped back fast, pulse hammering now. the moment shattered instantly. michael looked irritated enough to kill someone. you almost laughed at it.

instead, you smoothed your dress nervously. “i should go.” his attention snapped back to you immediately. “wait.” that fucking word.

you hesitated anyway. he looked suddenly unsure again, vulnerability flickering beneath the surface. “can i see you tomorrow?”

your chest tightened. because there it was. not nostalgia, not apology, and something real. more like something present. you should’ve said no probably. instead, after far too long, you answered quietly, “okay.”

you spent the entire drive home wondering if agreeing to see michael jackson again counted as bravery or self-destruction. maybe both.

los angeles blurred past the taxi window in streaks of neon and exhaustion. billboards. palm trees. strangers smoking outside clubs at one in the morning. the city looked exactly like it did the night you left it. that realization made you nauseous for reasons you couldn’t explain.

back at your hotel, you kicked your heels off immediately and sat on the edge of the bed in silence. then you laughed once into your hands. because this was insane. absolutely insane.

ten years, ten absolute years without him and all it took was one conversation for your entire nervous system to start acting like it belonged to somebody else. you hated that. do you know what was worse? you missed it.

the phone rang around two-thirty in the morning. you stared at it suspiciously before answering. “..hello?” silence. just breathing. you closed your eyes immediately. “michael.”

“how’d you know it was me?”

“you breathe dramatically into telephones.” a quiet laugh crackled through the line. that sound still traveled straight through your ribcage.

“sorry,” he murmured. “i didn’t mean to wake you.”

“i wasn’t asleep.”

“me neither.” of course not. you pictured him somewhere in a giant hotel suite unable to sit still. pacing. thinking too much. probably still halfway dressed from the party. some things never changed.

“this is probably a bad idea,” you said softly.

“calling you?”

“all of it.”

he went quiet for a second. “yeah,” he admitted. that honesty again. it kept throwing you off balance. old michael would’ve flirted around the truth. dodged it. turned things charming before they got too real. this michael sounded tired of pretending.

“i kept thinking about your dad tonight,” he said suddenly. your chest tightened. “yeah?”

“he used to yell at us for touching the mixing boards.” you snorted softly. “you did keep touching them.”

“because you did first.”

“don’t rewrite history.” he laughed under his breath again. then his voice gentled. “he believed in me before a lot of people did.”

you swallowed hard. “he believed in you more than anybody.” and it was true. your father adored michael. used to call him lightning in a bottle. used to say: “that kid’s gonna spend his whole life trying to outrun himself.”

you didn’t understand what he meant back then. you did now.

“i was scared to come to the funeral,” michael admitted quietly. your grip tightened on the receiver. “what?”

“i found out too late. by then i thought…” he exhaled shakily. “i thought seeing me would make things worse for you.” you leaned back slowly against the headboard. “you really thought i hated you that much?”

“didn’t you?”

you opened your mouth then stopped. because the answer wasn’t simple. you had hated him. for a while. hated the arrogance. hated the silence afterward. hated how easy it was for him to wound you because he knew you so well.

but underneath all of that was something uglier. you missed him so violently it turned into anger just to survive it. “i think,” you said carefully, “i hated that losing you felt worse than losing people i was actually supposed to lose.”

silence filled the phone.

the kind where you could practically hear another person breathing through memory itself. when michael finally spoke again, his voice sounded wrecked. “don’t say things like that unless you mean them.”

your heartbeat stumbled. “i do mean them.” another pause. then softly, “me too.” you covered your eyes with your hand immediately. this was scary. you needed to be cautious. because suddenly all those years apart started feeling thin and fragile. like something that could dissolve completely if either of you reached too hard.

“what are we doing?” you whispered. he answered honestly. “i don’t know.” you laughed weakly. “great.”

“i just…” he stopped himself. “what?” his voice lowered. “i don’t wanna lose you again.” and there it was. not romance, not nostalgia, just fear.

it hit you harder than any love confession could’ve because michael jackson feared almost nothing publicly. but abandonment? that haunted him.

you remembered nights in the eighties when he’d ask bizarre questions out of nowhere. “if somebody leaves once, do they usually leave again?”

you used to tease him for thinking too much. now you realized he’d been asking for reassurance all along. your throat tightened painfully. “you already lost me once,” you said quietly.

“i know.”

“and you survived it.”

“barely.” the word slipped out before he could stop it. raw and true. you stared at the dark hotel ceiling while your pulse hammered unevenly. you were in trouble because no matter how much time passed, michael still knew exactly how to reach the softest parts of you.

“what time tomorrow?” you asked finally. you heard the tiny shift in his breathing immediately. hope. “lunch?”

“that sounds terrifying.” he laughed softly. “please?” that nearly undid you because suddenly he sounded young again. not the king of pop, and not the global phenomenon. just michael.

the boy who used to sit beside you at studio pianos begging you to stay another hour. “okay,” you whispered.

“okay?”

“okay.” the relief in his exhale made your chest ache.

“i’ll send a car.”

“absolutely not.”

“why?”

“because i enjoy arriving places without causing traffic accidents.”

“that happened one time.”

“michael.”

“fine,” he grumbled dramatically.

you smiled despite yourself and he heard it. of course he always did, and it felt good for once.

“there you are again,” he murmured sleepily, and he didn’t have to finish the sentence. you closed your eyes. “goodnight, michael.” there was a pause. then, very softly, “goodnight.”

neither of you hung up immediately. just stayed there breathing into the silence like two people afraid the other might disappear again the second the line went dead. eventually, you forced yourself to pull the receiver away. the click echoed loudly in the quiet room. and suddenly the loneliness returned full force.

because now you remembered what life felt like with him inside it which somehow made the years without him hurt all over again.

the restaurant michael picked the next afternoon was hidden in malibu somewhere along the coast. private and quiet.

the kind of place celebrities used when they wanted to pretend they weren’t celebrities, you arrived first on purpose. mostly because you needed time to prepare yourself.

the ocean stretched endlessly beyond the windows, silver beneath the cloudy afternoon sky. waves crashed softly against the cliffs below.

you kept rehearsing different versions of this meeting in your head. none of them ended well. either you forgave him too easily. or you left angry again. or worse? you fell back into him completely.

which felt that you needed to be cautious of it all.

when michael jackson finally arrived, the entire room shifted subtly despite the privacy heads turned and conversations paused.

he noticed none of it as his eyes found yours immediately. always yours first. that realization still ruined you a little. he slid into the seat across from you looking strangely nervous for a man who performed in front of stadiums. “hi.”

“hi.” for a second, neither of you touched the menus. you just looked at each other properly in daylight for the first time in years. and there it was again, time folding strangely. because older michael still carried pieces of the boy you knew. still tucked his hands into his sleeves when anxious, glanced away first during serious moments, and looked at you like your reactions mattered more than anything else in the room.

“you cut your hair,” he said quietly. you blinked. “that’s your opening line?”

“i panicked.” you laughed despite yourself. his shoulders loosened instantly at the sound. you forgot how much he loved making you laugh. lunch stretched longer than either of you intended. three hours, then four.

you talked carefully at first. cautiously circling old wounds like people walking across thin ice. music, new artists, and bad producers. tour horror stories. your father. hayvenhurst.

eventually the harder things surfaced naturally. the fight, the silence afterward, all the years in between. “i kept your demos,” michael admitted at one point, staring down into his coffee.

you froze. “…what?”

“the old cassette tapes.” a small shrug. “couldn’t throw them away.” your chest tightened painfully. “michael…”

“sometimes when i couldn’t sleep, i’d play them.” you looked out toward the ocean quickly before he could see your expression break.

because suddenly you pictured him alone somewhere enormous and expensive and empty, listening to old recordings of your voice between songs. the image nearly shattered you. “why didn’t you ever hate me enough to move on?” you asked quietly.

he looked genuinely confused by the question.“because it was you?” simple as breathing.

you laughed weakly, eyes burning now. “that’s not an answer.”

“it is for me.” silence settled over the table. outside, waves rolled endlessly against the shore. you studied him carefully then.

the fame sat differently on him now than it did in the eighties, back then it looked electric. now it looked heavy. beautiful, but heavy.

and beneath all of it was still the same lonely boy who hid under recording consoles listening to the world too closely. “you know,” you said softly, “i spent years trying to convince myself i only missed the past.”

he stayed very still. “and?”

you swallowed hard. then answered honestly. “i think i just really did missed you.”

his eyes closed briefly like the confession physically hurt or healed something. maybe both. when he looked at you again, there was no performance left in his face anymore.

no celebrity shit, just michael. “i loved you for a very long time,” he said quietly. the words landed gently which somehow made them devastating.

you stared at him across the table, heartbeat loud enough to drown the ocean outside. because deep down, part of you always knew.

you knew in recording studios at two in the morning, you knew every time his eyes searched for yours first, and you knew the night everything fell apart.

the tragedy wasn’t that the love wasn’t there. the tragedy was timing. two people too young to understand that love sometimes required staying through ugly things too. your voice came out barely above a whisper. “i loved you too.”

his breath caught sharply and for a moment neither of you moved. the years between you suddenly felt visible somehow. all ten of them sitting there at the table. all the missed birthdays. unanswered calls. songs written instead of conversations.

grief had wasted so much time.

finally, michael laughed softly to himself, shaking his head. “we’re really good at making things difficult, huh?” you smiled through wet eyes. “unbelievably.”

he looked at you for a long moment afterward. then reached across the table slowly and carefully. like he was giving you every opportunity to pull away.

you didn’t. his hand slid into yours. you stared at your intertwined fingers and suddenly thought about that stupid song again.

‘i thought i saw your face today.’ all those years, you wrote about him like a ghost, someone lost and someone unreachable.

but ghosts weren’t supposed to hold your hand under cloudy california skies. ghosts weren’t supposed to look at you like surviving finally meant something.

“i can’t promise i won’t mess things up again,” michael admitted softly. you laughed quietly. “that’d actually be more concerning.” his smile widened. real.

bright enough that for one fleeting second you saw the nineteen-year-old boy from studio sessions again. the one who danced while recording vocals, the one who laughed with his entire chest, and the one you fell in love with before the world got its hands on him.

“but,” he continued carefully, thumb brushing against your knuckles, “i think maybe we wasted enough time already.” you looked at him then you squeezed his hand once.

outside, the tide kept rolling toward shore like it always had. like it always would. and for the first time in a decade, neither of you let go.

weeks passed before either of you said the word relationship. not because it wasn’t obvious. it absolutely was.

but you and michael had always existed in that strange space between friendship and something far more dangerous. labels felt too small for it. too neat.

still, suddenly he was everywhere in your life again. phone calls at two in the morning. flowers arriving at studios with ridiculous handwritten notes attached. “heard this song and hated the drum machine. call me immediately.” you laughed the first time you got one.

the assistant delivering them looked terrified. “is he always like this?” she asked carefully.

“unfortunately.” michael started showing up during your recording sessions too. sometimes quietly sitting behind the mixing desk for hours without interrupting once.

other times dramatically throwing himself onto the studio couch claiming your artist was “emotionally avoiding the bridge.” which, annoyingly, he was usually right about.

one night after a session, you found michael asleep in the corner chair with headphones half-slipping off his curls. the studio lights were low. rain tapped softly against the windows.

for a moment you just stood there looking at him because even after all these years, there was something deeply lonely about the way he slept. like resting never came naturally to him. you crouched beside him carefully. his eyes opened almost instantly. always a light sleeper.

for one disoriented second, he just stared at you softly and unguarded. then he smiled sleepily. “hey.”

your chest tightened embarrassingly fast. “you were snoring.”

“lies.”

“devastatingly loud lies.” he laughed quietly and reached for your wrist without thinking. that simple and that automatic.

his fingers wrapped loosely around your hand like muscle memory returning home. you looked down at it then back at him. “you do that a lot now.”

“what?”

“touch me.”

michael blinked slightly, almost startled by his own behavior. then his gaze softened. “sorry.”

“i didn’t say stop.” the room went quiet. oddly comforting quiet-ness. rain humming outside. tape machines buzzing softly somewhere behind you.

michael’s thumb brushed slowly against the inside of your wrist before he seemed to realize what he was doing. his eyes lifted to yours. that damn look.

that unbearable look like he still couldn’t believe you were real and here and touching him back after all those lost years.

“i think,” he said softly, “i spent so long trying not to miss you that now i don’t really know how to act normal around you.”

you laughed under your breath. “you’ve never acted normal a day in your life.”

“true.” but neither of you moved away.

instead he slowly sat forward in the chair until your knees brushed close. close enough now that you caught the warmth of his skin beneath the cold studio air. there were moments with michael where the world seemed to pause around him. this was one of them.

you remembered suddenly being seventeen in another studio entirely, watching him sing a demo under dim lights while thinking: this is gonna ruin me one day. you were right. just not in the way you expected.

“can i ask you something?” he murmured.

“depends.”

“did you ever almost come back?” your breath caught. because yes. absolutely, yes. more times than he’d ever know.

you remembered sitting in airports with plane tickets to california you never used. remembered dialing hayvenhurst numbers before hanging up.

remembered hearing man in the mirror for the first time alone in your apartment and crying so hard you got angry at yourself afterward.

“once,” you admitted quietly. his expression shifted immediately. “when?”

“1988.” he stared at you. “what happened?” you smiled sadly. “fear.” honesty hung between you. heavy and intimate.

michael nodded slowly like he understood that answer better than anybody else could. because fear had stolen years from both of you. fear of rejection, fear of vulnerability, and fear that maybe the love mattered less than the damage.

“i used to think if i saw you again,” he confessed softly, “i’d either hate you or love you worse.” you exhaled shakily. “which one is it?”

his eyes held yours completely steady. “you know which one.”

the air changed instantly and your heartbeat stumbled hard against your ribs. michael’s gaze flicked briefly to your mouth before returning upward again, slower this time. asking. always asking with you now. never assuming.

your voice came out quieter than intended. “come here.”

he inhaled sharply then moved carefully at first like he still couldn’t quite believe this was allowed.

his hand slid against your jaw gently enough to break your heart all over again. and when he kissed you it wasn’t dramatic, wasn’t cinematic, it was worse because it felt familiar like something interrupted finally finding its way back.

his mouth was warm and trembling slightly against yours, years of restrained grief and affection tucked into the softness of it. you felt him exhale shakily the second you kissed him back. like relief or like survival.

his forehead rested against yours afterward, both of you breathing unevenly in the dim studio light. “wow,” he whispered weakly.

you laughed breathlessly. “real smooth, jackson.”

“sorry, i had a better speech planned in my head.”

“i’m sure.” he smiled then. small and beautiful.

and suddenly you understood something that took both of you ten years to learn: love was never the difficult part.

staying was.

and suddenly, your lyrics meant everything real again.

you really couldn’t help but fall in love again.

[urelliee]

— in the name of love?

— era: pre!bad & dangerous.

— genre: angst, romance, celebrity drama, soulmates, hurt/comfort, pining, emotional infidelity, public love confession

— pairing: michael jackson x female reader

— contains: diana ross interference, mentions of mj’s previous traumas, jealousy, heartbreak, years of unresolved feelings, michael making the wrong choice, emotional manipulation, longing, public apology, tears, soulmates who can't let each other go, happy ending

SUMMARY: for years, you stood beside him while history, loyalty, and guilt pulled him away. you were the woman who understood him better than anyone. the woman he always came back to. just never the woman he chose. until one award show changed everything.

(A/N: okay LISTEN 😭😭😭 this story hurt my feelings while i was writing it because michael is literally his own worst enemy here. i wanted him to be frustrating in a way that's actually heartbreaking, because sometimes people don't lose the love of their life from lack of love. they lose them because they keep putting them second. also yes diana is PUBLIC ENEMY #1 in this fic i'm sorry (not sorry, i hate her guts) ✋ this is obviously fiction and heavily dramatized for the plot but i needed the yearning, the jealousy, the "choose me for once" energy. and michael's speech at the end??? yeah. that's the entire reason this story exists.)

people always talked about michael joseph jackson as if he belonged to the world, and that was precisely the problem because nobody ever stopped to ask whether the world deserved him or whether michael knew how to belong to himself.

you met him during a time when he was already fractured in ways most people couldn’t perceive. While everyone else saw the records, roaring crowds, and his diamond gloves with moonwalks along the seemingly impossible levels of fame, you witnessed the cracks beneath the surface.

you saw the man hiding beneath it all, the one who endured his father’s abuse and believed that love could only be earned through suffering because his mom always condoned his father’s abuse and mostly the one who couldn’t tell the difference between loyalty and sacrifice. that was exactly his tragedy. he would hand pieces of himself away until there was almost nothing left then apologize for not having more to give.

the first thing he ever said to you was strange, and of course it was. normal conversations never interested him.

he looked at you during a party neither of you wanted to attend and asked, “do you think people can miss somebody before they’ve met them?” you stared at him. “that’s a weird question.” he smiled. “that wasn’t an answer.”

you should’ve known then. you should’ve known you were doomed because nobody had ever looked lonely the way michael did. he was not even when surrounded by thousands, especially not then.

the relationship happened slowly. not because either of you lacked feelings, but because both of you understood exactly how complicated they were.

he wasn’t easy to love, and unfortunately that man was a disaster. beautiful, very gentle, brilliant, and funny. but emotionally? a complete catastrophe.

he loved with his entire soul and then panicked whenever somebody tried loving him back.

he’d call you at three in the morning because he couldn’t sleep then disappear for three days because the conversation meant too much. he wanted closeness, and maybe needed it. but intimacy terrified him so much to the point where you became the only person capable of navigating those contradictions.

you were the only person who understood that michael wasn’t difficult because he didn’t care, in fact, he was difficult because he cared too much. and for a while, everything worked out despite the struggles.

until diana came. the thing about diana wasn’t that michael loved her, of course he loved her. it was so obvious from the start. the point being was that diana existed inside his life like gravity.

everything bent toward her including him. maybe especially him.

it wasn’t romance of some sort, not was friendship. it also wasn’t mentorship. it was something that had rooted itself so deeply inside michael’s identity that he couldn’t separate where her influence ended and where he began and diana knew. that was the part that made your stomach twist.

some people possess power and never use it and others possess power and forget they have it. though, diana possessed power and exercised it effortlessly like breathing.

she’d enter a room and michael’s attention would shift before she even spoke not because she demanded it. he offered it freely like muscle memory.

the first time it hurt was small, it was almost insignificant.

it was at a charity event with you and michael laughing together. his hand resting against your lower back, his bambi eyes shining bright and happily.

then diana arrived and it was like somebody flipped a switch. his body physically turned toward her, focus followed, and energy followed. everything followed.

you watched yourself disappear in real time not because he stopped loving you, but because he forgot to choose you. there was a big difference and somehow that’s more pathetic because intentional cruelty can be confronted. unintentional neglect leaves you arguing with ghosts.

your friends had reassured you that, “you’re imagining things.” or that, “he didn’t mean it.” or that it was, “that’s just diana.”

you grew to hate those words. as if those words explained every wound. every disappointment, those multiple occasions that somehow became hers, and every moment michael abandoned before realizing he’d left.

you began noticing a few repeated moments, patterns nobody else wanted to acknowledge. diana would appear and michael would orbit. you would become invisible in a way you would never have imagined. again and again.

it wasn’t dramatic, maybe that would’ve been easier. it was death by a thousand shards of glass. it was those small and constant moments. moments that accumulated until one day you woke up exhausted.

you weren’t competing with another woman, you were competing with his story. and unsurprisingly, his story was winning.

the worst argument happened in private, and of course it was private. the worst heartbreaks always do. nobody remembers them except the people they destroy.

you’d been together at neverland and the sun was setting. everything should’ve felt beautiful, and instead it felt like standing on the edge of a cliff. because diana had called and michael was leaving again.

you don’t even remember what started the fight. only how it ended and the feeling of standing in the middle of neverland while the sun disappeared behind the hills, watching the man you loved more than anything look everywhere except at you.

it had probably started over something small. it kind of always did. a phone call with you, those damned canceled diners, and another promises postponed. another moment that somehow became about someone else. it was always her, it always came back to her somehow.

the argument had been building for years anyway and this was just the first time neither of you could stop it. “why is it always her?” the words left your mouth before you could soften them.

michael froze and his shoulders tensed along with his gaze dropping immediately and somehow that hurt more than if he’d yelled back because he already knew.

you saw it on his face that he knew exactly what you were talking about: he just didn’t know how to fix it.

“look at me.” only to be faced with silence, “michael.” still nothing. your chest tightened. “why is it always her?”

he swallowed and looked away. that absolutely told you everything.

you laughed, except it didn’t sound like laughter. it sounded wounded. “so much for words.” your eyes burned. “wow.”

“don’t do this right now, please-” he finally looked up, though you wished he hadn’t because there was guilt in his eyes. there was so much guilt, in fact, that guilt was worse than denial. guilt meant he knew.

you stared at him as his jaw clenched. “make me choose.” the world suddenly went quiet. you actually had to pause because for a second you couldn’t believe what you’d heard. then your expression shattered. “make you choose?” you repeated softly. pathetically soft. “that’s what you think this is?”

“you’re misunderstanding what this is.”

“then what did you mean?”

he opened his mouth then soon pursed it. nothing came out and suddenly you were exhausted. just tired, so unbelievably tired. “i’m not asking you to stop loving her.” your voice cracked. “do you understand that?”

he stared at you.

“i have never asked that.” another breath. “i have never once asked you to stop caring about her.”

“i know.”

“no, michael. i don’t think you do.” your eyes filled. “because if you understood me, we wouldn’t be standing here, and i wouldn’t have been so insecure with this whole thing we have going on.”

he looked devastated, and for once, you didn’t feel any guilt nor remorse. great. “everybody says she’s important to you.” you laughed bitterly. “every single one.” another step backward. “nobody ever asks what it’s like to be the person standing next to that.”

his face fell yet you kept going because this was years worth of heartbreak pouring out at once. “do you know what it’s like?” your voice shook. “to walk into a room and immediately wonder if i’m about to lose you again? and also to watch your attention disappear the second she walks through a door?”

“to spend entire nights pretending i’m okay because i know if i say something, i’ll be the bad guy?”

he looked sick but you didn’t stop. not anymore. not again.

“the worst part is that i know you love me.” his eyes widened. you laughed again with that same horrible sound. “because if you didn’t, this would’ve been easy.” a tear stripped down your cheek. “if you didn’t love me, i could leave. and if you didn’t love me, i could hate you. but you do love us.”

your voice broke. “you love me and somehow i’m still standing here begging for scraps.”

“you’re not—”

“stop.”

and he did stop immediately.

“don’t tell me what i’m feeling.” you wiped your face angrily. “i’ve spent years understanding you.” your chest hurt. “i just wish you’d spend five minutes understanding me.” the silence afterward felt uncomfortable. finally, you asked again. quieter this time. more broken in fact.

“why is it always her?”

michael looked down and his hands trembled.

then came his whisper, “because she was there before everyone else.” the words landed like a gunshot and for a second you just stared.

and you wished he could have added more context, but there wasn’t and somehow that was the answer.

the sound of a heart finally understanding its own death. “and what happens when somebody comes after?” his face crumpled. you stepped closer. “what happens when someone loves you after?”

your voice rose. “what happens when somebody stays?” another step. “what happens when somebody chooses you every single day?”

“what happens when somebody gives you every piece of themselves?” tears blurred your vision. “what happens then?”

he couldn’t answer because there wasn’t one. and that was the pathetic part of it all. there never had been.

“you know what breaks my heart?” you whispered. his eyes squeezed shut. “if she called right now…” your voice cracked. “…you’d leave with no thought behind for us.”

his silence was immediate and instinctive and you nodded slowly because there it was. there was your answer.

“see?” you laughed through tears. “we both know i’m right.”

“it’s not like that.”

“then tell me i’m wrong.” nothing. your heart shattered right there. “you always come back.”

he looked up desperate and hopeful because he thought that meant something.

you saw it happen and somehow that hurt too.“that’s what makes this so cruel.” his expression collapsed. “i know you’ll call tomorrow.” your voice softened. “i know you’ll apologize.” tears slid down your face. “i know you’ll cry.”

“i know you’ll mean every word.” you shook your head. “and somehow that doesn’t fix anything anymore.”

“please.” his voice was barely audible.

you almost broke right then because you loved him. if you didn’t love him, this would’ve been survivable.

“i feel stupid.” your voice trembled. “because every time you walk away, i tell myself it’ll be the last time.”

he stared at you completely shattered.

“and every time you come back…” you swallowed. “…i let you in again.” his eyes filled with tears and you hated that they did because now you wanted to comfort him even now.

even while your own heart was breaking, you were still worried about his. you were still choosing him. and he still wasn’t choosing you.

“i don’t think diana is the villain.” he blinked and was surprised. “i think the villain is the fact that you know exactly how much this hurts me…” your voice broke. “…and you still can’t stop.” he physically flinched. that’s great. let him drown in his own sorrows. let him feel one fraction of what you’d been carrying.

“you make me feel loved.” your words came out small and fragile. “and you make me feel abandoned.” his face crumpled with your words.

“i don’t know how both things can be true.”

you looked at him. the person you’d spent years loving and the person you’d have followed anywhere. “i would’ve followed you anywhere.” a sad smile appeared then gone just as quickly. “that’s the embarrassing part.”

his eyes closed. “you never even had to ask.”

then came the final wound. the one neither of you would ever forget. “i think if you had to choose between losing me…” his breathing stopped. “…and disappointing her…” tears blurred everything. “…you already made that choice years ago.”

the uncomfortable feeling afterward felt endless and for the first time since you’d known him, michael jackson had absolutely nothing to say.

his face fell. because for the first time he understood that you weren’t asking him to stop loving diana. you were asking whether there would ever be room for anyone else. whether your future was permanently trapped inside somebody else’s shadow.

and michael couldn’t answer because deep down? he didn’t know and that was what destroyed you. not the uncertainty, rather the realization that he genuinely didn’t know.

months passed, then maybe years. you left. not dramatically nor angrily. you were just tired of being the escape route for his complications with diana. you can survive heartbreak and you can mostly survive betrayal. what you can’t survive forever is being somebody’s almost.

he stopped calling as often, stopped showing up, and stopped reaching for your hand. the silence between you became something living and something you grew accustomed with.

people assumed you'd broken up, and the truth was worse. there had never been anything official to end. just two people destroying themselves over a love neither could let go of.

you kept working, and he kept performing. the world kept turning and neither of you moved on. everyone could see it. maybe especially him. because every woman he stood beside wasn't you.

every room he entered felt emptier than it should, every award became heavier, achievements tasted wrong. he had chosen comfort over courage and it haunted him.

and that’s what you’d become, almost the love of his life.

you were always an almost. the person he wanted. almost. the future he dreamed about. almost. everything important. except chosen.

michael tried moving forward and the world assumed he succeeded. the world was wrong because success never fixed what was missing. awards didn’t fix it, stadiums didn’t fix it, and applause didn’t fix it. nothing unfortunately did.

he kept collecting achievements and somehow feeling poorer because grief does something worse.

it doesn’t always arrive when you lose someone, sometimes it arrives years later when you realize exactly what you lost and exactly why.

michael eventually reached a conclusion that terrified him. the greatest love of his life hadn’t left because she stopped loving him. she left because he never gave her a reason to stay. that realization haunted him like a ghost because regret is heavier than heartbreak.

heartbreak says it ended, regret says it didn’t have to, which brings us to the award show.

by 1996, the regret had become unbearable. you knew it, and he knew it. the entire industry knew it. nobody talked about it though. until the grammy awards, maybe where the night everything exploded. you'd been asked to present one of the biggest awards of the evening. the album of the year, cameras adored you, and the audience adored you. yet somewhere in the front rows you noticed where michael sat with diana. of course. you saw them before the show started.

your heart dropped to the floor when his eyes found yours immediately and they stayed there for far too long.

another speech and another headline, instead they witnessed a confession.

the night history finally cracked open. the audience expected another michael jackson victory.

you stood on stage presenting the award. elegant, composed, and very much untouchable. those years had sharpened you and made you stronger and harder to reach.

michael saw it immediately and for the first time in his life, it frightened him because you no longer looked like somebody waiting. you looked like somebody capable of leaving forever.

the winner was announced. his name echoed through the auditorium, and it was your voice that announced his win. the applause began and people stood. those haunting flashes of hollywood cameras flashed but michael couldn’t hear any of it.

because all he could see and hear was you, standing there, holding and presenting the award. the woman he’d spent years loving and years losing.

he walked toward the stage, past celebrities, past cameras, and past diana. past the gravitational force that had dictated so much of his life.

later, newspapers would obsess over that detail. the way he never looked at her. not once.

because for the first time since you’d met him, michael wasn’t being pulled by old loyalties. he was making a choice and he reached you, accepted the award. then stopped.

the audience sensed it immediately that something was happening. something bigger than music ever was, than fame, more than entertainment.

michael turned toward the microphone. his hands shook and it was not from nerves. from truth.

“all my life,” he began softly, “people have told me who i belong to.” followed up with silence that swallowed the room. “my family.” another breath, “my fans.” and another, “the world.” his eyes found yours. “and for a long time, i believed them.”

you didn’t (couldn’t) move, and neither could anyone else.

“i spent years giving pieces of myself away because i thought that was what love was.” his voice cracked. “i thought all love meant was having an obligation.” the room remained seemingly still. “i thought loyalty meant abandoning myself.”

tears filled his soft eyes. “i thought being grateful meant never leaving rooms i had already outgrown.” you saw it right then. the exhaustion from so many events, the regret, and mostly the weight he’d carried for decades.

michael looked like a man setting down something enormous, and it was something he’d been dragging behind him his entire life. then, he looked directly at you, and in an instant, the entire world around both of you vanished. “she loved me when i had nothing to offer except myself.” his voice broke completely. “and i was so busy giving myself to everybody else…”

his breath hitched, and you couldn’t help but feel pitiful for him. “…that i forgot to give myself to her.”

the audience was crying now openly; because some truths are too human to resist and some regrets are universal.

michael stepped closer, and his eyes never left yours. “the biggest mistake of my life wasn’t trusting the wrong people.” another step came. “it wasn’t fame.” and another, “it wasn’t success.” he swallowed.

“it was making the woman i loved feel like she was standing second in a story where she should’ve been first.” and right there? you felt your heart shatter then heal. all at once. and then finally, he said the thing he’d been terrified of for years.

not because it was difficult, but because it was irreversible. “i love you.” the room inhaled as he spoke: “i have loved you for years.” his voice grew stronger and steadier.

“and if history remembers me for anything…” he reached for your hand. “…i hope it remembers that eventually i found the courage to choose you.”

the applause was deafening but it sounded distant because michael was crying, and so were you.

somewhere in the audience, diana ross sat and watched. she wasn’t angry or furious; she was simply witnessing something she had never anticipated. for perhaps the first time in Michael’s life, he was not following the path of familiarity; he was finally walking in his own heart, guided by his own instincts. and somehow that was far more shocking than any declaration of love.

because the real confession wasn’t that michael loved you, everybody already knew that. the confession was that after all these years he loved you more than he feared disappointing everyone else. and for michael? that was the bravest thing he had ever done.

[sweeterners]

DOMESTIC BLISS. 𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝗷𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀𝗼𝗻

❛  mature era!michael jackson  𝑥  𝑓 nanny!reader  ❜     ╱   summary. some instances in which michael and you function as a couple . . . which you guys aren't. just a really, really good team.

warnings. no real warnings, it's just mainly fluff. and tbh i can't tell if this is actually domestic or not, but oh well i just really wanted to write the following scenarios. prince being prince. hints at michael's obsession for you. age gap - twenty years. not proofread. series m.list main m.list

michael who made an extreme emphasis on his desire to be present in his children's lives and not have them be raised by nannie's. but soon after blanket's birth he knew he needed a little extra help with a newborn and two little ones running around.

the interview process was long and tedious and happened over a few weeks as michael personally reviewed over applications, made the phone calls to let which applicants will be getting interviewed where and when, and conducted the interviews process with various questions;

"during times of stress how do you handle the chaos of the children?"

"what was the reason for leaving the last family you works for, and what made you interested in caring for my family?"

"do you have any formal education in child care, child education, or child development?"

"are you ready to take on not just my children's schedules but my own, and what that entails?"

he wants the best for his children and you just happen to be that. you're one of two of the last applicant who progressed to the very last interview, and watching the other applicant go first and leave with an unreadable expression only worsened your worries. and when you think everything is going good your nerves are on edge and heart pounding against your chest when michael rose from his seat across from you and extending his hand out to you. placing trembling hands on the edge of the conference desk to push your seat out and away so you can also stand, wiping your sweaty hand on your slacks before extending it to meet michael's firm grip, "congratulations, you're hired."

you didn't formally meet the children until your second day, you're first day was just you getting acclimated. already having signed every form of paper possible upon getting hired, all michael requested of you for your first day was to show up to neverland ranch at 7 a.m sharp. giving you a proper tour of neverland ranch before returning back to the house and to his office to go over the kids routine.

michael's eyes follow where your body bends to reach inside of the bag you brought with you, eyes widening just a bit when you pull out a dark green journal and pen. flipping the journal open and clicking the pen to jot down the small bit of what he had said about their schedules before he went silent, only the sounds of pen on paper filling the office.

when there's nothing more left to write down you peer your gaze up just a bit, but michael's eyes are trained on the journal in your lap, mouth slightly agape. "you can continue, mr. jackson."

the sound of your voice pulls his eyes back up to meet your own, licking his lips, "right," he continues, coughing lightly, "'nd it's michael, no formalities."

and he gets amused when you give him a curt nod before moving your pen to the very top of the page and write something down, probably something along the lines of no use of formalities.

only further getting amused by you when just before you leave you pull a container full of various cookies out, "i don't know what they're favorite is so i just made small batches of chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, and sugar cookies with sprinkles," you explain, fingers gripped around the nice container you bought specifically for this, not wanting to hand michael jackson a tupperware container.

hand it over, feeling uneasy when all he does is start at the container now in his hands, "you and the other staff can have some too of course, they're not just for the children," rambling on.

when michael looks up there's a small smile on his face, "thank you, we 'ppreciate it. they're are going t'love them for dessert."

introductions with the children go well, michael makes them thank you for the cookies, and it really doesn't take too long for them to warm up to you. it only took prince a few hours to approach you to ask if you would play with him, and if there's one thing about childcare that you will never get over is their small voices when they're still a little shy, which didn't last long with prince once he got comfortable with you.

and with blanket it took no time. the five of you sat around the dinning table as the kids ate their breakfast, with prince and paris sat next to each other, paris next to michael who is at the head of the table, you were in the seat right in front of paris while blanket was in his father arms, already having had a bottle. when michael was nursing his glass of orange juice that's when you feel it, a chubby hand lightly against your forearm.

taking blanket's smaller hand in yours, the natural movement he's making seem like the two of you are shaking hands. "hi, blanket," you muse, grinning when the infant begins to coo and show off his gummy smile. his arms now fully trying to reach you.

"he's tryin' t'escspe my arms, d'you wan' him?" the question has you thinking for a second, but you do agree.

"yeah, i'll take him." opening your arms and reaching out to grab the infant. blanket instantly settling within your arms, resting his head onto your shoulder, his cheek squishing adorably against it that has michael bringing a finger to sooth at his other chubby cheek.

however, it's paris that takes some time to fully warm up to you. she still interacted with you, but she never sought you out like how prince would take your hand in his and guide you off somewhere, most likely somewhere with an elaborate toy set up or the makeshift fort he built. or how blanket started to naturally cling to you whenever you were around. but paris seemed to always longingly stare at you whenever you interacted with her brothers. you always tried to include her, making the space for her to join in welcome as you remember michael telling you that paris is interested in whatever prince has.

you didn't take it personally, you figured it would take time since during the first meeting she had clung to michael's leg, using it to hide and peek from as she'd like. and you related to her, being a shy yourself during childhood, knowing that within time and gentleness that she will hopefully get more comfortable around you.

and that she did. a few weeks into caring for them it was quiet time. blanket was down for afternoon nap and this was the time where you'd put on a movie for the kids, usually a disney one and they could choose from watching the movie, a quiet activity, or to take a nap as well. prince had insisted on watching tarzan just end up curled asleep on the couch before jane and tarzan even meet, while paris chose to do a quiet activity of coloring.

taking this time you'd often journal in the very same dark green journal about anything and everything, a habit you carried for middle school, through high school, through college, and now through adulthood. you used to journal right before bed when you were younger, but the hours of being a nanny are from the start of the morning to the end of night, so you often opt for any free time you have to do so.

"wha's that?" a small voice asks.

feeling startled you look you see paris standing in front of you, trying to peer into the journal on your lap, "oh, it's just my journal," you respond, showing her the outside of the cover that's a little worn at the edges and the inside of the lined pages where you write.

her eyes sparkle with curiosity as you show the journal off, "is it for coloring?"

you're eyebrows furrow as you look at it, flipping through its ages, "it can be," you don't see why it couldn't be, "but i use it to write."

it's then that paris moves from in front of you to now sit squished against your side, "'nd write what?"

the question makes you smile, remembering how michael and her were sat at the dinning table just being dinner with sheets of blank paper and different colored crayons as she practiced writing her name. "i write anything," you begin, moving the journal from your lap into hers and allowing her to flip through the pages, "mainly about how i'm feeling."

"oh," it comes out quiet, like she's thinking about something.

and as you watch her an idea comes to mind, "y'know, i could get you a journal like mine."

your words instantly has paris's head turning to look at you, eyes wide like saucers, "really?" she exclaims.

chuckling at her excitement and the fact that she's still at the age where r's still sound like w's as you nod, "really, and we could practice your writing in it too," you solidify.

that's when paris's arms shoot and wrap around your torso, hugging you and squeezing her eyes shut, "than' you."

the moment tugs at your heart, wrapping your arms around to embrace her, "you're welcome, sweet girl."

and when you left that night you returned the next morning with baby pink journal, a few pack of stickers, and a glitter pen set.

it's truly fate on how well you and michael work together. falling into an easy rhythm within no time between the two of you and the children. you'd arrive at neverland every morning at 6, which gives you just enough time to say your hello's to the rest of the staff around the house before the children need to be woken up. you've developed routine of swigging by the kitchen to see what the chef is cooking for breakfast and snag a small bite of whatever is available, usually fruit when the chef's back is turned. and more times than not it leaves you and michael enough time to do a debrief of what the day entails, which is something that isn't really needed since you stay a little later on sunday nights to go over the next week, but still happens regardless. and through time it developed from that, figuring which one was going to wake which child up to random small talk, you're often the person who catches michael up on whatever sitcom show is airing on tv while he's tells you something from the news.

just outside the kid's bedrooms michael and you play rock paper scissors, the both of you hitting your open palms with your first as you whisper the words. and when you go for your safety, the reliable rock, while michael just had to go for paper you groan, throwing your head back.

looking back at him he's grinning at the way your shoulders are slightly slouched, "out of three?" you attempt, wiggling your eyebrows at the father.

an airy chuckle passes from his lips, "i've woken the lil' dragon everyday this week, by time i've gotten to wake the princess."

you and michael started referring to prince as little dragon when it comes to waking him up in the morning. he's stubborn, and it's hard to get the boy up and out of bed without persistent gentle pats and rubs to the head or back and encouraging words. you two try to hold off on turning the lights on in the kids room to get the up, finding it too abrupt, so more times than not the only light is either from the hallway or the raising sun through the curtains. while little miss paris is a dream to wake up, all it takes is a warm hand circling her back that gets her up and stretching in bed.

everyone knows that michael captures everything when it comes to his kids. from home videos, sports events, recital, anything, he finds it worthy of being caught on film.

and that includes the hard days. blanket had come down with cold that had only made abnormally fussy, and you would be lying if you said you weren't relieved when michael returned home. because entertaining prince and paris while maintaining blanket's symptoms and staying on top of his doses and still making sure that the two old kids don't get too close to blanket as siblings do so they don't fall sick as well.

michael took over for the evening essentially, he was with blanket for a little bit before you thought about how if anyone can get sick from being in close proximity to blanket it should probably be you, so you two swapped while he wore down the older kids and got them settled for the night.

while he was handling bath and bed time you were able to give blanket some purée that michael request the chef to make in batches and a bottle along with a night dose of medication. and instead of retreating back to couch that you've been on for most of the day, you retreated to blanket's nursery. sighing when you're tired body hits the rocking chair, instantly getting into the subconscious movement of rocking the infant to sleep. and in doing so you're own eyelids get heavy with each blink.

unknowingly michael had been looking for you after putting both prince and paris to bed. it takes him returning to the hallway where the kid's rooms reside to notice you and blanket in the rocker, watching the gentle movements of the rubs you're giving blanket's back. he doesn't fully know how to process how or what he's thinking, and to be honest michael hasn't been able to form a full solid opinion on you since the day you met. not that that's bad, you just seem too good to be true, and the way at which you deeply care for his children only confuses him more. knowing what it means for them to reach their development milestones along with ensuring that they are healthily expressing themselves both identity wise and emotionally. and it doesn't help that you're smart, one of the old family you nannied for during high school being generous enough to fund you going to school for psychology, and beautiful, your go to outfit being jeans with either a loose t-shirt or sweater it's effortless but pull it off too well and often more times than not you opt to have your curls up and away from blanket's strong grip.

and he knows it isn't right to develop a crush? or a deep admiration for his nanny, it gets in the way of you being able to do you job and it gets in the way of michael being able to form coherent thoughts around you, not to mention that he's twenty years your senior. he's kept it at bay since you started working, but he can't help but have the reason of why you split with your previous family you worked for loom over her head, the reason being that the kids you cared for just got too old for a nanny, entering adolescence. and although it was a mutual decision between you and the family, he doesn't think he could ever come to the conclusion that him and his children won't need you.

pulling himself out of his thoughts he retreats and returns with his camcorder. catching the sweet moment as a forever memory, just in case there is every a time you decide to leave, maybe to leave to pursue further education (although michael would happily fund it and keep you employed at the same time) or to start your own family (which he secretly dreads), for the kids to have moments they can look back on with you in them.

you who start staying later than you need to. masking it in the disguise of wanting to help michael with whatever chore is left, which is true, but you also selfishly enjoy the alone time with michael. the nights where you stay and help pick up toys and put them back and arrange them, which sometimes turn into small fights between you and michael when either one of you throw a stuffed animal at each other and quickly turn your backs before the other turns around. or the quieter nights spent listening to the jazz station on the radio as michael washes the dishes while you dry them. it's chores that you and michael really don't have to do, he has cleaners.

prince can pursued anyone, including his father and you. which is exactly how sleepovers became a special occasion.

the hard bargaining wasn't even getting his father to say yes, it was michael having to tell blanket that you may have something you'd want to do for yourself or with friends instead of having a sleepover with them.

which was a hard pill to swallow for both, but prince still being young ran from his father and straight to you. collapsing into you arms with tears brimming in his eyes, "please have a sleepover with us," his small voice messing up the pronouncement of a few words from pushing his face into your sweater, smoothing a gentle hand through the boy's hair to regulate him.

upon looking up to search for michael, he's already there, a hand on his hip, "he wan's y'to stay 'nd have a sleepover, but i told him that y'may have plans," he explains, walking over and trying to pull the boy from off of you, but he clings to your waist.

looking down at only the peek of blonde hair, you frown then smile, looking back at michael, "'m free friday night so i really don't mind."

"you really don-"

"'s alright, michael. and besides, haven't you been wanting to build that jumbo fort, prince?"

the mention of a fort and his name has prince pulling himself back from where he hides his face against your stomach, hands still crumpled in the material of your sweater. "yeah," it's quiet and meek as he nods his head.

you hand falls from his head down to his rosy cheek to wipe his tears streaks, "then no more cryin', we've get to look forward to friday."

which is exactly how you spent a friday night building the biggest fort you have every built with michael and the kids, the night entailing movies and ice cream and books and flashlight shows.

michael who has selfish thoughts whenever you're around. often during mealtimes when the five of you intertwine hands to bless the food.

he knows it's wrong to fantasize about the five of you being a real family whenever you arrive extra early just because you promised the kids special pancakes.

michael shuffles into the kitchen, expected to see the chef, which he does, but they're off to the side chopping fruits while you're the one at the stove. the sound of your name falling softly from michael's tongue has you looking up.

and he knows he's beyond gone when the wide smile that spreads across your face gives him butterflies, because it shouldn't.

"want a pancake?" you ask, as michael moves closer, turning your head back to pan to pay attention.

"wha' are you doin' this for?" he's close enough to you for you to feel his breath on your neck and for him to smell the faint scent of your perfume mixing with the scent of your hair products.

"for the kids," of course it is he thinks, peering down into the pan to see various sizes of pancake shapes, "gonna turn them into designs, like a monkey or somethin'" you explain, flipping the pancakes once their tops get all bubbly.

and when that's done you turn your head again, as best you can with michael close in your proximity, he might as well be glued to your back. "d'you want a pancake?" asking the father again as the two of you lock eyes.

"yeah, i'll take a pancake."

your head swiftly nods and once again focuses back on the pancakes. hearing shuffles of michael's feet and no longer feeling the presence of his body close to yours, "gonna go wake up the kids for breakfas'."

michael who secretly refers to paris and you as his girls.

all three of his children are blessings, but there was nothing more exciting than to find out he was having a daughter. and now with you in their lives he's thankful to have such a positive and strong woman figure in their lives.

lingering around in the mornings, body pressed against the bathroom doorframe as he watches you do paris's hair for the day as she sits on the bathroom counter. he can do his daughter's hair, but mostly just in simple plates and ponytails, while you can do the more detailed hairstyles.

and he loves nothing more than to come home and notice that the two of you has a dress up day. either by the colorful marks on your face and the precise blends of color on paris's or by paris running into her father's arms right when he steps through the door to show off her nails that you painted while he later notices the messy marks of nail polish on your nails and the surrounding skin at dinner.

michael who keeps a polaroid of you and the kids in his wallet. one taken on blanket's first birthday that he cherishes whenever he's away. often tracing a too large finger over your faces, missing the cheerful chaos of the kids and you no matter he's at a buzzing event or a quiet hotel.

the four of you are all wearing tiny birthday hats for blanket's birthday party. the birthday sits calmly in your lap while michael attempts to direct the old two around.

"no, prince, on her other side," his voice already defeated as the young boy keeps wanting to pose his own way.

"i wanna d'it like this though," prince pouts, moving to stand right behind where you sit on the floor and throw his small arms over your neck and hook his chin over your shoulder.

"let him be," you muse through a small grin that you shoot michael, the two of you know that prince is going to win the battle either way.

"okay, paris," just when he starts paris settles against your side, removing a secure hand around blanket's belly and using it to wrap around paris and pull he snug under your arm, "good, good," clicking his fingers together to get blanket's attention facing forward.

"everyone say happy first birthday, blanket."

and when it's said and the four of you are all smiling at the end, there's a click, that encases the memory forever.

©sweeterners 2026.

[etheriaaly]

​Chapter Three: Can't Turn Back Now | 𝖍𝖆𝖚𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖘𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖘

── .✦   Avengers x Reader (Platonic), Peter Parker x Reader (soon)

── .✦   Reader pronouns: They/them [GN! Reader]

── .✦   Chapter Summary: As Peter prepares to move to the Avengers Tower, he keeps having weird dreams and seeing a specific tarot card.

ɴᴀᴠɪɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ | ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴏ | ​ʜᴀᴜɴᴛᴇᴅ ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ

The weekend passed by in the blink of an eye. Peter Parker had never been more excited for anything in the world. After Tony Stark left his apartment, he immediately celebrated in his room and called Ned to tell his best friend that the e-mail was not a scam. Thank goodness. 

Peter spent his entire weekend preparing for his first day and moving into the Avengers Tower. The day after Tony Stark visited his apartment, Ned came over since they had originally planned to start building the LEGO Death Star together. While they were building it, the two teenagers went through every possible conversation that Peter might have on his first day. Ned claims it's a precaution in case Peter fumbles in front of the Avengers. 

“Pretend I’m Captain America,” Ned insisted as he looked at the instructions for building the LEGO. “Come on, what would you say if you met him first?” 

“I’m not going to pretend you’re Captain America.” Peter grimaced. He knows well enough that even if he practiced, he would still be nervous and probably stammer in front of the Captain. 

Ned continues to list on every Avenger. It took them the entire day to finish the Death Star because of the constant what-ifs Ned was creating in his head. 

Sunday came, and he still hasn’t started packing. He was only able to start packing his school backpack. He didn’t fully start until night came, and that was when he realized he was procrastinating. He told himself that he would dedicate the entire day to packing up. 

He made sure he finished his schoolwork for tomorrow and stayed up all night watching videos and clips of the Avengers on YouTube. And by all night, he means watching it while patrolling outside in his Spidey suit. He was able to find some snippets of interview clips, while other videos were just poorly recorded sightings of the Avengers during a fight. 

Peter only encountered one or two muggers that night, and then it was complete peace for hours. It was around 3 am when he decided to go home. Besides, he’s too excited for what lies in his day ahead. He’s confident that he will wake up earlier than usual. 

Once he got home through the window’s emergency exit, he continued watching in the darkness as he lay in his bed until he felt his eyes droop. He eventually fell asleep holding his phone, with [Y/N] appearing in the Midtown High promotional video one year ago. 

Peter was not one of those who dreamed every night. Sure, he dreams sometimes, but not often. He did have those weird, unusual, and nonsensical dreams that he’s sure everybody has experienced at least once or twice in their lifetime. Not tonight. Tonight’s dream is different. 

He was in a dark, unfamiliar hallway. At the end of the hallway was a door, and a light bulb above it flickered. He knew that he must have been experiencing a nightmare, but he still marched forward. The door was ajar, inviting him to step closer and go inside. A bright light emitted from the door. 

He tried to use his Spidey-senses, but couldn’t feel it. So, like the white person he is, he stepped inside the unfamiliar room. The door was white. For Peter, this seemed like a perfectly normal door. He was glad that it was white, and not red. If the door had been red, it would’ve been a scarier experience, and he would have tried to run away. He had seen the Insidious movies; he knew better that this door in front of him wasn’t anything creepy or scary. 

Peter felt no fear, only curiosity. 

As soon as he stepped inside the room, the door behind him closed. And the door had changed from a normal bedroom-sized door to massive metallic doors. The room was spacious and big. It looked like the ones he saw in movies, where it's the evil villain’s lair. There were machines and tables. 

If he had control over his dream, he would’ve roamed around and taken his time to explore. However, it seems that he was put on autopilot when it came to decision-making in his dream. Something had caught his eye while glancing around the room. 

It was a table. A perfectly oval-shaped wooden table was sitting in the middle of the room. It was obvious that this table was out of place. Peter was far away from the table, though he could see something shining on it. 

Slowly but surely, he approached it to see what was on it. Why was it shining? Was it to attract his attention? Well, mission accomplished because he was approaching it.

Upon approaching the table, he saw two items. For one, he was alarmed at the sight of a bomb. Luckily, it’s not on. Beside it was a tarot card. Peter does not have that much knowledge when it comes to tarot, but he does know it’s a tarot. Aunt May had a deck of tarot cards, and he could remember her shuffling and reading the cards whenever her friends came over. 

When he was little, she would see him peeking around in the corner during tarot nights. She makes him come over, read his cards, and ask him what he wants to know. There are times he would ask the silliest questions: “Can it find out where I misplaced my Darth Vader toy?” 

She would laugh and read what the cards had said. “They’re telling you that if you let your emotions get the better of you, you won’t be able to find it. Sometimes, it is better to clear your mind first before looking again. Emotions can cloud our perception of reality.” The answer seemed vague at first because, first of all, it didn’t tell him the location. But he would eventually do what Aunt May had told him. Not a moment later, he finds that his Darth Vader toy had fallen between his bed and bedside table. 

Peter stared at the tarot card on the table in front of him. It was the Rider-Waite-Smith version. The number 0 inside the outlines, and under the depicted imagery of a young man with a small white dog beside him, was the name of the card–THE FOOL. 

He picked it up for further inspection. But once he picked it up, the timer of the bomb turned on. The timer started blinking with 10 seconds left until it detonated and exploded. 

0:10. 

What was he gonna do? Is he going to die? 

0:09. 

Quick, Peter. Think. He was still holding the tarot card. He placed it back on the table, his hands now reaching for the ticking bomb. 

0:08. 

He examined the ticking bomb from a 360-degree angle, with hopes of finding something to deactivate it. 

There was nothing. Shit. 

0:07. 

It seemed like the ticking bomb was made without a fail-safe, so that it could carry on its intended evil purpose of blowing everything up. 

0:06.

Peter threw the entire ticking bomb away from him, and it bounced off the wall, falling to the floor with a thud. He can still hear it ticking.

0:05.

He puts his hands on both sides of his head, panicking. 

Am I really gonna die? Is this the end?

0:04. 

He kept looking around the room, but there was no exit; the door that he had entered had disappeared earlier, and there were no windows. 

0:03. 

He paced around the room before his eyes landed back on the Fool card on the table. 

0:02

Was the Tarot card a clue? 

0:01.

He was about to pick up the card when all of a sudden, he heard a loud beep. 

0:00

The bomb had been set off and sent shock waves throughout the room. The pressure waves blast him a few feet away from where he was originally standing. The blast felt so real that he could feel his ears ringing from the explosion. Stone debris from the wall flew towards him as well, cutting a small part of his skin. Since he wasn’t that far away from the bomb, he could feel the heat prickling his skin as well, making him immediately excrete sweat. He could feel every sensation and pain caused by the explosion. It felt so real to the point it doesn’t feel like a dream, but it is just a dream. 

It felt so real that he realized that he was dreaming. Suddenly, he is now lucid and aware that he is dreaming. This doesn’t happen to him very often, so why is he having such dreams now? Could it be anxiety about the near future of constant possible injuries and deaths as an Avenger?

He thought he would wake up, but he didn't. Instead, he finds himself standing in the same room again. Only this time, everything seemed to be the same before the room had exploded just a few seconds ago. 

Peter could still feel the warm tingling sensation in his arms, and his hair was ruffled into a messy look. There was a visible residue and smoky smudge on his face from the explosion. He should have woken up by now. Why is he still here?

He approaches the table again, staring at the same items. He doesn't know if these two items are connected. How could a tarot card be possibly connected to a bomb? 

One thing he knows is that he won’t be picking it up again. This was freaking him out. The more he stays here, the more he becomes aware that he is dreaming. He squeezes his eyes shut, hoping to wake up as he affirms.

“This is not real, this is not real, this is not real, this is not real–” Pete kept on mumbling until a bright light flashed, causing him to open his eyes. 

He was still in the room, but he wasn’t alone anymore, he thinks. A figure emerged. He couldn't see what they looked like. 

The figure was bright, though the form seemed to be flickering as if it were trying to materialize to fully appear to him. Peter stood still, letting the figure slowly approach him. The figure's hand of the figure put its arm out, its hands reaching out to him. The figure was now slowly becoming clearer. Peter looked at the hand reaching out to him, seeing a small spiral tattoo on the wrist. 

Before he could see the entire face, he was pulled out and woke up. 

Peter gasped and immediately sat up. He looked around to see that he was in his room. He let out a heavy sigh of relief, swiping away the sweat from his forehead. He lets himself fall back on his mattress as he stares at the ceiling in shock. 

The dream felt so real. Way too real. Was this a warning? He shakes his head. No. He’s probably just anxious now that today is the day he’ll move into the Avengers Tower.

He sat back up again. It's today! He jumped out of his bed with a loud thud. 

“PETER?!” Aunt May’s concerned voice rang out from outside his room. 

“I’M OKAY!” He shouted back, groaning slightly. He stood up. He needs to go to the bathroom and wake himself up fully. 

That was a weird dream. He's just anxious, and it's just a dream. 

He opened his bedroom door and went inside the bathroom, splashed some water on his face, before staring at himself in the mirror. 

“You got this, Peter. It was just a dream. Come on, today is the day you’re literally going to the Avengers Tower! Don’t let a random dream rattle for you for the rest of the day.” He shakes his head and splashes water again before heading back to his room to prepare. 

After some time, Peter tried to forget the dream and focused on packing the remaining of his stuff. Aunt May helps him by reminding him only to bring important things. She keeps saying that if he ever forgot something, he can always drop by. Peter knows that this is his aunt’s strategy for getting him to visit. 

“Don’t worry, Aunt May, it’s not like I’m going away to college far away,” coaxed Peter, hoping it would reassure her somehow as he returned to the living room, holding his toothbrush. 

“It feels like it.” Aunt May says, emphasizing her feelings. “You’re going to be a live-in intern with a scholarship for Tony Stark. I’m so proud of you, Peter.” She pulls Peter into a bear hug, as if he would disappear. 

He truly feels grateful to his aunt. But sometimes he feels like she’s making the entire situation overdramatic. Technically, Aunt May’s reaction to this is very reasonable. Who wouldn’t gawk over someone getting a scholarship for Stark Industries? Teenagers his age would kill just to work for Stark Industries. 

This is a massive boon and privilege. Peter gotta find the spider that bit him and thank it for biting him. 

“Will you be okay?” Peter asks, still hugging. They both pulled away. Aunt May had the brightest smile on her face. 

“Are you kidding? I lived alone in my apartment for several years before I married your Uncle, Ben. I’ll be all right.” It was her turn to reassure him. She placed her hands on her hips. “But, you are still required to visit me, okay?”  

Peter nodded. “Of course, why wouldn’t I?” He smiled, placing his toothbrush inside a pouch and putting it inside his backpack on the couch.  “I think that’s about it.” 

“You sure? Clothes? Chargers? Hairbrush? Toothpaste?” 

“Check, check, check, and check. Besides, I’m sure they won’t mind if I steal their toothpaste once mine is gone.” Peter jokes. 

His Aunt May folded her arms, about to say something, when they both heard a honk from below that definitely sounded like the very same honk of Tony Stark’s car. They walked to the window and looked down to confirm that it was actually Tony Stark’s car. The driver, who is probably Happy, honked. 

Peter, feeling nervous and ecstatic, rushed to the couch to zip up his suitcase and lifted it off the couch. He moved in such a hurry that he did not notice the deck of tarot cards sprawled out on the table. His luggage was too close to the table, and he managed to drag the cards from the table, creating a mess on the floor. 

“Peter! Be careful, those are very old and special cards.” Aunt May reprimanded, moving to get the fallen cards on the floor.

“It’s okay, Aunt May. I got it.” They both hear another honk downstairs. 

The young Parker kneeled in a rush, his hands grabbing all of the cards that were scattered. He saw one last card under the couch and bent down to pick it up. Unlike the rest of the cards, this one was the only one with its imagery facing up. His eyes immediately caught on what card it was. 

The Fool. 

He froze, his eyes set on the card that he was currently holding. Even after he tried to forget that bizarre dream this morning, it all came rushing back again. 

It must just be a crazy coincidence.

Yeah, just a coincidence. Your head is just making up patterns, Peter. 

He shakes the thoughts away, really wanting to focus on the day ahead of him. He gathered the cards into one and returned them to the table. Peter lifted the luggage and slung the backpack over his shoulder as Aunt May ushered him to the door. 

“Come on, Peter. You can’t be late.” 

His Aunt May accompanied him outside. As they descended the stairs, he still couldn’t help but think about it. Stop it. He forces himself again to forget it. 

Which reminds him that he had forgotten something. 

His camera!

He skidded to a halt and turned around so fast that Aunt May almost bumped into him. “Wait, wait, wait–I forgot my camera–” He said, panicking since he doesn’t want to leave his camera. 

Peter plans to document everything for his personal viewing, and at the same time, his camera is his entire life. He uses it to make a small income from photography and selling it online, or sometimes, if he is lucky, a gig from the Daily Bugle. 

Aunt May puts her hand out, stopping him from moving. “You go and load your bags into the car, and I’ll get it for you. Where did you last place it?” 

Peter scrunches up his face to remember, “It’s, uhm, on my bedside table.” 

“Camera on your bedside table coming right up!” She turned around and went back up the stairs to grab the almost forgotten camera. 

Peter feels grateful for Aunt May, so he continued descending the stairs with ease. However, as soon as he opened the front door, his mouth was agape upon seeing Tony Stark’s car. It was a sleek black limousine. He has never seen a limousine in real life before, let alone sit inside. 

Peter tries to hide his slight disappointment upon realizing that Mr. Stark was nowhere to be found. It was his Head of Security, Happy Hogan. Peter saw enough news articles and clips about Mr. Stark that it was not that hard not to notice the person who was always with him, which was Happy Hogan, according to his Google research. 

Besides, why would Tony Stark personally accompany him to the Avengers Tower? 

“What took you so long?” The man who was called Happy was not so happy. He had his shades on, and he looked very serious. 

Peter sheepishly replied, “Sorry.” He walked closer to the car as Happy opened up the trunk and grabbed Peter’s luggage to put it there. “Jesus, kid.” He cursed out upon realizing how heavy his luggage was. 

“I got your camera, Peter!” He heard Aunt May’s voice call out to him. She was striding over to them, but had not yet fully seen the person behind the trunk. She hands over the camera to Peter before pulling him into another bear hug. 

“Go and impress the hell out of them, Peter.” She mutters before pulling away. 

Peter could see her eyes starting to tear up, “I am still visiting the weekends, Aunt May–”

THUD. 

Happy closed the back trunk with a thud, “Okay. Chop-chop, we have to–” He suddenly paused, unaware of Aunt May’s presence. “Oh, hi. I didn’t–I just– I’m Happy Hogan, Head of Security for Stark Industries.” 

He walked closer to them, removing his shades, and offered her a handshake. Aunt May could only smile and reached out to shake his hand, “May Parker. I’m Peter’s Aunt.” They kept shaking their hand and just staring at each other. “So, you’re Tony Stark’s Head of Security, huh?”

“Well, that and his personal…chauffeur too.” 

“Ahh, that’s why you’re the one driving Peter to the Stark Internship.”  

Peter stayed quiet and watched their interaction as if he didn’t exist. His eyes looked at their hands, which were still shaking each other's hands. 

What the fuck?

Peter cleared his throat to try to signal the two adults. They didn’t seem to hear him. Peter coughed louder, causing both of them to look at him and let go of each other’s hands. 

“Kid’s excited.” Happy commented, laughing. Aunt May laughed, too. 

Please stop. 

“So, you’ll be the one driving Peter home every weekend?” She asks again. Peter looked at her with confusion in his eyebrows. 

Happy chuckled, “Let’s see with the big boss.” 

 Another uncomfortable silence came before they broke off the trance. “Nice meeting you.” Aunt May smiled. 

He was smiling again, “You, too.” 

Ugh. Peter grimaced slightly, turning around to open the backseat door to avoid watching them interact again. 

Peter finally got inside. It wasn’t long after that when Happy sat in the driver’s seat. Peter wanted to wave goodbye to his Aunt May once again. “Mr. Happy, where is the–.” The window rolled down. 

He could see Aunt May tearing up again while smiling. He waved at her as the car started and began moving from the parking spot. He put his head slightly out of the window to see her waving until he couldn’t see her anymore from afar. 

Peter settled back in his seat and was amazed at the interior. He quickly opened up his camera and pressed record. There is no way he’s not filming this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Besides, this is only for his eyes. The silence was deafening anyway. There was no music to listen to. Might as well do some little vlogs for him. 

He angles his camera to the car window, all the buildings moving past them. He immediately puts on his best deep documentary style-like voice, “New York, Queens. It’s a rough borough, but hey, it’s home.” 

“Who are you talking to?” Happy asks. 

Peter didn’t think he’d mind. His camera quickly pans to show Happy Hogan driving. “Uhh, no one. Just making a little short video of my first day.”

Happy looked at him through the rearview mirror, “You know you can’t show it to anyone.”

“Yeah…I know.” 

“Then why are you narrating in that voice?” 

Shit. 

Peter tried to think of a reason why, “Because it’s…uhm…fun?”

“Fun.” He deadpanned. 

Another silence came.

“So, uh, why do they call you Happy?” Peter suddenly asked before realizing he shouldn’t have asked that. That is because Happy puts on his sunglasses again, and then the limousine’s partition between the front seat and the back seat begins rising, leaving Peter alone. “Oh. Cool.”

The way to the Avengers Tower wasn’t that long. They had arrived 35 minutes later. During the entire ride, Peter decided to preserve his camera battery and planned to vlog again as soon as they arrived.

Peter couldn’t stop looking at the tall tower up close. The car turned and went down to the basement parking. He could feel the adrenaline rushing through him now.

After Happy parked the car, they both exited the car. Then, the trunk opened up. “Come on. I’m not carrying your bags. Let’s go.” Happy said, waiting for him. 

Peter rushed to the back trunk and grabbed his luggage, carrying it with ease while his backpack was slung over his shoulder. His other hand was still holding the camera. He closed the trunk and immediately clicked record. 

The camera pans over to the basement, revealing other luxury cars and black cars that look like Tony Stark and the other Avengers owns it. 

“Whoa, is that a vintage Volkswagen Beetle?!” Peter exclaimed from excitement behind the camera, zooming in on the blue beetle car. 

“Let’s go.” 

“Is that Mr. Captain America’s car?”

“I said, let’s go.” Happy quickened his pace. Peter followed him along. They walked for a while before stopping in front of the basement elevator. Happy swiped his I.D. on it, granting him access. 

“Will I get an I.D. too?” 

Silence. 

The two of them entered the elevator. “Welcome, Mr. Happy Hogan.” A voice came through the elevator. 

“Who was that?” Peter looked around. 

“That’s FRIDAY, and no. You’re not getting an I.D.”

The elevator continues going up.

“FRIDAY would be registering your fingerprint and all your other information instead.” Happy tells him. Peter’s eyes widened in surprise, now grinning ear-to-ear. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Suddenly, a bright light was scanning him from head to toe, his camera capturing it all. “Individual identified as Peter Benjamin Parker.” The female artificial intelligence voice said. “Would you like to confirm identity?”

“Yes!” Peter said, almost too excitedly. Happy looked at him before Peter cleared his throat, trying his best to make his voice normal. “Yes, confirm..identity?” 

“Identity confirmed. Please put your hand on the scanner to register your biometric access to the building.” Peter places his hand on the scanner in front of him, watching it analyze or gather data on his handprints. “Access granted, level 4.”

“Level 4?” Peter asks, stepping back. “How many levels of access are there?”

“5.”

“What level do you have?”

No response.

Peter looks up to see the floor still going. They are now on the 67th floor. The elevator dings and opens. Happy exits the elevator with Peter trailing behind him, before he stops Peter. Peter instinctively goes back inside the elevator. 

“You’re still going up. This is my floor. Vision should be handling you when you reach the 97th floor. That’s the common room.”

No way, THE Vision is going to be my tour guide?!

Peter tries to keep his composure, but the way he was grinning from ear to ear gave it away. “Yeah, cool, cool. Well, see you around, Mr. Happy!” The elevator door closes. 

Peter turns the camera around and celebrates by himself. “This is so cool! Oh my god. Vision is going to tour me around–” He then points to the scanner again. “I just registered my handprint there, and an A.I. named FRIDAY just administered me. This is so cool!” 

He can’t contain his excitement. This all feels surreal. He is about to meet Vision and possibly other Avengers soon. 

His excitement turns into slight anxiety as he watches the number go up and up and up until it almost reaches the 97th floor.

DING. 

The elevator door opens, and he lets out a deep breath before exiting. This is his reality now. He’s an Avenger, and he can’t turn back now. 

Word count: 4,262

taglist: @nickithearticorn @zetastreasurevault @lolagaming22 @crackpeole @potatoesmeller @whydoesnobodylikeyellow @ollieoranges @minsa @secretacount45681h @shadows-web @thecatacrossyourstreet

A/N: The long-awaited chapter update. I apologize for only posting now. I initially planned to finish writing this in September 2025, but I got so busy with university and life in general. I finally have time to continue this series this summer and also because Michael Jackson gave me motivation to write again, heehee. I hope you enjoyed this somewhat short (?) chapter so yeah, see you again in the next chapter! 

[thedailymichael]

˗ˏˋ PAST EXPOSURE ˎˊ˗

synopsis. In the fresh modern age of 2026, the last thing you'd expect was to get thrown in a Back to the Future plot. You and your totally basic life go haywire during a moment of curiosity when you decide to test out a stubborn retro camera with mixed up dates. What happens when it wasn't just any old camera? What if it had taken you back to the 20th century? And what will you do when you find the chance to change his fate?

starring. multiple eras!michael jackson x time traveller!reader

content warnings. death, sexual content later in the story, tobacco, alcohol, mental and physical abuse, michael's childhood, and many more content labels yet to come! muahaha

MASTERLIST

(total episode count has not been determined yet)

—episode 1 | Say cheese!

—episode 2 | This is far out!

—episode 3 | Oh, dear child...

—episode 4 | Funky 21st century girl!

—episode 5 | ...

—episode 6 | ...

—episode 7 | ...

—episode 8 | ...

—episode 9 | ...

—episode 10 | ...

—episode 11 | ...

—episode 12 | ...

—episode 13 | ...

—episode 14 | ...

—episode 15 | ...

—episode 16 | ...

—episode 17 | ...

(Further episodes will be decided later on.)

If you would like to be tagged for this series or for my general taglist, please let me know!

©thedailymichael 2026. All works posted under my name belong to me. Please do not copy, claim, republish, or translate my work anywhere else.

[piecredheart]

No Tomorrow

Summary: Michael isn’t doing well while getting ready for his This Is It Tour. So You Were Called To Help Him But You And Michael Have Been Broken Up.

A/N: Wanted To Write Some Angst. Please Follow, Like, Reblog. My Request Are Open. I Will Start To Answer And Post Request Starting Next Week.

Everyone could see that Michael wasn’t doing well. Backstage, people whispered their concerns whenever he wasn’t around. They watched him forget lyrics he had sung thousands of times and stumble over dance moves he had created himself. Everyone knew the tour should be canceled. Everyone except Michael. No matter what anyone said, he refused to stop.So they called the one person they thought he might actually listen to. You.

At first, you wanted nothing to do with it. You and Michael hadn’t ended on bad terms, but the breakup had hurt more than either of you would ever admit. You had both tried to move on, and reopening old wounds wasn’t something you were eager to do.

But after hearing how badly his health was declining, you couldn’t ignore it. So you found yourself standing outside his front door and you knocked.

A few moments later, the door opened. Michael stood there staring at you clearly caught off guard. “Oh… Y/n” a small smile appeared on his face, “I didn’t know you were coming.” “I know,” you replied awkwardly. “I should’ve called first but I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”His smile faltered slightly “Yeah… probably not.”

He stepped aside and let you in, “Do you want something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”You shook your head, “No, thank you.” The two of you stood there in uncomfortable silence.

Finally, you crossed your arms, “Michael, I think you know why I’m here.” His shoulders immediately tensed.“Y/n…” “I’m hearing you’re not sleeping.” “Y/n please—” “I’m hearing you’re taking things you shouldn’t be taking.” His jaw tightened. “Y/n, please.” “And I’m hearing you’re running yourself into the ground.” “Enough.” His voice wasn’t angry it just sounded tired. You hated how tired he sounded.

“I don’t need a lecture.” “I didn’t come here to lecture you.” “Then why did you come?” The question hung in the air.

Because I was worried, because I still cared, because I never stopped loving you, and yet you couldn’t say any of that. Instead, you sighed. “I just wanted to see if it was true, Michael looked away.

The silence stretched then, surprisingly, he was the one who broke it. “So… how are you?”, You laughed softly. “Seriously?” He shrugged. “I haven’t seen you in months.” The tension eased slightly.

“I’m doing as well as I can.” “Yeah?” “Yeah.” He nodded. “Good.” “And you?” A humorless laugh escaped him. “I’m getting by.” You studied him. The dark circles under his eyes, the weight he’d lost, the exhaustion he was trying so hard to hide. He wasn’t getting by not even close.

Before you could stop yourself another question slipped out, “Michael… what really happened between us?” His expression immediately fell. “Y/n…” “No.” You shook your head. “I know the excuse you gave me.” “It wasn’t an excuse.” “You said you were protecting me.”“Because I was.” “It sure didn’t feel like it.” His eyes filled with pain. You hated how mad you sounded but you still wanted answers.

“I thought I meant enough to you for the truth.”“You do.” “Then tell me”, your voice cracked. “Did you find someone else?”, His head snapped up. “No.” “Did Lisa call?” “No.” “Were you listening to people telling you what to do?” “Y/n.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “No.” The room became painfully quiet.

When you looked at him again, he looked seconds away from crying. “I loved you too much”, you froze. Michael swallowed hard, “You had a career, a future, a life.” “And?” “And everything around me was falling apart.” His eyes watered. “I didn’t want you getting dragged down with me.”

“Michael…” “I thought if I let you go, you’d have a chance at a normal life.” A bitter laugh escaped you. “A normal life?” You shook your head, “You breaking up with me destroyed my normal life.” His face crumpled. For the first time, you saw just how much guilt he had been carrying. Slowly you walked over and wrapped your arms around him. For a second, he stood frozen then he hugged you back, tightly, like he was afraid you’d disappear. “I knew you’d hate me,” he whispered.“I don’t hate you.” “I still listen to your songs.” You felt tears sting your eyes. “I still look at your pictures.” His voice broke.

“I missed you every day”, you squeezed him tighter.“Michael…” “Please don’t hate me.” You pulled back enough to look at him. “I could never hate you.” The relief on his face was heartbreaking. “But you hurt me.”His gaze dropped. “I know.” “I couldn’t get out of bed for days.” “I’m sorry.” “I still care about you.” His eyes met yours again. “That’s why I’m here.” You gently grabbed his hand. “Because I care enough to ask you to stop this tour.”

Immediately, he shook his head, “ I can’t Y/n-“ “You are Michael Jackson you could moonwalk but not stop a tour.” He laughed despite himself. “There he is.” “You know exactly what I mean.”

The two of you spent the next few hours talking. Catching up with things you both have been doing, laughing at old memories, all in all remembering. It almost felt normal again then a sleepy voice interrupted.

“Daddy?”, you turned. The kids stood in the hallway and you can see Paris rubbing her eyes. “Daddy… why is Momma here?”, your heart melted. Even though you weren’t their biological mother, they had always treated you like you were.

You knelt down immediately, “Hi, babies.” The children ran into your arms. “Momma!” You hugged all three tightly you’d missed them.

“Are you staying for breakfast?” Prince asked. You glanced at Michael and spoke up, “Only if your dad says it’s okay.” Three pairs of eyes including yourself immediately turned toward him. “Dad!” Michael laughed. “Okay, okay. She can stay.” The kids cheered. For the first time that day and Michael genuinely smiled.

Later, after breakfast, you found yourselves alone in the kitchen. “You still let them call me Mom?” you asked quietly. Michael looked confused “Well… you basically are.” Your eyes softened “If that bothers you” “It doesn’t.”, you smiled. “They’re my babies.” A gentle silence followed.

“I missed them.” “They missed you too.” You looked down. “I was scared to visit as childish as it sounds.” Michael frowned. “Why?” “I thought you didn’t want to see me.” His answer came instantly. “Y/n”, you looked up. “I always want to see you.” The sincerity in his eyes stole your breath away. And somehow after months apart it felt like nothing had changed.

You spent the entire day there. Playing with the kids, helping with dinner, tucking them into bed. By night time the house grew quiet again and it was just you and Michael again. “I should probably go”, Michael nodded reluctantly. “Thank you for coming.” You smiled softly.

“Please take care of yourself.” “I’ll try.” “No, really” You touched his arm. “I hate watching you do this to yourself.” Michael looked away, “If you’re that worried…” He hesitated. “Come to rehearsals.” You blinked. “Huh?” “Come with me.” A small smile appeared on his face. “Make sure I’m okay.” You couldn’t help smiling back. “I think I’d like that.” And so you did.

You went to rehearsals. You reminded Michael to eat while being him food, Made him rest when you can see rehearsals getting to him. You also made him laugh every night when you dropped him off at home. Whenever he got frustrated or pushed himself too hard, you were there. And everyone backstage was grateful. Even with you helping him during rehearsals you still begged him to cancel the tour. And he still refused even on the last night.

You stood outside his front door. “You did great today.”Michael smiled. “Thank you.” “But I still think you’re pushing yourself too hard.” “I know.” “Just please take a small break not just for me”, You glanced toward where the kids slept upstairs. “But for them.” His expression softened. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”“You promise?” “I promise.” You both smiled.

Then neither of you thought heck it wasn’t even planned. You both just simply leaned forward at the same time. With a kiss that was long overdue. And it was like you both never broken it up. The was still warm, familiar, like you both were home. When you finally pulled apart, you both started laughing like nervous teenagers. Blushing and smiling unable to stop looking at each other. Then you kissed again just because you could.

“See you tomorrow, Mike.” “Get home safe, Y/N.” Years later, you still thought about that night.

Maybe you should’ve pushed harder or maybe you should’ve stayed. Or you should’ve spent every night reminding him he wasn’t alone. You like to think that things would’ve been different or not.

There was no way to know. All you could do now was hold onto the memories, cherish the love you shared, and hope that one day, somehow, somewhere, you’d see him again. And when that day came, you’d tell him everything you never got the chance to say.

[hcwait]

spotlight.ᐟ 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　( michael jackson )

❛ thriller era!michael jackson 𝑥 popstar!reader ❜ ╱ 𝒸hapter one.

ⓘ media rivalry, lots of banter & passive aggressive flirting if you squint, michael is a shmuck (for now) ➥ navigation.

january 1983 — los angeles, california

the first article appeared three days after christmas. you ignored it. the second showed up a week later. you ignored that one too. by the time january arrived, they were impossible to avoid.

❝ the new princess of pop.❞

❝ the female answer to michael jackson.❞

❝ is thriller’s biggest competition already here?❞

you stared at the magazine cover sitting on your kitchen counter while your makeup artist flipped through another one nearby.

“they’re getting bold now.”

you snorted. “they’re getting stupid.”

the cover featured a photo of you from the christmas gala and directly beside it was michael jackson. the editors had intentionally placed the pictures next to each other. your smile & his smile, your recent hit climbing the charts & his album currently taking over the entire world. it wasn’t subtle in the slightest. instead, it was bait.

“have you even met him?” your stylist asked.

you grabbed your coffee as you debated if you really wanted to talk about him in your own free time, when you have to be bombarded with him everywhere else.

“once.”

“what was he like?”

you thought about the shrine auditorium and the way he’d looked at you. the strange tension that had existed for all of thirty seconds.

“dramatic.”

your stylist cackled at your aloof answer.

“well, according to these magazines, you two are about to start world war three.”

the american music awards were somehow louder than every nightmare you’d imagined.

camera flashes erupted from every direction the second you stepped backstage, reporters shouting over one another while publicists rushed around with clipboards pressed tightly against their chests. assistants hurried past carrying garment bags. executives shook hands and exchanged smiles that never quite reached their eyes.

the entire building felt alive, you had attended industry events before but nothing like this. this was different because this was your first real award season.

your first time standing shoulder-to-shoulder with artists you’d spent years watching from your living room television. people whose posters hung on bedroom walls, people whose records filled your collection, people who suddenly treated you like you belonged beside them—it was exciting yet terrifying.

unfortunately for you, michael jackson was everywhere. his face decorated promotional banners hanging from the ceilings as his songs drifted through speakers between commercial breaks. his name seemed to echo from every corner of the venue. it was impossible to take three steps without hearing it.

“michael!”

“michael, over here!”

“one more picture, michael!”

you rolled your eyes hard.

the man had somehow become the center of gravity, the entire room revolved around him. part of you hated how much it irritated you, the other part hated that the magazines weren’t helping.

for weeks they’d been comparing the two of you. every article, every interview, every headline, basically calling you ‘the female michael jackson.’

you were beginning to despise all of them because every time you opened a magazine, there he was. every time you saw his face, you wanted to prove them wrong or perhaps prove them right, you honestly weren’t sure anymore.

hours later, you found yourself accepting the best new artist award and surviving what felt like a hundred interviews, you finally found a moment to breathe.

the trophy felt heavier than expected in your hands. you were studying the engraved plaque with a proud grin, tears almost wanting to well in your eyes. that’s when a voice appeared beside you.

“congratulations.”

you immediately recognized it, i mean who wouldn’t. you turned to the familiar tabloid king.

michael stood beside you holding one of his own awards beneath his arm. perfect curls, perfectly tailored suit and his perfect smile, you already hated it.

“thank you.” you said in your most perfect poised voice, well, as poised as you could be.

“big night for you.” he continued.

you forced a polite smile, “i could say the same.”

“well,” michael adjusted his grip on the trophy. “some people have been saying that.

you blinked as he blinked, both smiling yet neither smiling.

“i’m sure they have,” you sneered. “must be exciting.”

“it is.” he was annoying casual, it made your blood boil.

“that’s good.” you matched his energy.

“thank you.”

“you’re welcome.”

you let the silence sit and consume the both of you for a good minute. or two. almost three. the air somehow became heavier but neither of you looked away nor did either of you back down—it was ridiculous.

you’d spoken maybe twenty words to each other, yet somehow it already felt like a competition.

michael finally nodded, “see you around.”

“you probably will.” another smile, this time with just enough teeth to qualify as one.

then he went on his way. you watched him disappear into the crowd of executives and photographers.

what an asshole.

across the room, michael glanced over his shoulder one final time. his eyes landed on you for half a second before he looked away again.

what an asshole.

the interviews got worse as the night went on. though, it started simple.

“you’ve had an incredible year. how does it feel being one of the biggest breakout stars in music right now?”

you smiled, “it’s exciting. i’m grateful people are connecting with the music.”

that was the easiest question of the night, then came along the next reporter.

“there’s been a lot of comparisons between you and michael jackson recently. what do you think about that?”

and there it was. despite all, you kept your smile in place.

“i think michael is incredibly talented.”

the reporter leaned forward, “but?”

“there is no but.”

a few journalists laughed as the reporter who spoke got awfully quiet, you considered that a victory.

unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. there was yet another microphone accompanied with a camera shoved in your face.

“do you see him as competition?”

“i see everybody as competition.”

the crowd reacted immediately. someone behind a camera muttered, “that’s a headline.”

damn it. the twisting of narratives had just began.

somewhere across the venue, michael wasn’t having much better luck. as you were walking down, you caught part of one of his interviews.

“there’s a lot of buzz surrounding her right now. any thoughts?”

michael adjusted his jacket, like he didn’t even want to acknowledge the question. “she seems very nice.”

the interviewer laughed.

“that’s not exactly what we asked.”

“that’s my answer.”

“do you think she could reach your level of success?”

of course the reporter had some nerve, throw one artist under the bus to get something out of another.

michael displayed a polite smile.

“i think people should focus on her accomplishments instead of comparing her to someone else.”

he caught the crowds attention, accompanied with collective “ooohs”

“so you’re saying she isn’t competition?”

michael’s annoying smile widened.

“i didn’t say that.”

you narrowed your eyes as you listened in.

asshole.

later, near the exit, a reporter cornered you. “last question.”

you immediately knew it wasn’t.

“if you and michael jackson released albums on the same day, who would sell more records?”

the cameras leaned closer. you smiled—almost the same ignorant one that michael had.

“i guess we’ll find out.”

the reporters erupted and across the room, michael looked up just in time to hear it.

his eyebrow lifted in suspicion, but all you could do was smile wider.

tomorrow’s headlines were going to be unbearable & you couldn’t wait.

　　　 　　　 © original works by hcwait

tags: @gorgystarr, @daphne020708, @floralsightings, @swe3tyann, @18lkpeters, @ovohanna24, @valky4e, @justfaefaeee, @xxxercess, @sorasomi, @bbyjjunie, @1eliana123-blog, @rosiiee3, @iluvbeingdelulu4evaaa, @liyahhsnuckhere, @mochimommy2002, @cyb3rsw1rls, @kyumiiee, @ch3rrybl0ssomtree, @scknights, @lavendernightsky, @iris-xoxo-juhu, @bouncylikebouncyball, @aisheteruyosblog, @lotuspetalss, @nata-de-coconuts, @passionsmoon, @slugstarzz, @michaeljacksonsonlylady, @inbredfawn, @popzeenat, @luv4kook, @its-jennarose, @ilovvesleepp, @daemontargaryenwhore

[softformj]

In Your Corner (Chapter 1: The Staredown)

Pairing: Michael Jackson x fem!reader Chapter: 1/8 Tags: slow burn, strangers to friends to lovers, romance, hurt/comfort, mutual pining, mutual admiration, angst with a happy ending, idiots in love, he fell first but she fell harder, reader is a female boxer

Summary: He first sees you on a grainy television screen in the middle of the night. A rising boxer with sharp footwork, unreadable expressions, and fists that speak louder than words ever could. What begins as quiet admiration slowly turns into something neither of you expected. Somewhere between sold-out arenas, championship fights, late-night phone calls, bruised knuckles, recording studios, and the loneliness of fame, an unlikely friendship begins to take shape. One that gradually blurs into something far more for both of you. Over time, Michael Jackson becomes the one person you can always find in your corner.

Author's Note: A small disclaimer regarding the reader in this story: The reader who is a female boxer in this fic is not imagined as overly muscular or masculine-looking, nor is she intended to resemble the exaggerated stereotype people often associate with female fighters. I personally imagine her with a slimmer, feminine build, while still naturally carrying visible athleticism through toned arms, shoulders, thighs and back due to years of professional training. One of the main reasons I wanted to pair her with Michael specifically is because this story revolves heavily around mutual admiration for discipline, artistry, and dedication toward one’s craft. Their connection is built far more on understanding each other’s work ethic, pressure, loneliness, and passion than purely physical attraction. I also personally believe Michael was someone who appreciated beauty in many different forms and did not hold narrow-minded prejudices toward women’s bodies. In this story, his admiration for her includes both her femininity and her strength, and neither of those things cancel the other out. Inspiration for the reader's body:

Chapter 1: The Staredown The studio had gone quiet nearly twenty minutes ago, though the tape machine still rolled softly somewhere behind Michael, filling the room with the low hiss of unfinished work for Michael’s newest album. A half-produced demo drifted through the speakers in uneven fragments, basslines layered beneath scattered harmonies, bits of melody he still wasn’t satisfied with no matter how many times he replayed them.

The floor around the couch near the mixing console had long since disappeared beneath loose sheets of paper. Some pages were covered in rushed lyrics scratched out halfway through, others filled with isolated words, rhythms, little sounds he’d written down before they could disappear from his head entirely.

Michael leaned back against the cushions with a tired sigh, rubbing both hands over his face before glancing toward the clock on the wall.

10:47 PM.

Late enough for the rest of the house to have gone quiet hours ago, but still early enough for him to convince himself he had time to keep working.

He reached for the television remote beside him almost absentmindedly while keeping the notebook balanced against one knee, his pencil still moving lazily across the page.

“Need a break…” he murmured quietly to himself.

The television flickered alive.

Commercials.

Static.

A news segment.

Some late-night sitcom rerun he barely registered before flipping past it again.

Michael wasn’t really paying attention at first. His mind still lingered on the demo behind him, occasionally drifting back long enough for him to scribble down another lyric idea before it slipped away. He changed channels one after another without looking up properly until the sudden eruption of a crowd through the speakers finally caught his attention.

He paused.

“…Boxing?”

Only then did he glance toward the screen.

Two women stood beneath the harsh white lights of a crowded arena while a referee spoke between them at the center of the ring. Michael shifted slightly against the couch, mild curiosity surfacing almost immediately. Women’s boxing wasn’t exactly something he came across often on television, especially not as a live main event this late into the evening.

One fighter seemed determined to turn the entire pre-match moment into a performance. She paced aggressively in place, shoulders loose with exaggerated confidence while cameras followed her every movement. Even from the television screen, Michael could tell she was talking constantly, throwing comments toward the woman standing across from her.

Toward you.

In contrast, you barely moved at all.

The referee motioned for the staredown, and the arena noise seemed to swell immediately in anticipation.

Your opponent stepped forward first, clearly trying to intimidate you for the crowd’s entertainment. She smirked when you didn’t react, leaning closer to say something that made sections of the audience laugh loudly. When your expression remained unchanged, she became even more theatrical about it, waving a glove dismissively near your face and grinning toward the cameras as if waiting for you to finally snap back.

You never did.

Michael found himself lowering the notebook slightly.

There was something unexpectedly compelling about the way you held yourself. Not stiff, not emotionless, simply composed in a way that made the other woman’s behavior look increasingly childish the harder she tried to provoke you.

The cameras kept searching your face for irritation, embarrassment, anger. Anything they could magnify into drama.

They found nothing.

The longer you refused to give a reaction, the more frustrated your opponent visibly became, and Michael realized after a moment that he’d stopped writing altogether.

“Hm.”

The staredown finally ended when the referee stepped between you both again, but before returning to your corner, you extended your glove toward your opponent first in a quiet gesture of respect.

For half a second, Michael actually thought she might accept it.

Instead, she brushed your hand aside carelessly with a scoff dramatic enough to earn another loud reaction from the crowd.

Michael frowned faintly at the screen.

Again, the cameras cut toward you, almost expectantly.

You simply lowered your hand and walked calmly back toward your corner as though none of it had mattered enough to acknowledge.

That was the moment his interest sharpened properly.

“And in the black corner tonight,” the commentator announced over the roaring crowd, “rising contender Y/N L/N.”

Michael repeated your name softly under his breath without meaning to.

“Y/N…”

He didn’t recognize it.

Not surprising, really. Outside of hearing famous athletes mentioned around celebrities every now and then, he barely followed boxing at all, and women’s matches rarely received the kind of attention men’s fights did.

Still, he found himself settling more comfortably into the couch instead of changing the channel.

The opening bell rang.

Your opponent came at you aggressively almost immediately, throwing heavy punches with more emotion than control, still trying to overwhelm you the same way she had before the match began.

You avoided the first clean hit with such little wasted movement that Michael noticed it instantly.

Your footwork was unbelievably precise.

Every step looked balanced before it even happened, your body shifting smoothly into position as though each movement had already been rehearsed a thousand times beforehand. Even under pressure, nothing about the way you fought appeared frantic or careless.

Michael watched you slip beneath another punch before answering with a sharp counter that landed cleanly enough for the entire arena to erupt.

Your opponent stumbled slightly before regaining balance, frustration already beginning to show through her movements.

Michael leaned forward, notebook forgotten beside him now.

The longer the match continued, the more fascinated he became by the contrast between the two of you. Your opponent fought louder with every passing round, growing sloppier each time she failed to break through your defense. Meanwhile, you remained composed throughout every exchange, never chasing flashy moments for the audience even when the crowd clearly wanted them.

What struck Michael most was how disciplined everything about you felt.

Nothing seemed accidental.

Even the way you repositioned your feet between combinations reminded him strangely of watching dancers rehearse difficult choreography for hours until every movement became instinctive through repetition alone.

It was obvious you had trained endlessly for this.

Nobody moved that naturally without years of obsessive practice behind it.

Michael understood that kind of dedication immediately.

By the third round, he barely noticed the commentators anymore despite their growing excitement.

Instead, he found himself studying the rhythm of your movements. You were stronger than he expected at first glance, but it was your control that held his attention most. Your opponent struggled to land anything clean while you seemed to find openings almost effortlessly, timing every counter with an accuracy that looked almost frustrating to fight against.

And even after taking solid punches yourself, you never lost composure.

By the final round, the entire atmosphere inside the arena had shifted.

The same audience that had laughed during the staredown earlier now erupted every time you landed another clean combination, fully behind you by that point whether they had expected to be or not.

At some point, Michael had entirely forgotten about the demo still looping softly behind him in the studio.

Forgotten the notebook.

Forgotten the time.

The final exchange happened quickly enough that he instinctively sat up straighter against the couch.

Your combination landed hard, forcing the referee to step in almost immediately afterward.

The arena exploded.

Your opponent immediately started arguing the decision while cameras flashed wildly around the ring, but you didn’t react to any of it. The referee lifted your arm while the crowd roared around you, and after a brief nod in acknowledgment, you simply returned to your corner to speak with your team.

Michael stayed staring at the television for several seconds after the match ended.

Only then did he realize how thirsty he suddenly felt.

He pushed himself up from the couch and wandered toward the small fridge tucked into the corner of the studio while highlights from the fight replayed behind him on the television. He grabbed a glass bottle of orange juice, twisting the cap open before taking a long sip as commentators excitedly replayed your counters and footwork from earlier rounds.

By the time he returned to the couch, the broadcast had shifted to post-fight analysis. Analysts discussed your growing reputation while footage from the staredown played again on-screen.

Michael noticed himself watching that part twice.

A few minutes later, the screen cut to a press room backstage.

You now sat behind a long table in front of a wall covered in sponsor logos and flashing cameras. Someone had cleaned you up slightly since the match, though signs of exhaustion still lingered beneath the harsh lighting. Your hair remained damp from sweat near your temples, and faint bruising had already begun surfacing along one side of your jaw.

Reporters immediately started talking over each other.

Questions about your rise in rankings.

Your record.

Women’s boxing finally drawing larger crowds.

Then one reporter leaned forward slightly.

“Y/N, people are already talking about the staredown before the fight. Your opponent was clearly trying to provoke you, especially after refusing your handshake. Were you angry?”

You adjusted the microphone slightly before answering.

“No.”

The reporter blinked, almost surprised by how matter-of-fact your answer sounded.

“Not at all?”

You shook your head once.

“I don’t really care what people say before a fight.”

“Why not?”

For the first time since the interview had begun, something faintly amused seemed to cross your face.

Not enough to become a smile.

Just enough to soften your expression slightly.

“Because if somebody has something to prove,” you said calmly, “the ring’s there for a reason.”

Soft laughter moved through parts of the room while camera flashes continued going off around you.

Michael lowered the orange juice bottle slowly, eyes still fixed on the television screen.

The room behind you remained noisy with overlapping reporters and constant camera shutters, but you yourself seemed strangely detached from all of it, answering each question with the same measured calm you had carried through the fight. Michael found himself lingering in front of the television even after the interview shifted toward statistics and commentary, waiting almost unconsciously for you to speak again.

You never did.

Eventually the broadcast moved on entirely, cutting back toward analysts replaying highlights from the match while discussing your growing popularity and the unusually strong ratings the fight had apparently pulled in. Michael barely listened to any of it.

Instead, his thoughts kept circling back toward the staredown at the beginning of the match.

The handshake.

The way you had refused to let yourself get dragged into a performance for the cameras even when the entire arena had practically been waiting for you to lose your composure.

Most people in entertainment spent their lives trying desperately to hold attention.

You had somehow managed to command an entire room by refusing to give people anything at all.

That was what stayed with him.

A few hundred miles away, long after the arena had emptied and the cameras finally disappeared, you stood beneath the steaming water of your hotel shower with one hand braced quietly against the tiled wall while exhaustion slowly settled into your body now that the adrenaline had finally begun wearing off.

Your shoulder burned.

Your ribs weren’t much better.

A dark bruise had already started surfacing along the side of your jaw where one of the cleaner punches had landed during the third round, and when you finally glanced toward the fogged-up bathroom mirror afterward, you inspected the swelling with the same detached focus you always gave post-fight injuries.

Nothing serious. Nothing unusual. Just another fight.

Outside the hotel windows, the city still glowed restlessly beneath the night sky, traffic lights flickering endlessly against distant buildings while muffled sounds from the street drifted upward every now and then. Inside the room, however, the silence felt almost disorienting after hours spent beneath arena lights and surrounded by thousands of screaming people.

No reporters trying to dissect every expression on your face.

No crowds calling your name while cameras followed close behind.

No opponent trying to provoke you into becoming entertainment for strangers.

Just quiet.

You changed into an oversized shirt, too tired to care about anything beyond finally getting some sleep, and collapsed onto the bed without even bothering to dry your hair.

Within minutes, exhaustion pulled you under completely.

—

Over the next few weeks, Michael kept running into you everywhere.

At least, that was what it started feeling like.

It began innocently enough. A replay of one of your older matches airing late at night while he worked in the studio again. Then a magazine article left folded open in the living room downstairs that he found himself reading far longer than intended.

Before long, curiosity had quietly turned into active searching.

Which, in 1982, required considerably more effort than simply typing your name somewhere.

One afternoon, Michael sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the television while an old recorded match played from a VHS tape Bill had managed to track down for him through one of the sports broadcasting contacts around Los Angeles. The quality was grainier than the live broadcast he’d first seen, colors slightly washed with age, but it didn’t matter much.

He was too busy watching your footwork again.

“You’re watchin’ boxing now?”

Jackie’s voice came from somewhere behind him, thick with amusement.

Michael barely glanced up. “Mm-hm.”

Jackie laughed almost immediately after realizing what was actually playing on the screen.

“Nah, hold on. Female boxing?”

That finally earned him a look.

Michael reached for the remote and lowered the volume slightly while Jackie wandered further into the room, staring openly at the television with growing confusion.

“What?” Michael muttered defensively. “She’s good.”

Jackie folded his arms, still watching you move around the ring on-screen before slowly turning back toward his brother with an expression that immediately made Michael regret answering at all.

“You got a crush or somethin’?”

Michael scoffed quickly. “No.”

The answer came just a little too fast.

Jackie grinned immediately.

“Oh, you definitely got a crush.”

“I do not.”

“You got tapes and everything!”

Michael instinctively glanced toward the small stack of VHS tapes near the television before immediately looking away again, which only made Jackie laugh harder.

“They’re research,” Michael insisted.

Jackie blinked.

“…Research for what?”

Michael opened his mouth automatically, ready to defend himself again, only to pause when he realized he didn’t actually have a proper explanation prepared.

Jackie burst out laughing.

“Man, you are gone already.”

Michael grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at him without much force, earning another round of laughter before Jackie finally disappeared out of the room still shaking his head.

A few days later, Bill showed up at Hayvenhurst carrying another tape beneath one arm while Michael sat at the piano absentmindedly picking through unfinished melodies.

“Found another one for you,” Bill said casually as he handed it over. “Regional title fight from last year. Interview afterward too.”

Michael looked up immediately.

“Really?”

Bill nodded. “Had to make a few calls for this one. Sports stations don’t exactly keep these things organized.”

Michael took the tape from him almost carefully, already glancing down at the handwritten label across the front.

Bill noticed the growing collection stacked near the television and raised an eyebrow slightly, though he seemed smart enough not to comment on it directly.

Probably because by then, Michael himself had already stopped pretending the interest was casual.

He had started recognizing patterns in the way you fought.

The way exhaustion subtly changed your posture during later rounds.

The small habits you had before matches. Adjusting your wraps, rolling tension from your shoulders, pacing quietly through corners while reporters talked around you.

And strangely enough, the more interviews he watched, the more intrigued he became by the contrast between your public image and the occasional glimpses beneath it.

Because every now and then, usually during moments when you forgot cameras were still rolling, something softer surfaced briefly before disappearing again.

A small smile directed toward one of your trainers off-screen.

A shake of the head after a sarcastic comment somebody made nearby.

Small things most people probably wouldn’t have noticed at all.

Michael noticed them every single time.

Over time, Michael’s curiosity stopped feeling accidental.

At first, he had told himself he was simply interested in the discipline behind boxing, in the same way he admired dancers or musicians who dedicated themselves completely to perfecting their craft. But the more footage Bill managed to track down for him, the more obvious it became that his attention had very little to do with boxing itself.

It was you.

Always you.

He noticed how little your interviews ever revealed despite reporters constantly trying to pry into your private life. Nearly every article written about you seemed to circle around the same frustration: that nobody actually knew anything about you beyond what happened inside the ring.

No public relationships.

No dramatic scandals.

No gossip worth printing.

Even your interviews rarely lasted longer than a few minutes before shifting back toward training, upcoming fights, or women’s boxing itself whenever reporters attempted to push elsewhere.

One interview in particular stayed with Michael longer than most.

The interviewer had asked about your childhood after mentioning rumors about your family struggling financially when you were younger. The question itself had sounded almost opportunistic, as though he expected the audience to be rewarded with some tragic story they could consume.

You had looked at him quietly for a moment before answering.

“My childhood doesn’t really have anything to do with the fight tonight.”

The interviewer laughed awkwardly, clearly still hoping for more.

“But surely people are curious-”

“They’re paying to watch me box,” you interrupted calmly. “Not to hear about my private life.”

Then you had redirected the conversation back toward training camp without another word.

Michael remembered staring at the television afterward with the faintest smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

You never gave people what they wanted from you.

And strangely enough, that only seemed to make people want more.

Eventually, admiration stopped feeling distant enough anymore.

One afternoon, after replaying another interview Bill had brought over earlier that week, Michael finally leaned back against the couch and said what had apparently been building in his head for days.

“I wanna call her.”

Bill looked up from where he sat nearby flipping through paperwork.

“…The boxer?”

Michael frowned slightly. “She got a name, Bill.”

Bill tried –and failed– to hide his amusement.

“Right. Sorry. Y/N.”

Michael ignored the look on his face entirely.

“I just…” He hesitated briefly, trying to explain something he himself didn’t fully understand yet. “I wanna tell her I think she’s great. And that I’m a fan of hers.”

Bill stared at him for another second before nodding slowly. “Alright.”

Actually getting in contact with you turned out to be considerably more difficult than either of them expected.

No direct line.

No public number.

No manager who was willing to casually pass along calls. Not even for Michael Jackson.

Every attempt somehow ended the same way: politely blocked before reaching you at all.

Michael found it oddly frustrating.

And, somehow, completely unsurprising.

“She really doesn’t let anybody in, huh?” Bill muttered one afternoon after another failed attempt through a promoter.

Michael sat curled sideways against the couch watching one of your older interviews play silently on the television.

“No,” he answered quietly, almost sounding amused by it. “She doesn’t.”

And honestly, the more difficult you became to reach, the more determined he found himself growing.

By then, work on the album had intensified enough that most days blurred together completely. The demos were finally finished, recording sessions stretching endlessly between Westlake and Hayvenhurst while discussions about the album title continued almost daily.

Michael still wasn’t entirely sure about Thriller.

Some days he liked it.

Other days he didn’t.

Everything about the project had become bigger than expected, with schedules tightening constantly as producers, executives, choreographers, musicians, and engineers pulled him in different directions from morning until well past midnight.

Which was exactly why Bill looked so confused when Michael abruptly announced he wanted an entire evening cleared a few weeks later.

“You’re cancelling the session?”

“Just movin’ it.”

Bill blinked. “Michael, Quincy’s gonna kill me.”

“He won’t kill you.”

“He might.”

Michael barely looked up while adjusting the baseball cap lower over his curls in front of the mirror.

Your upcoming fight happened to be in California.

Close enough that he could go without attracting too much attention if they were careful.

And despite how absurdly busy he already was, despite rehearsals, recording schedules, interviews, and endless label meetings surrounding the album, he couldn’t stop thinking about seeing you fight in person.

Television suddenly didn’t feel like enough anymore.

The arena was already packed by the time Michael and Bill arrived.

Disguised or not, moving through crowds still required caution. Michael kept his head lowered beneath the cap while large sunglasses and a scarf obscured most of his face, hands shoved into his jacket pockets as Bill guided them carefully toward their seats.

Even then, he could feel people occasionally glancing his way, lingering just a little too long before dismissing the possibility entirely.

Nobody expected Michael Jackson to be sitting at a women’s boxing match.

That alone helped.

The atmosphere inside the arena felt entirely different in person than it did through television speakers. Louder. Rougher. Hotter beneath the overhead lights. The crowd buzzed constantly with overlapping conversations and cigarette smoke lingering heavily through parts of the venue.

Then you entered the arena.

And somehow, despite the noise surrounding you, Michael noticed the exact same thing he had the first night he saw you on television.

You carried yourself like somebody entirely untouched by the spectacle around you.

No dramatic gestures.

No exaggerated confidence for cameras.

Just quiet focus.

The fight itself ended up even more brutal than your previous match.

Your opponent fought defensively from the start, clearly aware of your reputation by then, but it hardly mattered. Michael watched from only a few rows back while you slowly dismantled her round by round with the same relentless precision he had become so fascinated by over the past weeks.

You moved beautifully.

Not beautifully in a delicate sense. Beautifully in the way highly perfected things often were.

Every pivot looked intentional, every counter timed perfectly.

Even your recovery between exchanges carried an odd sort of grace that reminded him painfully of rehearsals, of bodies trained so thoroughly they stopped hesitating altogether.

By the later rounds, Michael realized he wasn’t even pretending to casually watch anymore.

He was completely invested.

When the final bell rang and your hand was raised once again, he felt strangely proud despite the fact that you had absolutely no idea he existed somewhere in the audience.

Backstage access, however, proved significantly harder than getting into the arena itself.

“You realize they’re not just gonna let you walk in there,” Bill muttered while Michael continued watching security near the restricted hallway.

Michael frowned slightly. “I know.”

But he also wasn’t exactly used to hearing no very often.

Especially not after deciding he wanted something.

As soon as Bill had found a staff member and delayed the request, attitudes shifted remarkably fast.

Still, even while being escorted backstage, Michael found himself unexpectedly nervous for the first time all evening.

Because after weeks spent watching you through television screens and grainy VHS recordings, he was finally about to meet you in person.

Backstage felt strangely chaotic compared to the sharp focus of the ring.

People moved constantly through the narrow hallways carrying equipment, towels, paperwork, bottles of water. Trainers shouted over one another somewhere nearby while reporters still lingered around certain corners hoping to squeeze out final comments before fighters disappeared for the night.

And somehow, in the middle of all of it, word had already spread.

Michael Jackson was backstage.

More specifically, Michael Jackson had personally requested to meet you.

Michael could feel the curiosity following him as he and Bill were escorted deeper into the restricted area. A few people tried very hard not to stare and failed completely. Others openly paused mid-conversation to look at him passing through the hallway.

“Can’t believe she got Michael Jackson coming to see her,” someone muttered nearby, not quite quietly enough.

Michael adjusted the sleeves of his jacket slightly, suddenly aware again of the nervous energy sitting uncomfortably beneath his skin.

Which felt ridiculous.

He performed in front of stadiums full of people.

He dealt with executives, interviewers, screaming fans, award shows.

And yet standing outside your dressing room somehow made him more aware of his hands than any of those things ever did.

He kept fiddling with his rings absentmindedly while Bill knocked lightly against the half-open door.

One of your trainers looked up first, confusion flashing briefly across his face before realization hit almost immediately.

“Oh–”

Another person standing nearby physically straightened in surprise.

Michael almost regretted coming for half a second.

Then your voice drifted from somewhere further inside the room.

“It’s fine. Let them in.”

The dressing room itself was quieter than the hallway outside, though traces of the fight still lingered everywhere. Athletic tape, water bottles, towels tossed across chairs, the faint lingering smell of sweat and antiseptic hanging in the warm air.

You sat near one of the mirrors with a small ice pack resting against the side of your jaw, still wearing parts of your fight gear while someone from your team cleaned a cut near your eyebrow.

For the first time since seeing you on television weeks ago, Michael was close enough to notice details cameras had never properly captured.

The faint scattering of freckles across your cheeks.

The slight tiredness around your eyes beneath the harsh dressing room lights.

The way your voice softened almost automatically when one of your trainers leaned over to quietly ask whether your ribs needed additional wrapping before the flight home.

You thanked him gently before finally looking back toward Michael fully.

There was a brief pause.

Not awkward exactly.

More like surprise carefully hidden beneath composure.

Michael suddenly became very aware of how absurd this entire situation probably looked from your perspective.

“Hi,” he said first, offering a small nervous smile. “I’m Michael.”

Bill visibly fought the urge to laugh beside him.

You blinked once before standing carefully from the chair, the ice pack still loosely held in one hand.

“I know.”

Something about the answer made Michael smile a little wider despite himself.

One of the people standing further back in the room looked genuinely stunned.

“You’re a fan?” another trainer asked incredulously, clearly directed toward Michael rather than you.

Michael glanced toward you immediately.

“Yeah,” he answered simply. “Big fan.”

For the first time since he’d entered the room, your composure cracked just slightly into visible surprise.

Not dramatic surprise.

Just enough that he could tell you genuinely hadn’t expected that answer.

“That’s…” You hesitated briefly, clearly trying to process it. “I didn’t think somebody like you would even know who I was.”

Michael shrugged lightly. “I saw one of your fights on TV a few weeks ago.”

“And now he got a whole tape collection,” Bill added helpfully from beside him.

Michael shot him a look.

You actually laughed softly at that. Not loudly, not enough to fully lose your composure, but enough for something warmer to briefly surface beneath your usual guardedness.

“I’m honored,” you said.

And somehow the fact that you said it so calmly felt stranger to Michael than if you’d reacted the way most people usually did around him.

You weren’t nervous.

At least not visibly.

You looked at him the same way you seemed to look at most things: steady, observant, difficult to read.

“I’m a fan too, actually,” you admitted after a moment.

Michael’s eyebrows lifted slightly.

“Yeah?”

You nodded once.

“My brothers used to play Off the Wall constantly when it first came out.” A faint smile touched the corner of your mouth again. “Especially Rock with You. My mom loved that one.”

Michael smiled immediately at that.

“She did?”

“Used to dance around the kitchen to it while cooking.” You glanced downward briefly, almost amused by the memory. “Drove all of us crazy because she’d sing it completely off-key.”

The room laughed softly.

You seemed to realize a second later you’d revealed slightly more personal information than intended because your expression settled back into composure almost immediately afterward.

Still, Michael noticed.

And for some reason, he liked knowing that tiny detail more than he probably should have.

“You mind signing somethin’ for me?” he asked suddenly.

That earned you a visibly surprised look.

“For you?”

Michael nodded seriously.

“You’re really good.” Before you could answer, Bill was already reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket with the efficiency of somebody who had clearly done this hundreds of times before.

You watched in mild disbelief as he produced a marker almost instantly.

“…Does he always carry those around?”

“Pretty much,” Bill answered dryly.

A quiet laugh escaped you at that while you reached down beside your chair, picking up one of your boxing gloves from the bench nearby. The leather was still warm from the fight, the wrist wraps partially hanging loose from where you’d undone them earlier.

“You sure you want this?” you asked while uncapping the marker.

Michael looked at the glove like it was something considerably more valuable than it probably should have been.

“Yeah.”

You signed carefully across the white leather near the wrist before handing it back to him, watching him inspect the signature with an oddly sincere amount of appreciation.

Then you tilted your head slightly.

“Can I get one too?”

Michael blinked. “You want my autograph?”

“You’re Michael Jackson,” you replied matter-of-factly. “It’d be weird if I didn’t.”

Bill instinctively reached into his jacket again before pausing.

“…I don’t actually have an album on me.”

Michael glanced around briefly before his eyes landed on the second glove still resting beside you.

Without missing a beat, he reached for it.

“This okay?”

You looked genuinely amused now. “Sure.”

Bill handed him the marker while several people in the room watched the entire exchange with expressions ranging from entertained to completely bewildered by the surrealness of what they were witnessing.

Michael rested the glove carefully against his knee before signing his name across the leather in smooth black ink, concentrating far more than necessary while doing it.

When he handed it back, your fingers brushed briefly against his.

“Thank you,” you said.

Michael smiled lightly. “Thank you.”

By the time both autographs were exchanged, the atmosphere in the room had relaxed noticeably.

Michael found himself asking questions almost without thinking.

Not celebrity questions. Not interview questions. Actual questions.

“How long do you train before fights?”

You leaned lightly back against the table behind you. “Depends who I’m fighting.”

“But like… every day?”

“Mostly.”

“How long?”

“A few hours minimum.”

Michael frowned slightly, genuinely trying to picture it.

“And your footwork,” he continued. “How long does it take to get that fast?”

You blinked at him.

Not because of the question itself, but because he sounded sincerely invested in the answer.

“A long time,” you admitted. “Years.”

“You practice the same movements over and over?”

“Basically.”

Michael nodded slowly, clearly understanding that concept immediately.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I figured.”

While he spoke, you noticed his hands again.

He kept fidgeting absentmindedly with the rings on his fingers, sleeves shifting just enough every now and then for pale patches of skin near his wrists to briefly show beneath the fabric.

Vitiligo.

You recognized it immediately, though you pretended not to notice.

Something about the constant movement of his hands contrasted strangely with the calmness in his voice, as though nervous energy sat permanently beneath his skin no matter how softly he spoke.

Which surprised you more than anything else that night.

Because this was Michael Jackson.

And yet standing here talking to you, he somehow seemed more nervous than you were.

Eventually, someone from your team quietly reminded you about an upcoming flight, and the conversation finally began slowing naturally.

Michael seemed reluctant to leave despite himself.

“So…” He hesitated slightly before glancing toward you again. “Could I maybe get a number to call you sometime?”

Bill looked upward briefly like he was trying not to smile too obviously.

You studied Michael for another second, perhaps weighing the request more carefully than most people would have expected.

Then, surprisingly:

“Sure.”

Bill already had something to write with ready before either of you could ask.

You took the paper, scribbling the number down quickly before handing it back toward Michael.

Your fingers brushed briefly during the exchange.

And for some deeply irritating reason, Michael felt the contact all the way up his arm.

You extended your hand again properly afterward.

“It was nice meeting you, Michael.”

He looked down at your hand for half a second before taking it.

Your grip was firm from years of training, the rough callouses along your palm catching slightly against his skin in a way that made it immediately obvious how much time you spent fighting, wrapping your hands, hitting bags, living inside gyms. Your hand was warmer than he expected too, despite the lingering coldness from the ice pack you’d been holding earlier.

And somehow the simple handshake sent a strange nervous warmth through him that he couldn’t explain even to himself.

“You too,” he answered quietly.

Then, after the briefest hesitation:

“I’ll call you soon.”

Thank you for reading! it's my first time sharing a fic on tumblr, so I hope I did it right and it gets posted correctly. I would love it if you left comments ❤️ Posted the full story on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85173961/chapters/224908181 -Lila

[urbanfunkchild]

Desire, Reclaimed

Pairing: Michael Jackson x Fem!reader

Summary: Broadway's leading lady. The most famous man in the world. They've argued, they have made up, their bond is still undeniable. Is it make or break?

part 2 of Desire Interrupted

Tags: 18+, romantic! michael, soft, fluff, angst, romantic smut, YES i am capable. still filthy tbh. dangerous/history era, theatre/pop star setting, you are an actress in the 90s, michael is slightly avoidant, mentions of insomnia, time jump

Word Count: 13219+ (it might be more oop)

Author’s Note: I really didn't plan on making a part 2 to DI, but here we are, after y'all blew up my ask box and comments ;) its not perfect, and is much more of a drabble, with some timeline inconsistency (BLEGH I know) but i hope u enjoy it nonetheless. i may delete… this i am still undecided if im honest - dont rlly think it does the original plot justice YIKES ˙◠˙

If you'd to make a request, send me an ask ;)

You woke up first.

The light coming through the bedroom window was the grey of a New York morning after rain — it wasn't quite harsh, more like the gentler kind of sky that allowed you to keep the lights off at home, powered only by the cloud.

This kind of weather made the room look like a photograph someone had taken with an old SLR camera, slightly underexposed. Your bedside lamp was still on from the night before which brought a slight warmth to the otherwise still room.

You had no memory of getting into the bed. You had a vague memory of him carrying you, sometime around three, after the second round, when neither of you had been able to keep your eyes open any longer.

You were warm.

You were warm because Michael was wrapped around you from behind, one of his arms heavy across your waist and one of his legs hooked over yours, and his breath was slow and warm against the back of your neck.

You lay still for a long time. You did not want to move. To risk waking him would mean that he might once again try to leave, clouded by his insecurity.

Instead, you watched the grey light shift on the ceiling and you let yourself feel, properly, what it felt like to wake up with him actually in your life. He wasn't just a side character that reared his head when things needed to get interesting, or propel the plot forward. He was a real, living, breathing, perfect thing you wanted to hold onto forever.

Light.

That was the word for it.

Everything in your body felt lighter. Your shoulders. Your jaw unclenched. You had been carrying what felt like 3 tonnes of anxiety for three months without ever realising you were doing it.

All of it had loosened in the night. You had not understood, until now, how much you had been holding. How much energy it had taken to be the woman who held back, who let him set the pace, who was patient and grown up and careful.

You were not going to be that woman anymore. You would not hold back. Not with him. Not when you had so much to lose.

He shifted behind you. A small sound in his throat, sleepy, contented. His arm tightened briefly around your waist and then went slack again.

He wasn't quite awake yet. You could feel his eyelashes against the nape of your neck, him off in some dream world.

You closed your eyes. You smiled into the pillow.

He stirred properly about twenty minutes later.

You felt him wake up by degrees — first the shift in his breathing, then a small stretch of his arm across you, then a kind of confused pause where you knew he was working out where he was. You waited, happily on him letting it all come back.

His face pressed into the curve of your shoulder.

"Morning," you said.

He made a noise that was not quite a word.

"You alive back there?"

"Mm."

You laughed. You felt him laugh too, a small huff of breath against your skin.

He propped himself up on one elbow behind you. You turned over to face him.

His hair was a complete disaster. It had been wet when you fell asleep and had dried into something that looked like a small animal had been living in it. There was a faint pink mark on his cheekbone where he had been pressed against the rug for an hour before you'd made it to the bed. He blinked at you in the grey light, looking sleepy and rumpled and not at all like the most famous man in the world.

He looked at you for a long minute without saying anything.

Then —

"It's you."

"Hi." You said back, meekly.

He smiled. The real one. One you think you might have only ever seen a rare few times. There wasn't anything hiding behind it anymore.

"You're still here," you said.

"Where would I have gone?"

"I don't know. I half thought I'd wake up and find a note."

"A note." He said, surprised.

"On the kitchen counter. Something polite. Dear Y/N. Thank you for last night. I have several pressing engagements in Geneva."

He laughed, a loud, achingly cute cackle. He buried his face in the pillow next to yours after realising how loud he was.

"Geneva." He mumbled.

"It very well could have happened, knowing your crazy schedule."

"I don't even know where Geneva is."

"It's in Switzerland, Michael."

"Okay, well I do know where Switzerland is."

He turned his face back toward you.

The look on his face reminded you of the first dinner you had. It had only been a few months back, but everything just felt so different. You felt like you had known him in all of the alternate universes.

He reached out and brushed a strand of your hair out of your face. His hand stayed at your jaw afterward. He just held it there for a moment.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. Quiet and caring.

You thought about it.

"Lighter," you said. "I feel really light."

He nodded slowly.

"Me too."

There was a beat.

"I was so tired," he said. "I didn't know how tired I was until I flopped into your comfy bed."

"I know."

"I've been carrying this for so long. I don't know how long. Years, maybe. Just a genuine disbelief that anything romantic could ever work out for me"

"I know, love."

The word came out before you knew you were going to say it. You had never called him that before. Not in the time you had spent together You had been so careful with the names you used for him, so professional about it — Michael. It felt almost too formal now.

He didn't say anything. But you saw his eyes change. Soft and surprised and a little wet.

You watched him take the word and hold it.

Then he leaned over, and kissed you. Slow. Lazy. A morning kiss.

He tasted like sleep.

His mouth was warm and unhurried and there was no urgency in him, none of the desperation of last night, just a man kissing a woman, not allowing preconceived false truths to hold him back.

When he pulled back, he pressed his forehead against yours.

"I want to make you breakfast," he said.

"Do you cook?"

"I cook a… little."

"How little?"

He looked at you, eyes serious, still very close. You could see his smile lines, his eyes bare, no eyeliner, no makeup at all really. He was gorgeous  his skin patchy in areas, but it felt a little like looking at constellations.

"I can make toast."

"That is not cooking, Michael." You stated, matter of factly.

"I have a range of toast techniques."

You couldn't help but cackle now. You threw your head back, completely unguarded. He looked so genuinely pleased with himself for the joke.

"Alright," you recovered. "Show me your range, Jackson."

₊˚°⊹˚

Your kitchen, in the daylight, looked exactly like what it was; a small, gritty New York apartment kitchen that had been chosen by a single woman in her early thirties, who did most of her serious eating at the restaurants other people took her to.

There was a kettle, and an old vintage toaster; a loaf of sourdough on the counter from the bakery on the corner, which you bought every Sunday and which lasted you until Thursday; you mostly ate it as toast at 3am when the adrenaline from the show was haunting you.

It sat lamely beside your fruit bowl, that looked like it belonged in a sad conceptual painting hung in a museum.

He stood in the middle of your kitchen in a pair of his boxer shorts and the undershirt he had been wearing last night, hands on his hips. He surveyed your countertop like a man planning an expedition.

"Right," he said. "Toast."

He whipped his head around to you as you hovered in the doorway.

"Do you have butter?"

"I have butter, in the refrigerator."

"Do you have jam?"

"I might have jam."

"Then we are well within my range, m'lady."

You sat down at your kitchen table in his dress shirt — the one from the night before, the white one, which you had pulled on while he was still asleep and which came halfway down your thighs — and you watched him.

He was so focused on the toast.

"Michael."

"Mm."

"You can walk away. It'll pop up when it's done."

"I prefer to monitor the cooking situation."

You just eyed him, unsure that toasting bread could be labelled 'cooking'.

"I have had bad experiences." He finally said, breaking the brief pause.

"With toast?"

He turned around and grinned at you, clearly not wishing to elaborate.

It was a cheeky and boyish look.

The toaster popped.

His face did something complicated.

"It's a bit dark," he said.

You got up and then looked into the toaster.

The toast was quite literally jet black.

Not lightly browned, or slightly singed like some folks liked. Black. Like coal. There was a faint wisp of smoke coming off it.

You pressed your hand to your mouth.

"Michael."

"I genuinely thought I had this in me!"

"It is on fire."

"It is not on fire."

"It was on fire, look at it."

He was laughing now, leaning on the counter with his hand over his eyes. It was coming from somewhere deep.

You had not heard him laugh like this before. You had heard the small relieved laugh in passing, and the soft, slightly cracked laugh on the phone. You had noticed around a month in that he faked so many aspects of himself, to fit in, to be like everyone else. You loved that now after your admissions to each other, and the unraveling of your feelings for each other – he was ready to bare the truth to you.

He reached for you and pulled you into him by your waist. You leaned your face on his chest, you were much shorter, so you could hear the beat of his heart from this angle. He was warm, and smelled a little like expensive aftershave and rain.

He kissed the top of your head.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm going to do better. I'm going to make you better food than this."

"You have a lifetime to redeem yourself, Michael."

He went very still.

You realised what you had said about half a second after you had said it.

You looked up at him.

He was looking down at you. His eyes were enormous.

"A lifetime," he said. Quietly.

"That came out before I —"

"No," he said. "No. Don't take it back. Don't take that one back."

You looked at him for a long minute.

"Okay," you said. "I won't."

He cupped your face with both hands. He kissed you, very gently, on the forehead. Then on the bridge of your nose. Then on your mouth.

You stood in your kitchen in your bare feet, in his shirt with his arms around you and the burnt toast still smoking faintly on the counter beside you, and you thought, this is the rest of my life. This is what the rest of my life looks like. This man, with his questionable cooking skills and boyish charm.

Later in the day, after hanging around the apartment, dancing to the radio and cleaning up the mess left in the wake of heated intimacy, you finally managed to witness him cook. Well, sort of.

The slice of bread had survived Michael's wrath.

He buttered it, put jam on it and then lovingly cut it into triangles, which charmed you completely.

He set the plate down in front of you with the kind of ceremony usually reserved for a state dinner.

"My masterpiece," he said.

"Michael."

"Eat it before it gets cold."

You shovelled the toast down, realising you had not eaten since lunch the day prior.

It was lukewarm, basically like heated up bread, soft in the middle. There was entirely too much jam on it, and it was the best piece of toast you had ever eaten in your life.

₊˚°⊹˚

He had to go.

Not back to LA; not yet. To his hotel, where his people were, where Wayne, his assistant was no doubt already trying to work out where his boss had spent the night.

He stood in your doorway in his ruined suit from last night with the buttons missing on the shirt you had just been wearing, and his hair still wild and he looked, somehow, more like Michael Jackson now than he had at any point during the previous twelve hours.

The world was already pulling him back. You could see it in the way he was bracing himself to walk out into it.

You straightened his collar.

"When do you have to leave the city?"

"Friday."

"Will you let me see you tonight? After your show?"

"Of course."

"And tomorrow?"

"And tomorrow."

"And the night after that? And then whenever we possibly can?"

You smiled at him. "Yes, Michael."

He kissed you, hard. He kissed you like he was trying to memorise it, the rhythm and the feeling of it.

He was feverish; a man who had spent the entire morning being given beautiful experiences he had not believed he was allowed to want and was still in disbelief about every single one of them.

He had the domestic bliss he'd always hoped for, from a lover. Finally able to have what most people took for granted on a daily basis. The space to not be the version of himself that was strung along in narrative by the press.

He pulled back.

"I'll call Frank," he said. "I'll have him pick you up at the stage door tonight."

"Okay."

"And Y/N —"

"Yes."

His eyes were so warm, his smile creating squishible cheeks and smile lines.

"Thank you for giving me a second chance," he said.

"I am glad I answered the door."

He kissed your forehead one more time. Then, he went off into the bustling city.

You closed the door behind him and stood with your back against it for a long time.

Your mind was racing a million miles an hour – so much had whizzed right past you.

It was a feeling; an instinctual gut reaction, that this was going to work out and be so worth the agony and all the questioning and the missed opportunities.

The situation before felt like you were both constantly facing each other across a busy road, not able to cross over because there was whizzing traffic; the threat of moving closer was too much.

You knew deep down that you were no longer going to feel alone like you had previously, not with Michael.

You went back to bed for an hour. You curled up on his side of the mattress, where the sheet still smelled faintly of him, and you slept properly for the first time in months, no more residual adrenaline to stop it.

₊˚°⊹˚

Three weeks went past in a blur.

He came to your show on the Wednesday after the morning of the burnt toast. And the Thursday. He flew back to LA on the Friday morning and called you that night, and then he was back in New York the following weekend, and the weekend after that, and at some point in the middle of the second week you stopped counting the flights and just started expecting his presence.

He stayed at your apartment. Not at the hotel anymore. The hotel had become a problem; your address was easier to keep quiet than a known suite at the Pierre — so Wayne quietly cancelled the booking and Michael's overnight bag took up residence in the corner of your bedroom. You found his toothbrush in the cup beside yours one morning and stood staring at it for a full minute. A crazy concept to have moved in with the most prolific person you'd met in your life.

He bought you a coffee machine. A proper one, the kind that ground the beans, because he had decided very seriously that the coffee press was not enough for you, when you worked such irregular hours. He didn't even like coffee.

He installed it himself, on the counter, looking very pleased with himself about the whole project. You came home from a Saturday matinee to find him reading the manual on your kitchen floor in his cute white socks and a Disney World sweater. His hair soft and unstyled.

You did not tell anyone about your relationship thus far. Sandra knew, obviously — Sandra had known the afternoon after you'd slept together for the first time, because Sandra had a good eye and knew when you were hiding something.

You and Michael had agreed that, mutually, nothing about the relationship was going public until you were both ready. Which was fine. It was preferable. You had a Tony nomination to do press for. He had an album to finish off. There was no part of either of you that wanted to poke the bear, but it had to be done at some point.

You wanted it off of your chest, so you could just start living your life. You felt anxiety at the press knowing you were “hiding” it, knowing that they would then make up some sort of elaborate story as to why that was the case.

The Tonys were the first time he was going to be seen in public with you and it made you feel sick with nerves. Mostly for him, as people had been so cruel to him throughout his life for no apparent reason.

It made you sad to read the tabloids on a daily basis extort his name and person for money. It was like vultures sweeping down and ripping more and more from a dead animal.

Michal always said he’d fine love in his heart to forgive them one day, but you could not find that grace deep down.

Your life had been sheltered for the most part — your parents had normal 9-5 jobs in the city, as you grew up there. You were the anomaly of the family, but it was nothing like the fishbowl Michael endured.

You wanted him to be able to feel validation from whatever the press were going to run the next day after the announcement.

You wanted them to see you weren’t just another girl he was closely associated.

Not as a friend. As his, loving and genuinely adoring date. You’d show them by just being in his presence how much you cared for him. and secretly you hoped that they’d just back off, understanding how that there is limited stories they could run now about Michael fathering 15 different children to 15 different mothers; or that he was gay, or even that he was an asexual aliens. It was foul what they did do him.

You'd had the conversation about it on a Tuesday, lying in bed at six in the morning before he had to leave for his car to the airport. He had said

“I want to come with you. I want to be there with you. I don't care what the papers do”

You had said “are you sure about this?”

He had said “I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”

So Michael's team briefed yours, and the publicists on either team briefed each other. It was all a bit overwhelming, all just to get fitted for outfits that sort of matched.

Michael hired a designer you had never even heard of, to pick out your looks. You'd been in the limelight, in the acting world for quite a few years, but had never had the opportunity to delve into high fashion.

You did three fittings. You went with the baby blue one in the end. Floor length, slim, structured at the shoulders. Michael's stylist had brought it as a backup to the first that the designer had chosen that you were not entirely sold on, and knowing your feelings on it; then quietly moved it to the front of the rail.

The morning of the Tony's had you viciously anxious. You had about 3 espresso's using the new coffee machine, and once again found yourself staring at the kitchen wall. You were trying to make sense of your brain  wrestling with the thought that you might not win this award, and it could be utterly devastating considering how much blood, sweat and tears went into Blanche daily.

Michael had been at the studio early morning, to lay down vocals on a new song he was very excited about. He couldn't sleep the whole previous night, as he said he'd lose the beat if he didn't get it on tape, you didn't have a tape recorder laying around, so he flew out the door toward the nearest studio his assistant could find that would let him in for a session.

He came back after it in a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses, the way he travelled when he didn't want to be photographed, and he kissed you in the hallway in your apartment on the way to the shower and told you he was sorry he left you so abruptly

"You're nervous, Y/N."

"I'm so nervous."

"Never seen you like this. Just pretend everyone is naked, like I do."

"Michael. You perform in stadiums. That's literally thousands and thousands of naked people, and honestly quite disturbing."

"MM yeah, maybe not the greatest thing to say aloud. This is —" he gestured vaguely at the air around the two of you "this feels so good. To support each other. I am going to be there to hold your hand and dissipate the nerves."

You just smiled shyly, thinking yeah, this is so very real now.

You spent the morning together. You ate eggs that he made after he showered — he had graduated from toast — and you switched from coffee to fresh orange juice, and you ran through the order of the night with him at the table. The carpet. The seating. The category. The afterparty. He listened to all of it with the slightly a slightly nervous attention. He wanted to do everything right for you.

At one in the afternoon, Wayne came with the clothes, the stylist by his side.

You spent the next four hours getting ready.

₊˚°⊹˚

Sandra came over at three. Hair and makeup were in your living room by four. By five you were in the dress and your hair was up and your makeup was done and you were standing in front of the long mirror in your bedroom looking at a version of yourself you almost didn't recognise.

Sandra came to stand behind you. She put her hands on your shoulders.

"Baby."

"Mm."

"You're going to win."

"Sandra, don't jinx it"

"I'm saying it, because I can see it."

"Ughh." You covered your face with your hands in anxious agony.

"I'm not going to jinx anything. You're going to win and you're going to walk up there in that dress and you're going to thank me by name of course." She squeezed your shoulders, jokingly, looking at you through the mirror at the vanity.

"And then you're going to come down off that stage and find your boy and you're going to kiss him on national television."

"I am not kissing him on national television, he might freak out"

"I have a good read on Michael, and I think he'd welcome it."

"Sandra."

She grinned at you in the mirror. "I'm just saying."

You laughed. You couldn't help it. You felt your nerves crack open slightly under the weight of her looking at you like that.

She straightened the strap on your dress. She picked an invisible piece of fluff off your shoulder. She kissed the back of your hair very gently and then she left to get herself ready, and you stood alone in the bedroom for a moment, looking at the woman in the mirror.

You had spent eighteen months becoming Blanche. You knew in your bones that the performance and the wider team around it, deserved the win of this award.

₊˚°⊹˚

Frank pulled up at the kerb of Radio City at six twenty.

You could hear the carpet before you could see it. The roar of the crowd. The bursts of sound when a famous name was announced down the line. The high whine of camera flashes somewhere further up the street.

Michael looked over at you, fondly.

"Ready?"

"As I will ever be. Are you?" You asked, you whole body vibrating with nerves.

"No. I always get nervous at these things, even if I have been doing it for 20 odd years,"

"Let's go anyway." He said with finality.

He squeezed your hand. He let it go. He got out of the car first.

The crowd at the far end of the carpet noticed him before the photographers did. A wave of sound moved down the line as people clocked who had just stepped onto the kerb — a low rolling oh that broke into a proper roar by the time the photographers caught up and the flashes started.

He did not look at the cameras.

He turned. He held his hand out for you.

You took it.

You stepped out of the car in the baby blue dress with your hand in his, and the entire press line completely lost their minds.

The flashes were physical. You felt them in your chest. You smiled — the trained smile, the one you had been practising in fittings — and you let him guide you into the position the publicist had marked for you, and you stood with him at the start of the carpet and let them take their first photograph.

Then he leaned in slightly, very close, his lips almost at your ear, and said — you are doing so well, my love.

You felt every muscle in your shoulders drop an inch.

You walked the carpet with shaking, aching legs.

He kept hold of your hand the entire way. He did not let go. Even thought the press were shouting at him 'Michael turn to us, look over here', even when the designer's lead talent escort tried to gently separate you for the solo shots the team had requested — you shook your head at her, smiling, and she got the message in about half a second and waved the photographers off, and the two of you walked the rest of the carpet with your hands locked together.

A reporter shouted from the line — how long have you two been together?

You felt Michael glance at you. You answered for him.

"None of your business." You laughed nervously, your eyes trying to adjust to how bright it had been.

The reporter laughed. Several reporters laughed. Michael leaned in slightly, under the noise, his mouth right at your ear again, and said — that's my girl.

Goosebumps raised on your skin, his voice had been sultry.

You did not know your face was capable of going as warm as it went in that second.

Another reporter, further down the line — Michael, can we get a comment from you?

He turned. He didn't let go of your hand. He gave a toothy smile  genuinely seeming happy and content.

"She's extraordinary," he said. "She was extraordinary the first night I saw her on stage and she has been extraordinary every day since. I'm just glad I get to walk in with her tonight."

The press line went silent for a half second. You felt it. The collective intake of breath at his brutally honest statement.

Then the flashes started up twice as fast.

He squeezed your hand 3 times and started leading you to the entrance.

₊˚°⊹˚

The ceremony went past in a blur.

You sat with Michael's hand on your thigh under the table for the first five categories. The weight of it was the only thing keeping you grounded on earth and breathing.

When your category came up, you stopped being able to hear properly.

The whole room went slightly underwater. You watched the presenter walk out and you watched her open the envelope and you felt Michael's hand tighten around yours and you knew, in the half second before she said it, that you were not going to remember this moment afterward except in pieces.

She said your name.

The room exploded.

You turned to Michael first  He was beaming, so earnestly proud of you, his eyes a little wet. He'd truly believed in your performance and you were so grateful it brought you together.

He nodded at you, frantically, and pushed you very gently toward the aisle.

"Go, baby. Go."

You don't remember the walk.

You remember the lights, though and squinting to make your way through the sea of tables to try to get to the stage.

You remember the weight of the trophy once they put it in your hand.

the presenter kissing your cheek and whispering I am so proud of you like she had been waiting all night to say it.

You stepped up to the microphone.

You looked out into the dark room, a lump in your throat and finally thought, despite all of your insane insecurity; tears shed after shows, the nightmares you would wake from that were centered around fumbling lines and misrepresenting a dear to all character, your lack of sleep, your borderline unhealthy relationship to food, it was all just worth it. All in that one moment your name had been uttered.

You had written a speech three different times. You had folded the most recent version into the small clutch at your table, but in the midst of the frenzy. You did not, in this moment, remember a single word of it and maybe talking more from the heart was better, anyway.

You thanked Greg. You thanked the production. You thanked your director, who you could just make out in the third row, and who had taught you that Blanche was not a tragedy but a woman of multitudes, a groundbreaking look into mental health and playing it had been a great honour. You thanked Daniel by name, properly, generously, for however many weeks of carrying you across a stage, or screaming and shouting at you with the kind of trust most actors never got to have with a scene partner. You watched him stand up in the audience and put his hand over his heart.

You thanked Sandra. You thanked her by name like you had promised her you would. You said she had been the woman behind every single show of yours for the last six years and that no version of you on any stage in any city existed without her. Your hair would simply not survive without her and neither would your heart.

The camera cut to her in the audience. She was already weeping into her napkin.

And then you paused.

You looked into the dark.

You looked toward where you knew he was sitting.

"And to a special man, who knows exactly who he is" you said. "Who has fueled my passion tenfold. Thank you. I turned a corner with my character 'Blanche' when I met you. I was a more, fully realised version of myself the moment you appeared. I love you."

The audience had been so still, hanging onto every single word you articulated, just like in the play. You could hear, somewhere in the dark, a woman saying oh very softly into her hand.

The camera cut to him, it seemed everyone had followed your eyeline.

You did not see it at the time. He had both hands over his mouth, hiding his gorgeous smile, like he did when he was nervous. Tears brimming in his eyes at the thought of being loved on this scale.

You stepped back from the microphone.

You held the trophy up.

The audience rose to cheer you on.

₊˚°⊹˚

Backstage was chaos.

Press. Photographers. Producers. A woman with a clipboard and headset trying to walk you to the official photography room. Sandra somewhere behind you, still buzzing, holding your clutch like a small animal she was responsible for.

You just wanted Michael.

The clipboard woman walked you through the photo line. She walked you through each of your marks, the press shot you on backdrops with the trophy heavy in your small hands.

After, she walked you toward the press room and you scanned every corridor as you went, because you wanted him, you wanted him, you wanted to see his face.

You came around a corner and he was there.

He was standing in a quiet area between the press room and the green room. Bill at the far end lingering, clearly concerned that Michael would be swarmed at some point. The clipboard woman, to her credit, took one look at his face and quietly disappeared.

He pushed off the wall and you ran to him, to completely surrender.

He caught you. He picked you up off the floor, both his arms under yours, and he spun you once and set you down and pressed his forehead against yours and he was shaking.

"I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I am so proud of you, baby —"

You couldn't speak.

He pulled back to look at you. His eyes were red. His mouth was open slightly.

"You said it."

"I said it."

"On national television," He said, "what a way to tell the world."

He laughed — a surprised, completely unhinged laugh — and then he kissed you. There, in the corridor backstage at Radio City, with the trophy still in your hand and the press room thirty feet away and the entirety of the Broadway industry about to come looking for you.

He kissed you, strong hands on either side of your cheeks. Strong, true and so honest.

When he pulled back, his thumb brushed the tear that had finally escaped onto all your makeup artist's hard work.

"I love you too," he said. "I know I don't say it too often due to my nerves. But, I think I have since I saw the curtain come up on that third performance of Streetcar."

₊˚°⊹˚

Streetcar closed in the September. You did not extend.

You signed on for a new play in October — a small, hard, brilliant thing at the Public, written by a woman you had admired since drama school. Rehearsals started in November. You found yourself, for the first time in your career, in a production where the press junket was kind to you. nobody asked you about what you were eating, or who you were dating, or your work out routine to stay skinny. It was a relief like no other to focus on the art, and only the art

He went back on tour in January.

Europe. South America. Then Asia. You knew the schedule by heart because Wayne had given you a printed copy and because Michael had pinned it to the inside of your kitchen cabinet so you could see it every time you went to get sugar for a coffee, which was a lot, admittedly.

You spoke every day. You spoke twice a day on the good days. He flew you out to Berlin for a long weekend in February for a date night at a premiere of an indie movie he’d been invited to and to Paris for two nights in March to just celebrate your relationship. How in love you were. Michael liked very much to be out of the limelight when he could, to keep some semblance of normalcy in his private life, but sometimes he would just become Michael Jackson in order to get something for you. And in the Paris situation - he was able to shut down the entire Eiffel Tower for you during the day, so you both could have a picnic at the top of it. Picnics were his favorite.

There were so many moments that you started to see the want to be a pop star diminish and unfurl. Like it just wasn’t worth it to him anymore. The arguments in the press with his siblings, the accusations, the settlements for large sums of money. It continued to greedily steel from his life force. You stuck around regardless, fighting every battle you could for him.

You stood in the wings of his stadium shows in a small private viewing area and watched him become the other version of himself time after time, despite illness or fatigue and you understood, properly, for the first time, what he had been protecting you from for so long.

He was tired. Oh so tired. A life of trauma and extreme wear on the body was showing. Maybe not to fans but…

You could see it. He hid it well — he hid most things well — but you had been watching him for nearly a year now and you knew his face better than anyone alive except his mother, and you knew, in a matter of months, that he was going to be running on fumes, and not enjoying it as he couldn’t be “perfect” anymore.

You told him to take a break.

He told you he was fine and that he needed to change the world.

You told him to take a break anyway.

₊˚°⊹˚

The London leg of the Dangerous tour started in July '93.

It was the eightweek leg. Two stadium shows at Wembley, then a break, then a press cycle for the album, then more shows. You'd ironically seen photos of him sold to the New York times, on the stands in the streets as you walked to the theatre you worked at daily; he looked very slim, his skin very pale and he just looked unbelievably over it.

He had been in London for ten days before it happened.

The call came at five past 3 in the morning, your time.

You picked up on the second ring. You had trained yourself – out of panic mostly – to not let the phone ring out, because when it rung, it was usually him.

"Baby."

His voice was wrong.

You sat up in bed.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry."

"What's wrong, Michael."

"I'm sorry I'm calling you. I promised to myself I wouldn't let you see me falter, so you'd think I was strong for the both of us. I —"

He was crying.

He was crying a lot. You could hear it through the line, the unsteady catch of his breath, the small choked sound at the end of every word.

You turned the lamp on. You put your feet on the floor.

"Hey. Hey. Baby. I'm here. Just talk to me."

"I haven't slept."

"For how long, my love."

"I don't know. Four nights. Maybe five. I keep — I keep getting into the bed and I lie there and the second I close my eyes my brain just starts. It just starts and it doesn't stop. I can't get it to stop."

"What's it doing? Tell me what it's doing."

He took a ragged breath.

"The British papers have been awful. The whole week. There's a piece in one of them today about — about my face. Again. About the way I look. They've put it on the front. There's a doctor they've interviewed. He's never met me. He's never been in a room with me. He's making things up about me and they printed it like it's news."

You closed your eyes.

"Oh, baby."

"I shouldn't have read it. I know I shouldn't have. Bill told me not to. Wayne told me not to. They keep the papers out of my room every morning but somebody left it in the green room before the radio thing and I just — I saw it. I picked it up. I read the whole thing."

"Michael —"

"They do this every couple of years. I know. I know they do. I know it's a cycle. I know to expect it. It's just — this week it has been every single day. There's been something every single day. And I cannot — I cannot get my brain to stop reading it back to me when I try to sleep. It just plays. Over and over. Like a record."

You stood up.

You walked to the window in your bare feet. You pulled the curtain back. Manhattan was asleep beneath you. The lights of the Empire State Building were off for the night. The sky over the river was the early kind of dark that was already thinking about morning.

"How long since you slept properly?" you asked. Voice barely above a whisper.

"Properly?"

"Properly, Michael."

A long pause.

"I don't know. A while."

"Before the tour?"

"Maybe."

"Baby."

"I know."

"You have been running on nothing for four months."

"I know. I know I have."

You pressed your forehead against the cold glass of the window.

"What does your body feel like right now?" you asked.

A small, surprised laugh through the tears.

"Why."

"Because I want to know. Tell me."

"My hands keep going numb. The last show, the third song, I couldn't feel my hands properly for about a minute and a half. I played the rest of the show worrying I was going to drop the mic. My — my chest feels strange. It has done for a few days. Not bad. Just — present. Like I can feel my heart all the time. I cannot get warm. The hotel is warm. The bath is warm. I cannot get warm."

"Michael."

"I know."

"You need a doctor."

"I have a doctor."

"You need to call him."

"I'll see how I feel tomorrow morning."

"Now."

"Y/N —"

"Tonight, or this morning, or whatever fucking time it is there Michael. Whatever time it is there. Call him. Wake him up. I don't care."

"Y/N. I cannot — I cannot do that to him, he may be with other clie—"

"Then I will call him."

There was a small silence.

"You don't have his number," he said.

"Wayne has his number. Wayne will give it to me."

"Y/N."

"Michael."

He was quiet for a long moment.

"I love you," he said. Quiet. Wrecked.

"I love you too. Now stay on the phone with me while I figure this out."

So he stayed on the phone.

You did not call the doctor. You called Wayne. Wayne called the doctor. The doctor was at the Dorchester within forty minutes — a man Michael had known for years, who was used to being called in the small hours. He asked all the right questions and gave Michael something mild to help him sleep and told him, very firmly, that the next two days were going to be rest, full stop, no negotiation.

You stayed on the phone for the whole thing.

"Are you still there?" he asked quietly.

"I'm still here."

"Of course I am."

"I'm sorry I'm a mess."

"Stop apologising."

"I —"

"Michael. Stop."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Tell me something normal," he said. "Tell me about today. Tell me about anything that isn't this."

So you did.

You sat on the floor by the window with the phone in your hand as you'd yanked it off of the nightstand and were tangled in the wires trying to take it around the room with you. you talked to him about nothing in particular.

You told him about the second act of the play you were working on, one of the scenes was physically demanding.

You told him about the woman in the bakery downstairs who had started giving you extra helpings of the sourdough bread for free, because she knew you liked it. You told him about a dream you had three nights ago about a house with a yellow door that you couldn't remember the rest of, just the door, which had bothered you for two days because you thought you recognised it from somewhere but couldn't for the life of you figure out where from.

You heard his breathing change.

You kept talking, quieter, because you knew he was right at the edge of sleep and you did not want to startle him out of it. You told him about a song you had heard on the radio that had reminded you of him. You told him you had passed a bookshop in the Village yesterday and seen a book in the window he would have liked about claymation film techniques. You told him you loved him.

He made a small sound. Almost a word.

You waited.

His breathing slowed properly.

You listened to him sleep on the phone for almost twenty minutes before you allowed yourself to hang up.

You did not go back to bed.

You stayed where you were on the floor by the window. You let the light come up over the river. You watched the sky turn from dark blue to grey to the soft pink of an early summer morning in Manhattan, and somewhere in there, you made the decision.

You called Wayne again at 5am.

"Wayne."

"Miss."

"I need a flight to London. As soon as possible. Today."

There was a beat.

"What time, miss?"

"Whenever you can get me on something. Heathrow. First class, economy, the airline doesn't matter."

"Understood, Miss. And to speak plainly, he really needs you."

You couldn't even muster a response to that as it broke your heart.

"And Wayne – ."

"Yes, Miss."

"Don't tell him. Please. Don't tell anyone in his camp other than Bill. I want to surprise him."

"Understood, Miss."

"Thank you."

You hung up. You sat on the floor for another minute. You looked at the sky over the river.

Then you got up. You went to the closet. You started to pack.

₊˚°⊹˚

You landed at Heathrow at twenty past ten in the evening, London time.

You had slept on the plane in short pockets. You had spent most of the flight reading but you weren't really absorbing, you probably read the same paragraph of a novel over and over.

You gave up halfway and instead just stared out at the dark Atlantic for the rest of the flight, thinking of him. Thinking of how mad the director of your play was going to be when he realised that you were going to be out and that the star of his show was replaced by an understudy for however long it took to get Michael better.

A driver was waiting at the gate. Wayne had arranged it without Michael knowing. The driver took your bag. He drove you into the city. The Dorchester was on Park Lane and the trees in Hyde Park were full and dark against the streetlights as you came up Knightsbridge in the back of the car.

The doorman knew who you were. He had clearly been briefed. He nodded at you and waved you through without making a fuss, and the night manager met you in the lobby and walked you to the lift personally, and you went up to the top floor of the Dorchester at half past eleven at night with a small bag in your hand and your heart in your throat.

The lift opened.

The Harlequin Suite was at the end of the corridor.

You walked toward the door.

You knocked.

There was a pause. A long one. You could hear footsteps inside.

The door opened.

Michael was in pyjama bottoms and an old white tshirt. His hair was loose. His face was pale, blotchy and tired. His brown eyes were puffy and he was holding a book in one hand, his finger marking the page, and when he saw you standing in the corridor at the door of his hotel suite, his face contorted into joy, whatever of it he had left.

He did not speak. He could not.

You set your bag down on the carpet.

He pulled you into him by the front of your coat. He buried his face in your shoulder. He made a sound that was barely a sound at all — a small, broken release of breath, the sound a person made when something they had been holding for too long and their body could not hold it anymore.

He cried into your neck. The book fell out of his hand and onto the carpet behind him.

You let him cry. You stroked the back of his hair, waiting patiently for him to release you.

When he could speak, he pulled back. He looked at you. His eyes were filled to the brim with sorrow. His eyes never lied to you.

He looked at you like he could not believe you were standing there. Like he had not allowed himself to even consider that you might come.

"How are you here?"

"Frank booked the flight at like six this morning, my time."

"Y/N —"

"You needed me here."

"You crossed an ocean – what about your play?"

"I would cross a hundred of them, Michael if it meant I could make sure you were okay."

He just looked at you. You reached up. You put your hand on the side of his face. You held it there.

"I'm here," you said. "I am here. We are going to figure this out. We are going to figure out how to do this — all of it. The tabloid stuff and the tour. We are going to figure it out together – how to get you into a good mental place. I am not going anywhere. Not now, not ever. I don't care if I need to quit the play – I want you to be okay."

He nodded solemnly.

You pulled him back in. You held him in the doorway of his suite at the Dorchester until he stopped shaking.

₊˚°⊹˚

You did not leave the suite for two days.

Wayne quietly moved the album press around. Bill kept people away so that he could rest. The London leg paused for fortyeight hours and nobody in the press caught wind of why, because Frank, Wayne, Bill and Michael's team were good at what they did, and because Michael had spent twenty years building this team that knew him intrinsically. He rarely took time for himself and so when he did, they honoured it completely.

You ordered room service. You watched television with him. You sat on the balcony of the suite and looked out over Hyde Park in the rain and held his hand. You went for a walk together very late at night, around two in the morning, when there was nobody about, and he wore a baseball cap pulled low and you walked the length of Park Lane in silence with your arm through his. You spoke of cartoons, and dreams of his that weren't fully realised yet. You told him you'd been scribbling ideas down for a new play.

He apologised, on and off, for the first few days you were there. You told him to stop apologising. He apologised for apologising. You hated how broken he looked. How much the external teams pushed him, just complete disregard to his health.

The doctor came back on the third morning. He sat with Michael in the suite for an hour. He spoke to him gently. You couldn't make out a lot of it, but you hoped it would be okay.

He spoke to you afterward. He told you, very plainly, what you already knew — that Michael had been running on empty for a long time, that the sleep was the urgent thing, that the tour management was going to have to be looked at properly to figure out why this kept happening. Why the scheduling was so tight.

It was not normal for a person to travel and exert themselves so much as he did.

The doctor left a prescription and his number written down. He shook your hand at the door and said thank you for being here.

You closed the door and you cried for a few minutes in the bathroom and then you went back out and got into bed beside Michael and watched a film with him until he fell asleep on your shoulder.

By the fifth evening together, he was sleeping properly.

He fell asleep with his head on your stomach on the sofa in the suite, with a movie playing on the television neither of you were watching. You read a book over the top of his head and you ran your fingers through his hair and you felt him breathing slow and steady against your ribs.

You looked at him there.

This was what mine, properly meant. Caring even when things felt like they were never looking up. Even when it affected your life.

You leaned down. You kissed the top of his head, willing all of his pain to diminish.

₊˚°⊹˚

Day six was different.

Michael slept for fourteen hours. You woke at some point in the middle of it and watched him for a long minute, struck by the way grown men only really look like boys again when they are properly asleep — face turned into the pillow, one hand curled loosely against his jaw, the line between his eyebrows finally smooth.

The room was full of the grey light a London morning could offer. It could not decide whether to rain or not, and somewhere in the city a church bell was ringing the hour.

You let him sleep, ordered tea and read for two hours by the window.

When he finally stirred, just past eleven, the first thing he said was —

"I am extremely hungry."

You laughed.

"What do you want?"

"Everything."

"Be specific."

He rolled onto his back and considered the ceiling.

"Pancakes. The tallest pancakes they have. And toast with jam, please"

You picked up the phone on the nightstand and ordered the kind of breakfast that would have fed a small wedding. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, two pots of coffee in case one of them was wrong, a stack of toast, a small pot of marmalade because he had once mentioned, in passing, that he liked English marmalade and of course, the Jam.

The man on the other end of the line did not flinch.

A waiter arrived twenty minutes later with a trolley so elaborate it had its own subtle suspension system. He set the table by the window with the practised, eyesdown discretion of a man who had served stranger people in this suite than the two of you, and he was gone before you had finished saying thank you.

Michael came out of the bathroom in his red plaid pyjama bottoms and the same old white tshirt, his hair damp at the temples where he had splashed his face. He took one look at the trolley and stopped.

"Y/N."

"Mm."

"This is a lot of food."

"You gave a long list."

"I underestimated the amount, I think."

You watched him approach the trolley the way a person approaches something at a museum. He lifted the silver cover off the pancakes. He looked at them for a long moment.

Then he turned to you with his face completely serious and said —

"This is the best day of my life," his smile was reaching his eyes again.

"My sweet girl, and all these sweet foods"

You spent breakfast on the carpet by the window in the end. He insisted. He said the chairs were too formal for the magnitude of the meal, which made you laugh so hard you choked on your tea you had been nursing that whole time, and you ended up sitting crosslegged on the floor with the plates between you.

Hyde Park beyond the glass and the soft, even patter of London rain just starting against the window.

He cut his pancakes into perfect triangles, which you found a little neurotic but very endearing.

He poured maple syrup with the slow ceremony of a priest performing communion.

You watched him from across the makeshift picnic and felt something burn in your stomach. He was letting himself be a bit more free again – released from the prison of his mind. The prison of his job.

He looked up halfway through munching on the toast.

"You are staring at me."

"You are very entertaining to watch. You look at everything with such wonder"

He raised an eyebrow.

The rain picked up against the window in a soft, even rush, and for a moment neither of you spoke, it felt like a small holiday from the rest of complicated adult life.

₊˚°⊹˚

By the afternoon, the rain had settled in properly.

Michael was lying on the sofa with his head in your lap. He had a paperback open against his chest that he had not turned a page of in twenty minutes. You were reading too, one hand absently working through his hair, the soft thick of it sliding through your fingers in the same slow rhythm you had been doing it for nearly an hour. He had not noticed. You were not sure he was awake.

The television was on but muted. A music programme was playing — old footage of various artists from various decades, the kind of nostalgic midafternoon slot that British television loved.

You glanced up at the screen and immediately stopped reading.

Thriller.

The opening shot. The famous tracking shot. The video had just begun.

You looked down at Michael.

He had felt you go still. His eyes opened.

"What."

You nodded at the television.

He turned his head. He saw what was on the screen. His face contorted and he pulled away.

"Oh no."

"Oh yes."

"No. Y/N. We are not doing this." He grabbed the remote off of the glass side table and switched the TV off.

"I am proud of it, but my god is it awkward to see yourself act on the screen" He said.

"Tell me about it" You rolled your eyes playfully.

He turned around and looked at you incredulously.

"Are you getting feisty with me?"

He started trying to tickle your sides. You laughed and pushed him away but he, even with his small frame, was still much stronger than you.

He then dove in for a sneaky kiss.

The kiss started as a punctuation mark — a firm, grounding press of his mouth against yours, something to stop the laughter, to halt the teasing.

But it didn't end there. It deepened, softened, became a question instead of a statement. Can we do this?

His lips parted against yours, and you felt the warm, slow slide of his tongue seeking entrance.

You granted it with a soft sigh, your hands coming up to cradle his face, your thumbs stroking the high, sharp planes of his cheekbones.

He tasted of maple syrup and orange juice and the faint, clean mint of toothpaste from earlier.

The scent of him — sandalwood soap, the warm, dry smell of his skin, laundry detergent and the lingering sweetness of marmalade on his breath — wrapped around you, pulling you deeper into the moment.

The rain was a steady, hushed rhythm against the window now, sealing you both inside this quiet, private world. A world you never seen often.

He shifted, turning more fully toward you on the sofa, one knee coming up to bracket your hip.

The paperback was forgotten, slipping from his chest to the floor with a soft thump. His hands left your sides, one sliding up your back to tangle in your hair, the other coming to rest at the base of your throat, his thumb stroking the frantic pulse there.

"You're really here," he murmured against your lips, “real.” the words a warm puff of air. It wasn't a question. It was a wonder.

"I am now feeling fully awake, to realise it." He said, wonder struck.

"I'm really here," you whispered back, and you felt the shudder that went through him, a fullbody tremor of relief.

He kissed you again, slower this time, explorative. His tongue traced the seam of your lips, then delved inside, mapping your mouth, the line of your teeth, with a lazy, thorough curiosity that made your toes curl against the sofa cushions.

This wasn't the frantic, desperate clinging from the doorway. This was something else. Something reclamatory. He was rediscovering you, and in doing so, perhaps, rediscovering a part of himself that had been buried under fatigue and headlines.

His hand left your throat and drifted down, skating over the soft wool of your sweater. His fingers found the hem and slipped beneath, his palm flattening against the bare skin of your stomach.

You gasped into his mouth at the contact, feeling a little touch starved — his hands were always surprisingly warm, a contrast to his often cool exterior. He made a low, approving sound in his chest, the vibration of it against your own.

"This okay?" he breathed, pulling back just enough to look into your eyes. His were dark, pupils blown wide, the hazel almost swallowed by black. The puffy tiredness was still there, but it was overshadowed now by a kind of hungry focus that was entirely for you.

"More than okay," you managed, your voice rough.

He nodded once, a small, decisive movement, and then his mouth was on yours again, hotter, hungrier. His hand under your sweater roamed upward, palming the curve of your breast through the lace of your bra. He rolled your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, like he learned you like; pressure but still tender, and you moved into the touch, a sharp, sweet bolt of pleasure lancing through you.

You tugged at the hem of his old white tshirt. He broke the kiss long enough to pull it over his head in one swift, graceful motion, tossing it aside. The sight of him still caught your breath sometimes. He was lean, all elegant lines and taut muscle, the pale skin dusted with a faint sprinkle of dark hair across his chest and of course, patches of much darker skin. The v line down into his pants was just as distracting as the coily, dark happy trail. You throbbed with want.

A dark patch on his collarbone, another on his ribs — mapped a history of his life you knew only in fragments. You leaned forward and pressed your lips to the one on his collarbone, feeling him suck in a sharp breath. You thought he was an otherworldly beautiful.

“Michael, you genuinely are gorgeous,” you whispered against his skin. He threw his head back, probably euphoric at hearing that sentiment, “my angel face” you finished, basically whispering at his throat.

Your own sweater followed his shirt, then your bra.

The cool air of the suite pebbled your skin, but his gaze was hotter than any fire. He looked at you with that same museumintensity he'd given everything in his life he loved, but now it was layered with a possessiveness that made your core clench.

"Beautiful," he whispered, the word reverent. He leaned in and took one nipple into his mouth, sucking gently, his tongue flicking over the peak. You moaned outloud into the quiet air, your fingers digging into his shoulders. He switched to the other, lavishing it with the same devoted attention, one hand coming up to knead and tease the wet, abandoned breast.

The friction of his plaid pajama bottoms against your thighs was maddening. You reached for the drawstring, your fingers fumbling. He helped you, lifting his hips so you could push them down, along with his briefs. He sprang free, very hard, the tip glistening from pent up want.

You wrapped your hand around him, stroking slowly from root to tip, feeling the velvety skin slide over the iron hardness beneath. He dropped his forehead to your shoulder with a choked groan.

"Baby… wait, wait," he panted. "Not here. Not the first time in days. I want… the bed. I want to take my time with you."

You nodded, breathless. He stood, pulling you up with him, and then, in a move that made you squeal, he bent and scooped you up into his arms. He was stronger than he looked, dancer's strength and totally unassuming.

He carried you through the suite, past the remains of the grand breakfast, into the dim, raingrey light of the bedroom.

He laid you down on the massive bed with a tenderness that belied the urgency thrumming between you.

He followed you down, covering your body with his, and the feel of him — all warm, bare skin and hard angles settling against your softness — was a homecoming. He kissed you deeply, his weight a perfect, welcome pressure.

He began to move down your body, his mouth leaving a trail of fire. He kissed the hollow of your throat, the space between your breasts, the quivering plane of your stomach.

He hooked his fingers in the waistband of your leggings and panties and drew them down your legs ever so slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. When you were bare, he knelt between your thighs, just looking for a long, heated moment.

"So ethereal," he murmured, his voice thick. "All for me."

And then he lowered his head.

His mouth on your cunt was a revelation every single time. He was an artist here, too — meticulous, attentive, devastatingly skilled.

He had learned you over the year time had to together: listening out for what made you whine most and what had you bubbling over quickly. He was a quick study.

He started slow, broad, wet strokes of his tongue through your folds, gathering your wetness.

He licked into you, deep, and you bucked, a nonsensical mumble of pleasure coming from your throat. He held your hips down with surprising firmness, his moan of pleasure vibrating against your most sensitive skin. He genuinely enjoyed making you feel good.

"Mmm, you taste so good, sweet girl," he growled, the filthy words at odds with the angelic focus of his actions. "Always so sweet for me."

He zeroed in on your clit, circling it with the very tip of his tongue, fast, then slow, then fast again, reading your body's responses like sheet music. His fingers joined the symphony, one, then two, sliding into your tight, dripping heat with ease, curling upward to stroke that perfect, hidden spot inside you.

"Michael— right there, please—" you babbled, your hands fisting in the duvet.

He hummed against you, the vibration pushing you higher, higher. His fingers pumped in a steady, relentless rhythm, his mouth never leaving your clit. The world narrowed to the fourposter bed, the sound of the rain, and the exquisite pressure building tighter and tighter in your belly.

You were chanting his name now, a broken litany, your hips rolling against his face, seeking more, more, more. Grabbing his soft curls with your hand, guiding, frantic.

He slid a third finger into you, stretching you beautifully, and sucked your clit hard between his lips.

You came with a shattered yelp, your back bowing off the bed, your vision whiting out at the edges.

Pleasure soared through you, wave after wave of it, your inner muscles clenching rhythmically around his dexterous fingers.

He crawled back up your body, his face glistening with your wetness, and kissed you, letting you taste yourself on his tongue, and you moaned into the kiss, the sensation deeply, primally erotic.

"I need you," he gasped against your mouth, his cock, rockhard and leaking, nudging against your soaked entrance. "Please, Y/N. I need to be inside you."

"Yes," you breathed, wrapping your legs around his hips. "Now, Michael. Please."

He positioned himself, the head of his cock pressing against you. He looked into your eyes, his own blazing with a mix of love, lust, and a vulnerability that made your heart ache. He rubbed the tip up and down your core, exciting you even more. The sensation was so heightened from your unwinding before.

He then pushed forward, slowly, inexorably, filling you inch by glorious inch.

"Fuhhhck," he hissed, his entire body trembling with the effort of going slow. "So tight. So perfect. God, I missed this. I missed you, my girl"

When he was fully sheathed, he paused, buried to the hilt, letting you both adjust to the overwhelming feeling of fullness, of reconnection.

You could feel every heartbeat pulsing through him, deep inside you. You lifted your hips, a subtle, begging movement. His eyes were hazy looking, blown out and high on you.

He got the message.

He began to move, pulling out almost all the way before sliding back in with a deep, rolling thrust that punched the air from your lungs. He set a slow, deep, grinding rhythm, each stroke dragging against every nerve ending inside you. It wasn't frantic. It was profound. Each penetration felt like a vow, each withdrawal a promise to return.

"Look at me," he whispered, his voice ragged. You forced your eyes open, meeting his intense gaze. "See me in this moment. Only you see me like this."

Tears pricked at your eyes. You reached up, tracing the line of his jaw, his lips. "I see you, baby. I always see you."

He kissed you, swallowing your words, and his pace began to quicken, the slow grind giving way to more urgent snaps of his hips. The angle changed, and he hit a spot that made you see stars, over and over again. The wet, filthy sound of your bodies joining filled the room, a counterrhythm to the rain.

"You feel so good," he panted, his breath hot against your ear. "My sweet girl. Taking my cock so well. Gonna make you come again. Gonna feel you. Gonna make you shout my name so everyone can hear who makes you feel this good”

His dirty talk, so at odds with his public persona, never failed to unravel you. He only got this filthy when he was near his finish.

You felt the second orgasm building, deeper, slower, a rising tide rather than a crashing wave. He felt it too. He slipped a hand between your bodies, his thumb finding your swollen clit and rubbing tight, rapid circles.

"That's it," he coaxed, his thrusts becoming harder, less controlled. "Come for me, baby. Let go. I've got you. I'm looking after you now"

You shattered. This climax was different — less scream, more sob. A deep, fullbody unclenching that washed through you in warm, pulsing waves, pulling a guttural cry from your throat.

Your cunt clamped down on him, rhythmic and intense, and that was all it took.

With a broken shout of your name, he followed you over the edge. His hips stuttered, his body locking as he buried himself as deep as he could go, pulsing hotly inside you.

"Y/N— ah—!" He came in long, hot spurts, his release filling you, his whole body shuddering through the aftershocks.

He collapsed on top of you, his weight a blissful anchor, his face buried in your neck. You could feel his heart hammering against your chest, a frantic echo of your own. You held him, your hands stroking the sweatslick skin of his back, listening to his ragged breaths slowly even out.

The rain continued its gentle patter. A distant siren wailed somewhere in Mayfair and faded.

After a long while, he shifted, sliding out of you which made you both shiver with the intimacy.

He rolled to the side, pulling you with him, tucking you against his chest, your back to his front. He wrapped his arms around you, his legs tangling with yours, and kissed the top of your shoulder.

"I love you," he said, his voice sleepslurred and utterly satiated.

"I love you more," you whispered.

He made a soft, dismissive sound. "Impossible."

You lay there in the grey afternoon light, wrapped in each other and the quiet, the smell of sex and rain and his skin filling the air.

The world and its tabloids and its stages felt a million miles away. Here, in this bed, there was only this; the steady beat of his heart against your back, the warmth of his body curled around yours, and the profound, quiet certainty that, for now at least, he was safe. He was at home home. And so were you. You found it in each other, you realised.

₊˚°⊹˚

Two whole decades passed.

You got married, in the end, when you were forty one and Michael was forty two. A Thursday in October at Neverland, a very very small gathering.

You both, despite your lavish lifestyles, didn't enjoy such a fuss being made, and valued privacy more than anything. No ammunition to give to the press.

He had bought Neverland three years before that.

Not for himself. Not really. A two thousand acre estate in the Santa Ynez Valley, two and a half hours north of LA, with rolling oak hills and a lake and a stand of trees so old they predated California's statehood; and he had told you about it on a phone call at two in the morning from Tokyo. He said he wanted somewhere quiet and freeing. He said he wanted a piece of the world that was only his.

The other reason came out slower. In small admissions at different times, that he had not planned to make to you about his childhood.

He told you, one night in the brownstone you owned together in NYC, with his head on your stomach on the sofa, that he wanted a place where children could come and feel safe. Feel safer than he did as a kid, as he was constantly thrown into adult situations, and was robbed of the magic of playing make believe.

He planned to bring children who were sick. Children from hospitals. Children from all different circumstances. Children who had never seen a horse or sat on a Ferris wheel or eaten sweeties that had not been bought from a vending machine.

He wanted to build the kind of place he had never been allowed to have — a place that was just for being a child, with no schedule and no audience and no work attached to it. He wanted to give them what he had never got.

He said it with his eyes closed. He said it like a confession and something he could clearly see in his mind.

He started building within the year. A small fairground. A theatre. Then, a garden with a railway line that ran through it and a station.

He hired a head of operations and a small staff and started bringing groups of children up every other weekend, with their families and their nurses, and the press did not know about it for a long time because neither of you wanted them to ruin the perfect.

The first time he brought you up to see the property, you got to see him fully release the stress in his shoulders and frolic gracefully around in the grass. You felt so compelled to do the same, because you totally shared his vision.

It was the most honest thing Michael had ever done in his life; care for those kids. It came from such a deep gratitude for his fame, fortune and experiences within music – he could provide a wealth of experience to the greatly deserving.

It was also, you realised, over the years that followed, where he had finally become himself. Not the version on the stages and the magazine covers. The other Michael.

The one who walked the gardens in the early evening to check the train was running properly and would babble, cackle and play pranks on his staff.

The one who knew every member of the local community by name and the names of their children.

You'd watch fondly as he, now in his fifties, would sit on the low wall by the carousel with a cup of tea and watch the families come through and not need to be anywhere else in the world.

He had spent his whole childhood working. He had built himself a place to finally discover what it was like to be still. And just be… Michael.

₊˚°⊹˚

Jane was born thirteen months after the wedding.

It was a Tuesday in November. You went into labour at four in the afternoon at Neverland and the staff drove the two of you to the hospital in Santa Barbara, and Michael held your hand in the back of the car the entire way and did not let go of it for the next fourteen hours. He was there for every second of it.

"Breathe Y/N, in and outttttt" he sung the last word, strong vibrato. The nurse was giving him a major side eye.

You grabbed his hand as hard as you could and yelped out, another contraction wracking through your very heavily pregnant body.

"Fuck." You screamed, sweat lashing down your forehead, as you tried your best to breathe, and push, and also not shit yourself in front of the 15 people working in the room right now.

Michael didn't let go, but he proclaimed brightly; "She meant fudge everyone, fudge!"

You rolled your eyes as hard as you could and then gave him a death stare. He didn't seem to care about your reaction, the elation of his baby being born was keeping him on an untouchable plane, he was on cloud 9.

₊˚°⊹˚

He stayed at the head of the bed when the time came and he did not look away once, and when the doctor finally placed her on your chest; small and almost purple, screaming, with a head of dark curly hair that nobody had quite been expecting, he made a sound you had never heard out of him in your life and then just burst into the most happy sobs.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. He could not stand up, his legs so weak from pure, harmonious joy. You'd given him a daughter. A baby you had made lovingly.

He put one hand on her tiny back and cupped one hand on your cheek, catching any tears that spilled over from your eyes.

You both just wailed, of sheer, unfiltered happiness, for about ten minutes, while she screamed and the nurses moved gently around the three of you with the practised care, making sure everything was alright.

He named her, in the end. You let him. He had been carrying the name Jane around in his head since he was a boy, from the world of the infamous novel 'Peter Pan' by JM Barrie. His love of the Disney film was apparent early on in your relationship, and you smiled, reminded of the first time he explained the plot of the movie to you. 'Jane' was Wendy Darling's daughter in the book – and he swore that whenever he had a girl himself, that would be her name.

Oliver came two years later. A boy. Smaller than Jane had been. Quieter, even at birth, he didn't really cry that much. Michael wept again. He carried Oliver back and forth across the hospital room for two hours that night while you slept, just walking and talking to him quietly, and when you woke up at four in the morning he was sitting in the chair by the window with his son asleep against his chest, telling him very softly about the 'magical' trees on the grounds of Neverland.

Audrey was the surprise.

You were forty six. He was forty seven. You had both decided, maturely, that you could not have any more — mostly due to the post natal depression you experienced and had to pull yourself out of each time. He had agreed that it made sense to focus on the two little monsters you already had.

And then, 'pregnant' appeared on a test that you felt randomly compelled to take on a Saturday morning in your bedroom bathroom at the ranch, and you had walked downstairs in your dressing gown and shown it to him at the kitchen table and he had stared at it for ten full seconds before he started laughing and crying at the same time. He picked you up and kissed you so hard, you swore your lips would bruise.

"Jane, applehead, your mommy has a baby in her tummy" he explained proudly, whist kneeling down to cuddle your two other kids.

₊˚°⊹˚

He held her in the hospital with his face wet and said, very quietly — thank god we were wrong about being done.

He was there for every single one of them. Every single birth. Every single first feed. Every single sleepless night for the first three months after each baby came home.

He turned down a tour leg in asia the year Jane was born because he refused to leave her. He turned down a Disney soundtrack offer the year Oliver was born for the same reason.

He told his label, and management team, very politely and very firmly, that for the foreseeable future the children came first, and they could either work around it or drop him, and the label very wisely worked around it. His life’s work had led him to become a father and that was his priority.

₊˚°⊹˚

The brownstone in the Village was your refuge in the city. The ranch became your real home.

The children grew up between the two places, with a private tutor for the years they could not be in a normal school, and then normal school in the local community near the ranch, for the years they could.

They also had ecentric summers at Hayvenhurst with Michael's rather large family. They had so many cousins it got hard to count them all. Grand birthday parties, clowns and magicians that Michael would hire in to make sure his children, nieces and nephews would have exciting formative memories.

They had weekends with their grandparents on both sides and a childhood that you had both worked very hard, very deliberately, to make as ordinary as possible for children whose father was the most famous man alive and the least ordinary person to walk this earth.

You had never felt so alive, as to see Michael get along with his family again, after years of being distant from them. His brothers were fantastic uncles to your little ones and genuinely amazing company to keep. It was all relentless jokes, BBQ parties, mini concerts and A LOT of people. You loved the Jackson's but they were a messy bunch. Figuratively and literally.

Jackie, Michael's eldest brother, had cuddled you on a bright summer early evening, and told you that he was glad you were looking after his little baby, Michael. You had welled up at the thought of his brother finally seeing him happy, after a dark past.

₊˚°⊹˚

You retired from the stage at fifty two. You wrote two plays after that. The second one won the Pulitzer.

Michael, who had quite literally been your number 1 fan —and was still known to sneak into the stalls at performances of your written work, well into his 50s, even if you weren't there — went on to hang the certificate in his office.

He stopped touring at fifty six.

Not by choice exactly. His back had been going for a long time — the kind of slow wear that dancers know all too well. His knees had followed, and then somewhere in the year he turned fifty six there had been a show in Madrid where he had finished the encore and walked off the stage and quietly told Bill he was done.

He came home that week. He sat with you on the back terrace and he held your hand and he said — I want to be at home with them. While they still want me there. I don't want to be the dad who came back in the summer. I want to be the one who's just here.

Jane was twelve. Oliver was ten. Audrey was eight.

He told them himself, at dinner, the night he made the decision. He told them their dad was going to be at home from now on. He told them he was sorry he had been gone so much. He told them he was going to take Audrey to school in the mornings and pick her up in the afternoons and be at every single one of Oliver's tournaments and every single one of Jane's school plays.

Jane had cried.

Audrey, who had been eight at the time, had said — but Daddy, what are you going to do all day?

Michael had laughed. He had picked her up onto his lap. He had said; I'm going to be your dad, Auddie. That's the job.

You knew Michael loved you so, but he loved his kids even more and then sent sparks of unfiltered delight through your veins.

He had been your home for the best part of 30 years, and now he could live peacefully within the one he built to protect himself and his children, without burden and without harm.

fin.

--

TAGLIST

@sheerios32 @shaymariee @holyfujjj @vinchrichc @joliebossanova123 @cinnamon-girl01 @dearsirenita @sgecat @alittletrampyvampy @orbitmyworld @mikesangelface @veraberaxx @misfloras @ningizuo @ieatorangess @misscowboyhat @auriuex @angelicneon @honeybunn88 @giovannamarie12 @iamsosexy2 @sabbiabbydabbywabbie @shinebrightstar @blur-charmlessman2 @tic-tac-my-toes

[prettyoungho]

⋆˙⟡ KILLING ME SOFTLY WITH HIS WORDS

pt. 2 of the lady in my life

michael jackson x female!reporter

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

⸝⸝summary : michael jackson is working on a project and was in need of a journalist that wouldn't "flatter" him— which makes you the perfect person for the job. but somewhere between tense interviews, late nights, and quiet conversations, his words start getting to you in ways they never should’ve— slowly killing you softly without either of you realizing it.

⸝⸝word count : 5.3k

⸝⸝tags : enemies/friends to lovers, slow burn, yearning, closed proximity

⸝⸝a/n : i know i said side stories (but i kinda got a carried away a bit...) so this is a long continuation of the the lady in my life. anyways pls enjoy ts took a shit ton <3

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

after a major award cycle, michael's team decides to do a project— specifically a behind the scenes documentary and a global press rollout for a new album era.

not a scandal piece, something controlled, humanizing, and tightly managed.

and michael wanted a journalist involved, someone credible— not just promotional media, since the public is still skeptical after everything. and oddly, he insisted on someone who 'won't' flatter him.

guess who he recommended ?

you.

at first you were hesitant because it was too close and too politically sensitive. it would tie you more publicly to him.

but your editor frames the whole thing differently,

"this is the biggest controlled-access story in music right now. if you don't take it, someone less careful will."

that made you agree (reluctantly), but strictly professionally. no bias, no involvement, and just reporting.

...or you tell yourself.

unlike interviews, this project puts you both in unscripted proximity.

you had to travel with michael's team for the first day of shooting of the documentary.

the bus is quieter than usual, as most people are asleep already since the place was far. dim lights,  soft engine noise, and someone snoring softly somewhere in the back.

you sat alone near the middle row, flipping through your notes with tired eyes, pen tucked between your fingers.

then michael suddenly drops into the seat beside you, naturally.

you don't even look up, you already knew who it was.

"you do know there are twenty empty seats in here."

"i like this one."

you just sighed softly as you continued writing.

he settles too comfortably, stretching his arms slightly while you work.

"what are you writing?"

"notes"

"what kind?"

"the kind you don't need to see."

he looks over your shoulder anyway,

and you immediately closed your notebook.

he laughs under his breath at your failed attempts of you ignoring him. mostly because he keeps glancing at you every thirty seconds like a bored child.

you sighed.

"you're not tired?"

"no."

"you rehearsed for 9 hours straight earlier."

he shrugs,

"i'm used to it."

after a while, the teasing fades naturally.

and slowly, you start losing the fight against exhaustion. your writing becomes messier, your blinking was showing, and at one point, your pen slips from your fingers entirely.

michael noticed it immediately,

"you should sleep."

"i'm fine,"

"you almost wrote on yourself."

you barely glanced at the ink mark on your wrist.

"...that's unfortunate."

few more minutes pass as your head tips lightly against the window, finally asleep.

michael looks at you for a second before smiling softly. carefully reaches over and adjusts the edge of your cardigan so it doesn't slip off your shoulder.

gentle enough not to wake you.

the bus hits a rough patch in the road, your head shifts automatically— and lands against his shoulder instead.

he freezes, completely. like if he moves too fast, the moment will disappear.

someone from the crew notices from across the aisle and smirks at him. michael glares at them silently till they look away again.

and somewhere in the middle of the ride, while everyone else sleeps around them, he spends almost the entire trip smiling to himself like an idiot.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

the rehearsal room is freezing

michael has now repeated the same dance section ten times because he wasn't satisfied with one step nobody else noticed.

you sat on the floor near the mirrors, watching while taking down notes for the documentary voiceover ideas.

you were patient at first, then annoyed— then you were actively judging michael.

you lowered your notebook.

"y'know normal people would've accepted that take already."

he stops immediately.

"normal people don't make history."

"oh my God."

the dancers nearby start laughing instantly.

michael shakes his head and points at you dramatically.

"she doesn't respect the process."

"i respect sleep."

he walks over, sweaty and mildly offended, while grabbing orange juice.

"you think this is easy?"

"i think you're a perfectionist with control issues."

"that's rude."

"that's accurate."

he squinted at you.

"you've been meaner today."

"i'm cold."

without another word, he grabs a jacket from a chair and tosses it towards you.

it lands directly in your face.

the dancers laugh harder.

you pull down the jacket slowly.

"...did you just threw it?"

"you said you were cold."

"i didn't say to throw it at my face."

"you still caught it."

you complained, but you still put it on anyway. and you immediately regret it because it smells like him.

very distracting for you, unfortunately.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

it was late, the kind where everyone's personalities soften around exhaustion.

you sit down on the hotel hallway floor outside your room because your keycard stopped working.

it was the third time this week. it was not your day.

you heard footsteps approaching, and you don't bother looking up.

"if you laugh, i'm killing you."

michael's voice immediately answers,

"i wasn't going to laugh."

a pause

"...i was going to ask why you're sitting on the floor."

you look up slowly, he was holding snacks from the vending machine— and wearing sunglasses indoors for absolutely no reason.

you held in a laugh.

"my keycard hates me."

"you've been locked out three times this week."

"the door lacks vision."

"that's not how doors work."

he sits beside you against the wall without hesitation, long legs stretched out casually.

for a while, you both just sit there quietly. passing snacks back and forth, talking about nothing important.

you lean your head back against the wall and close your eyes briefly.

"you tired?"

"mhm."

"you've worked hard today."

"so did you."

"i'm used to it."

"you say that a lot."

"it's true."

you open your eyes again and look at him, really look at him— and notice how exhausted he actually seems underneath all the energy.

without thinking much, you lean sideways slightly and rest your head against his shoulder.

he goes completely still, surprised. caught him off guard in the softest possible way.

you realized seconds too late and started pulling away immediately.

but michael's voice stops you.

quiet and gentle.

"you can stay there."

and so you did.

after a moment, he carefully rests his head lightly against yours, too.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

they've been stuck waiting for setup changes for almost two hours, and everyone is losing sanity slowly.

michael is lying down dramatically across an entire couch.

meanwhile you were trying to work— keyword, trying.

he keeps throwing crumpled paper towards your notebook.

and missing every shot.

"can you stop?"

"no."

"you're a grown man."

"and winning."

"you haven't landed a single shot."

"that's subjective"

another crumpled paper ball hits the floor, nowhere near you.

you stared at him, then calmly threw one back.

directly into his forehead on the first try.

the room erupts,

and michael genuinely looks betrayed.

"...you've been waiting to do that."

"and?"

five minutes later, it became a full war, and the dancers were choosing sides.

paper was flying everywhere.

michael was laughing so hard he nearly fell off the couch.

meanwhile, you were trying to escape around the couch.

and he catches your wrist while laughing, not letting you escape. falling off the couch and bringing you with him.

you both landed on the floor, laying on top of him and resting in-between his legs— while michael instinctively holds your waist.

suddenly you two are too close,

and neither lets go immediately.

both of you are still laughing, breathing slightly harder from laughing— not aware that everyone pauses strangely after that.

"ya'll gon' kiss or what?"

someone loudly yells, and the moment dies instantly.

you suddenly throw another crumpled paper directly at the dancer's face.

michael nearly chokes laughing beside you.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

this day had dragged longer than expected— filming delays, equipment problems, the crew slowly losing patience one technical issue at a time.

by the dinner break finally happened, everyone was scattered around the studio.

meanwhile you were alone near one of the backstage storage rooms.

you were busy flipping through old production notes for the documentary that you barely touch your food.

specifically the early years— the jackson 5 era.

"you're working during dinner again."

a voice behind you says

"you're avoiding rehearsal notes, so technically i'm carrying this production."

"right." he says sarcastically.

he drops into the seat beside you, holding a glass of orange juice and a bag of chips.

"what are you looking at?"

"your old pictures from the jackson 5."

you said, laughing quietly at how cute his hair was when he was a kid.

"you had the biggest afro."

"okay. wow."

"what? you were cute and loud."

"you should've stopped at cute."

you ignored him, and flipped to another page.

"my mom used to play your records all the time."

michael's brows lift immediately.

"really?"

"mhm."

"so you were a fan?"

you could've stopped there, but you answered honestly anyway— and you immediately regret it.

because he now looks way interested.

"a little."

"a little?"

"you're making this embarrassing."

"you liked us?"

"you sound very excited about this."

he grins openly now, actually delighted about it. which makes it worse for you.

"what songs?"

"oh my God."

"don't ignore my question."

you sighed dramatically

"i liked 'i want you back', happy?"

"that's everybody's answer."

"well excuse me for being correct."

he laughs softly under his breath— then, after a pause.

"who was your favorite?"

that question catches you completely off guard.

you narrow your eyes immediately

"seriously?"

"yes i am."

michael was very much invested.

"well?"

he leaned towards her slightly, waiting for your answer; this somehow matters deeply to him.

and because you enjoy ruining his peace,

"...jackie."

silence.

he blinks slowly.

"...jackie?"

you bite back a smile immediately.

"yes."

"my brother jackie?"

"that's generally how names work."

he looks personally offended now.

"why jackie?"

you shrug casually

"he seemed sweet."

"i was sweet."

"you were tiny and yelling."

he scoffed

"that was my job!"

you bursted out laughing at how he was reacting to this, while he felt betrayed.

"jackie?" he repeats again, like he still can't process it.

"well you asked."

"i thought you were gonna say me!"

"sounds like a you problem."

he lean back against his chair dramatically.

"wow, this is devastating."

"you'll live."

you were laughing, the kind that makes your shoulder shake slightly.

despite him pretending to be wounded, he can't stop staring at you.

he loves making you laugh, always has.

then he notices something near the folder, old tickets tucked between pages.

"you went to concerts?"

his expression changed slightly, it was softer now.

your laugh fades a little.

"yeah."

he picks one up carefully.

"you kept these?"

his voice was quieter now, surprised.

"they were important to me."

you were suddenly feeling shy about it, realizing too late that you may have accidentally shown him a side of yourself nobody really sees.

"you've been watching me longer than i thought."

he said softly, almost to himself.

that line lands strangely between both of you—not heavy, just intimate in a way neither fully addresses.

so naturally, you ruin it immediately,

"don't let it get to your ego, jackie was still my favorite."

he groans loudly while you laugh again beside him.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

it's late, the studio emptied almost an hour ago except for a few crew members cleaning somewhere down the hall

you were still awake in one of the editing rooms, surrounded by messy notes, half-finished transcripts, and a cold coffee you forgot to drink.

you were irritated, tired, and burned out. you were currently losing an argument with a machine that keeps eating videotapes.

you groaned loudly, leaning back against the chair dramatically.

"I'm quitting journalism!"

"you say that twice a week."

you jumped a bit and looked up immediately.

seeing michael standing in the doorway wearing rehearsal clothes and holding a cup of tea as he materialized there specifically to annoy you.

"you're still here?"

he shrugs casually.

"you're still here."

he walks into the room smiling softly.

you focus on turning back toward the tapes,

"i had three interviews before filming today."

"you skipped lunch again."

"you sound like my mom."

"you looked dizzy earlier."

"now you sound like my doctor."

he laughs quietly under his breath before sitting beside her at the editing desk, close enough that your shoulders almost touch.

you notice, and usually it wouldn't affect you this much.

"you work too hard," he says after a while.

you short slightly.

"so do you."

"that doesn't mean i'm wrong."

you shrug tiredly while rubbing your eyes.

"people expect things from me."

he goes quiet for a second after that before he softly replies.

"you know, you don't always have to prove yourself to deserve being in a room."

michael didn't know it, but that sentence hits you so unexpectedly, you stop moving entirely.

he keeps talking casually, not realizing what he just did to you emotionally.

"...you act as if you stop working for one second, people will stop taking you seriously."

you quietly shift your gaze at the desk, because that was painfully accurate.

you never told him about it, not directly. it's the fact he noticed it on his own.

he glances sideways at you, now softer.

"you don't have to earn kindness all the time."

silence.

you felt something physically tighten in your chest. it was the first time someone talked to you carefully, observantly, like he's been paying attention quietly for a long time.

"you rehearse speeches beforehand, or does this just happen naturally?"

"that was nice right?"

he smiles slightly.

"it was terrifying."

he laughs softly again, before reaching over and sliding your untouched coffee farther away from you.

replacing it with the tea he brought.

"you'll get sick if you keep drinking coffee."

"...you sure that tea isn't poisoned?"

"is that how you really think of me?"

"i'm kidding."

you bite in a laugh before you quietly mutter.

"thank you michael."

your voice is much quieter, less guarded.

"you're always welcome."

he leans back in his chair slightly, watching you with that calm, unreadable softness he gets 

sometimes around you.

then casually, he says something that ruins your entire week.

"i just don't like seeing you run yourself into the ground."

it was simple, no flirting, and no hidden intention. just honest concern.

it affects you more than any compliment ever could because he means it entirely.

you stare down at the tea instead, and suddenly couldn't look at him properly anymore.

trying to ignore how warm your chest feels, or how much his words linger.

it was killing you softly.

he watched you quietly, unaware, then softly.

"there's that face again."

you look up immediately, tilting your head at him.

"what face?"

"the face you make when you're thinking too much."

"i do not have the face for that."

"yes you do. you're very easy to read."

that line stays in your head days after, unfortunately.

you started wondering,

if he reads me that easily... what happens if he notices how much you’re starting to love him?

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

after that night, you weren't in full denial anymore— you were aware of your feelings, and it scared you.

it's not because you think loving him is embarrassing, but because if you admit it, everything between you two will change.

and you value what you already have too much to risk it.

at first, you thought you were very subtle at avoiding him— you weren't.

standing behind the crew members instead of being beside him, pretending to be busy, and leaving immediately after the shoot.

but michael was so used to your presence that he noticed your absence immediately.

he keeps seeking you out unconsciously, trying to understand what changed.

the editing room is crowded and loud as crew members move everywhere.

you were leaning over a desk reviewing notes when you heard michael somewhere behind you.

you keep your eyes on the papers, pretending you didn't notice him approaching.

then suddenly, a warm hand settles lightly against your waist. it was gentle but brief.

enough for him to guide himself past the narrow space behind your chair.

"sorry," he murmurs softly.

you knew michael had been casually affectionate of you, and back then, you didn't really think much of it.

but it was different for you now, every nerve in your body lights up instantly.

your brain immediately spirals,

'why does it feel different now?'

'does he do that with everyone?'

he glances back at you and catches you still standing there, strangely quiet.

"...you okay?"

"i'm fine."

you answer way too fast.

he narrows his eyes slightly because you definitely did not look fine.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

they're reviewing documentary narration drafts in one rehearsal studio.

just the two of you.

you're sitting down on the floor with papers around you, while michael leans over from behind the couch, reading your notes upside down.

"this sentence sounds mean."

"it's called journalism."

"it's called bullying."

"well you hired me."

moments like this felt easy and natural, but now you're hyperaware of everything.

especially proximity.

he leans closer to read another line, too close.

close enough you can feel his warmth against your shoulder, enough that his voice drops softer near your ear when he laughs quietly at something you wrote.

"you really said i was difficult?"

"because you are."

"i was artistic."

"i didn't say you weren't, just said you were annoying."

"that hurts."

you try focusing on your notes, but keep failing because all you can think about is how close he was that you can smell his perfume.

then he points at a line on the paper and accidentally brushes his fingers against yours.

your hand jerks on instinct

michael notices, pull back a little.

"...sorry."

and now he sounds confused again, because lately you react to him like he's doing something wrong.

one week, things were good again. it was easy, you laughed around him— staying beside him between takes, and looking at him directly when you guys argued.

then suddenly, you start slipping away from him slowly, and he feels it immediately.

he thought he was imagining it at first, but then you stopped waiting for him after rehearsals, stopped teasing him, and barely looked at his eyes during conversations anymore.

despite all the fame and confidence michael has onstage, he has never handled emotional distance well from people he loves.

especially when it came to you.

but michael was stubborn, instead of giving you space, he started trying harder.

one afternoon during production meetings, you deliberately choose a seat across the room.

he walks in late, glances around once, then walks past multiple empty chairs and sits directly beside you.

you went still instantly, michael notices.

"hi."

"hi?"

"you sound nervous."

"i don't."

"you're blinking abnormally fast."

"the air in here is very dry."

normally you would've teased him longer than that. but now you stare at your papers instead.

he watches you quietly for a second, confused again.

because lately every conversation between you two feels like he walked in halfway through an argument he doesn't remember having.

in the middle of the meeting, he leans towards you slightly, lowering his voice.

"you mad at me?"

your head snaps immediately at him,

"i'm not mad at you, michael."

"you've been acting weird lately."

"i just wanna focus on work, that's all."

you look away again, biting the inside of your cheek.

"you don't even look at me anymore," he says quietly.

your heart aches when he sounds genuinely hurt.

before you can answer, the meeting continues again.

but he keeps glancing towards you throughout the meeting like he was waiting for you to go back to normal.

and you hated yourself for not being able to.

after the meeting ended, you stood up quickly and walked out of the room before he followed you.

you glance around to see if there was any sign of him, sighing in relief when you didn't.

then suddenly, turning your head to see michael in-front of you— leaning to level with your height, his face was so close to yours that both of your foreheads were almost touching.

you jumped, holding your chest as you catch your breath.

"jesus—michael! when did you—?"

"you're avoiding me."

you licked your lips, your eyes shakily glancing at his.

"i told you i'm not. why are you so stubborn today?"

"you ran away after the meeting ended."

"i didn't run."

"okay then you walked very fast."

you held in a laugh, smiling slightly.

michael notices it immediately, his face lights up like he accomplished something important.

"there she is," he says softly.

the smile disappears from your face instantly,

because the way he says it is so gentle.

like he misses you.

michael's expression falls a little after that, again confused. again trying to understand why you keep pulling away every time he gets close emotionally.

quieter now,

"did something happen?"

"no."

"then why do you keep leaving?"

your throat tighten immediately. you didn't know how to explain,

'i leave because staying near you feels impossible now.'

but instead, you shrug it off slightly,

"you're imagining things."

"i'm not."

he says, certain. then after a pause,

"you used to stay."

that ruined your composure internally, and you start to walk away.

but he didn't stop, he keeps up and walked right with you and keeps going softly.

"you don't wait for me anymore, you leave rooms when i walk in, and every time i get close to you lately... you look scared."

you stopped walking, you glance down to the floor.

"did i lose you somewhere?"

he says quietly,

then you hear him laughing quietly to himself.

"...i miss you even when you're standing right in front of me lately."

you finally cracked, and finally looked up at him.

michael stops immediately, his brain short-circuits for a moment, and regrets saying it when he sees your expression.

his voice softens instantly,

"hey."

and damn him for sounding so worried. his voice is so gentle, so him.

"you can't say things like that."

"why?"

'because it's hard to not love you more every time you open your mouth.'

but instead, you say quietly.

"you make this impossible."

michael goes still,

"impossible how?"

you shake your head immediately.

"no."

"tell me."

"i told you, no."

"you keep saying things, and then you run away."

"that's because you keep looking at me like that."

"like what?"

you look at him helplessly for a second before gently pushing him away, so you don’t completely lose yourself.

"i need air."

he follows behind you,

"i'll come with you."

"no."

you said it too fast and sharply.

both of you freeze.

he looks genuinely hurt now, looking at you with glassy eyes.

and immediately you felt awful, because none of this is his fault.

"...i'm sorry."

it was all you said before leaving.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

the premiere feels unbearable that day.

after your last conversation with michael, the look on his face when you snapped at him for trying to follow you.

that expression stayed with you, you hated yourself for hurting him.

everyone is celebrating the documentary. the lights, the interviews, and the applause after the screening ends.

but underneath it all sits one awful truth that neither of you wants to acknowledge.

because after tonight, it's over.

no more filming days, no more waiting for him between takes, and no more of him instinctively finding you first in crowded spaces.

and somehow that realization hangs heavier over both you than the premiere itself.

especially michael, because for weeks now he felt you slipping away through his fingers without understanding why.

some days you look at him like you want to say something, then other days you avoid him so carefully it actually hurts.

despite everything people think about michael, he has always loved deeply when he loves.

quietly, like he doesn't expect the love in return.

your makeup is already done when you arrive backstage. your hair was set, mic checked, and your notes in hand.

then the stylist shows you your dress.

you pause.

because it's... not what you expected.

it was elegant, expensive, and it fit like it was made for you specifically.

but the back dips lower than you're used to, just enough to make you suddenly aware of posture in a way you normally don't.

"this is what we're going with?" you ask, half-joking.

the stylist just nods like it's obvious.

you almost backed out of the dress entirely.

but the stylist insisted, the crew begged.

even you had to admit the dress looked stunning.

"you look incredible."

you stare at yourself once more in the mirror.

"that's dangerous wording for my job."

by the time you step into the main hall, you are back in professional mode.

your eyes are scanning for guests to interview.

you become the reporter again instantly, that version of you is always the easiest to slip into.

what you don't notice right away is that people notice you— a lot more than usual.

but the only reaction that matters happens across the room.

michael looks up mid-conversation— and completely forgets what he was saying.

he freezes, and the room keeps moving around him.

all he sees is you walking through the entrance, looking devastating in a way that physically hurts him a little.

suddenly he understands something terrifying,

he's not surviving the end of this documentary.

not emotionally, not if it means losing this.

quincy jones beside him says something, but michael doesn't really hear it.

because you're smiling politely at someone else now, and the dress catches the light again, and all he can think is how you look like you belong to a life that he wasn't allowed to keep.

meanwhile, you notice him staring immediately— too openly.

throughout the night, you and michael get barely moments alone.

always interrupted, always pulled away by interviews, guests, or producers celebrating the success of the film.

but every time you cross paths, the tension grows heavier and sadder.

like both of you know something is ending tonight.

at one point during the photos, michael quietly appears beside you unexpectedly. close enough that his hand brushes lightly against the small of your back.

his touch was gentle, protective, and natural.

your heart nearly stops, especially when he leans slightly towards you and murmurs.

"you look..."

he pauses, actually searching for words.

then softly,

"...beautiful."

you swallow hard.

"thank you."

but because you are terrified of what his sincerity is doing to you, you immediately seek out the scene.

that hurts michael more than you realize, because lately, you keep leaving emotionally every time he gets close.

and he doesn't know why.

after the screening ends, applause fills the theater.

everyone are emotional, crew members hugging and celebrating— already talking about future projects.

michael didn't process any of it, all he could think about was you.

tomorrow he won't see you anymore, he won't see you waiting on set, and loses the best part of his day.

and suddenly the thought becomes unbearable.

he quietly slips away from the afterparty. longing for air and silence— a second where he doesn't feel like he's about to lose someone important.

you catch him standing alone near the ballroom entrance.

watching you, he wasn't subtle about it either.

and suddenly, you mustered up the courage, because realizing that if you leave tonight without saying anything is not worth losing him.

you see michael quietly slip away toward the balcony, so you follow him this time.

the night air hits cool against her skin the second you step outside.

michael stands by the railing overlooking the city lights below.

his hands were in his pockets, and his shoulder was tense.

he hears you immediately and turns around.

for a second, you both were silent.

he tries smiling at first, but it barely lasts.

"you came."

"you sound surprised."

"you usually leave."

that hurts you more than you expected.

then silence settles again, soft music from inside muffled behind the doors, and the city glowing below them.

he exhales quietly,

"i thought i ruined things."

your chest immediately tighten.

"you didn't."

"then why does it feel like i lost you?"

God. that question again.

you turn to look away toward the skyline, because you genuinely don't know how to explain yourself without sounding broken, selfish, or sounding like a coward.

he watches you carefully, still gentle, waiting patiently for you to speak. even though after all the confusion you put him through.

you laugh softly under your breath, but there wasn't humor in it.

"y'know what the worst part is?"

"what?"

"i don't even know when it happened."

he goes still, as you grip the railing tighter.

"i just woke up one day, and suddenly every little thing you did mattered too much."

silence

"the way you say my name."

his eyes don't leave your face now.

"the way you remember everything about me."

closer now,

"and how much of a compassionate and genuine person you are."

your voice weakens slightly

"i kept trying to act normal because i thought i would eventually get over it."

his expression softens completely, hearing you physically hurts and heals him at the same time.

"but i couldn't."

you admit quietly,

"so instead i started leaving first."

he swallows hard,

"...because of me?"

you finally look up at him, your expression painfully honest.

no smart remarks, no sarcasm, just vulnerability you normally hide from everyone.

"you scare me."

he looks at you, surprised.

you shake your head quickly,

"not in that way, not like that."

then softer.

"you make me lose control."

silence

"i like knowing where i stand with people. i like being composed and rational. i like being able to leave before things get too real."

your voice cracks slightly there.

"then you happened."

michael's face changes completely after that, because he finally understands now.

"you got too close," he says softly.

you laugh once shakily.

"you got past every wall i had without even trying."

he steps closer then, slow and careful, like he was approaching something fragile.

"and you thought i didn't feel it too?"

that makes her breath catch.

he shakes his head slightly, almost disbelieving.

"i thought you were pulling away because you stopped caring."

"no."

the answer comes immediately, too honest to take it back.

michael looks overwhelmed by that, months of confusion are unraveling all at once in front of him.

then quietly,

"i think i loved you long before things got bad."

your eyes lift immediately.

he steps even closer now, enough to feel the warmth radiating from him.

"i just didn't realize how much until you were the only thing that still felt real."

and that completely breaks whatever composure you had left.

your eyes water instantly, glistening under the city lights.

it wasn't dramatic, just months of relief, trying not to drown in feelings alone.

he notices immediately,

"hey, hey—"

he reaches for you carefully, then with warm hands, reaches against your waist gently.

gentle like he's afraid you'll disappear again.

for the first time, you didn't pull away from his embrace. instead you laugh softly through the tears.

"you really waited till the documentary ended to say this?"

he lets out a breathless laugh, too.

"i was trying hard to be respectful."

"you were failing."

"i know."

you both are smiling now, small shaky smiles full of exhaustion and relief and too much emotion all at once.

silence falls again,

not out of pain, just full.

his gaze drops briefly to your lips before lifting back to your eyes.

giving you time, giving you a choice, and that tenderness alone almost ruins you again.

so this time you close the distance first,

and leaning towards a soft kiss.

your arms wrap around his shoulder instinctively.

it was soft, careful— months of tension finally unravelling slowly between them.

he exhales quietly against your mouth, like he couldn't believe this was happening.

his hands are on your waist, pulling you closer to him, caressing your smooth back.

and suddenly the kiss deepens with all the emotion you both have been holding back for far too long.

you gasp quietly against the kiss, as he softly groans— gazing down at you with longing eyes.

when you both finally pull apart, neither moves away. breathing unevenly.

he smiles first this time, small and warm.

completely wrecked.

"there's my lady."

and this time, you don't leave.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

tag: @ominouspercussions @mydearprim @lovingyeet @tutuneutoric @martinandmartin @futuristicqueendeer @dillydallyonthedaily

[prettyoungho]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ THE LADY IN MY LIFE

michael jackson x female!reporter

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

⸝⸝ summary : you’re a young reporter that becomes famous for being the only journalist who doesn’t fall for michael jackson’s charm.

⸝⸝ word count : 2.5k

⸝⸝ tags : enemies to lovers(?), slowburn, bit of angst, oneshot

⸝⸝ a/n : first time writing a fanfic kinda nervous…. (pls be nice to me ><)

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

the first few interviews between you and michael feel like controlled chaos. every producer in the building is stressed because nobody knows whether they're about to argue or end each other's careers on live television.

most interviews either praise and worship him like a God, but you, on the other hand, refuse to treat him the way everyone else does.

what's more surprising is that despite your bluntness, both of your chemistries become famous because of constant arguing and playful banters.

one of the earliest interviews started with michael arriving late on purpose because he found you annoying from the previous press interviews.

michael finally sat down, and you checked your watch dramatically.

"wow. i was starting to think you moonwalked on the way here."

the crew tries not to laugh, while michael just stares at her for a second before smiling slowly and replying.

"i considered it."

and the tension is immediately there. the whole interview is basically you both are trying to outsmart each other.

"so which version of michael jackson i'm interviewing today? the global superstar or the man who bought a pet monkey?"

he leans back like he's offended.

"you say it like those are two different people."

then another time, you kept throwing questions at him and noticed him dodging every question.

"y'know, you answer questions like a politician."

"and yet you keep inviting me back," he instantly fires back at you.

that specific part became insanely popular. the audience loves watching them because it never feels scripted. compared to other people interviewing michael feels rehearsed, but with you, it was entertaining because it was unpredictable.

there's one interview where you try to embarrass him by bringing up ridiculous tabloid headlines about him.

"'michael jackson sleeps in an oxygen chamber to remain immortal,' comments ?" you read dramatically.

"it's comfortable," he answered with a serious expression.

you broke character. letting out a laugh for the first time on camera.

and he notices, oh, he notices.

after seeing you laugh, he starts trying to make you laugh on purpose during interviews just to throw you off.

"do you enjoy being difficult?"

"only with you."

the audience in the studio loses it. you immediately rolled your eyes, trying to hide the fact that you got flustered at his answer.

the interview became so popular that networks keep booking you guys together because ratings spike every single time.

even off the camera, you both bicker constantly. you kept complaining how he enjoys making interviews harder for you, while he says you kept asking invasive questions on purpose because you liked arguing with him.

neither of you realizes everyone around you just thinks you're in love with each other; you both heavily deny having any special relationship.

"he's arrogant."

"she's terrifying."

the crew just laughs it off, didn't believe a single word you guys said.

at industry events, both of you are always pretending to avoid each other. but somehow ending up meeting half-way every time.

you arrived at an awards show, already overwhelmed and exhausted at the chaos of the crowd, reporters, and celebrities. the second you saw michael arrive at the event, you immediately groaned mentally.

"oh great. him."

meanwhile he already noticed you within seconds of entering, doesn't matter how crowded it was, he always does. bill and his staff started to notice that he becomes annoyingly observant whenever you're around.

one time during an awards show, you'd be backstage preparing another interview with michael and reviewing your notes aggressively, determined not to let him derail the questions again.

"you rehearse insults before interviews?" a voice behind you says.

you jumped a bit before turning your head to him, to see michael literally reading your notes over your shoulder. you immediately closed your notebook.

"you're not supposed to see that."

he looks genuinely amused.

"you wrote 'annoyingly evasive."

"because you are annoyingly evasive."

"i think i got that. you underlined it twice."

michael would start seeking you out backstage without realizing he's doing it. after performances or interviews, he'll find an excuse to casually wander toward wherever you were, and his staff catches on way before he does.

"...you do know she isn't part of the stage setup, right?"

one of the staff says, but michael just ignores them.

sometimes before the cameras roll, he likes to ruin your composure just for the fun of it.

you were mentally preparing serious questions, suddenly he leans towards you and quietly mutters,

"you look nervous."

"i'm never nervous," you immediately replied defensively.

"your cue cards are upside down."

you looked at your cue cards, and they were indeed upside down.

"...i knew that." no you didn't. and you hate that he notices small things about you.

after interviews, the crew had already packed up ten minutes ago. while both of you kept lingering around each other longer than necessary, arguing about random things. whether he enjoys provoking you on purpose.

"oh please, you kept giving me vague answers on purpose just to irritate me."

"no, i do it because watching you get frustrated is funny."

thing is, michael feels more comfortable around you than almost anyone else. executives, media people, or even his own family, he was always careful and calculated because he was used to being watched constantly. but he gets unexpectedly playful when he was with you, it's strange.

he always find a way to get on your nerves, stealing your pen during interviews, changing your que cards, or sneaking behind you to give a scare because you get surprised easily.

but you never let him win either. if he hides your notes, you steal his glasses. mocking your questions? you threaten to bring up embarrassing tabloid rumors on live television.

the tension was so obvious that other celebrities started noticing too. there was one time when elizabeth taylor saw them arguing backstage and casually asked,

"...so how long have you two been together?"

"WE'RE NOT," both respond, immediately.

but the thing is, neither of you understands why you both keep gravitating towards each other. you tell yourself he's interesting to interview, while michael tells himself he just likes to challenge you.

years of interviews made you both subconsciously memorize each other's habits. like you learn that his moods are based on how quiet he gets before appearances, and he learns exactly what kind of jokes will make you laugh even when you're not supposed to during your job.

then the allegations about michael started.you thought it was nonsense, a bunch of bullcrap. even though you found him annoying most of the time, you just couldn't see him doing such awful things as the allegations stated after knowing him all these years.

so at first, it didn't really fully hit you; you thought this would just die down eventually. not until you walked into the newsroom and realized nobody's speaking about michael jackson like a person anymore.

just headlines, numbers, and scandal.

the discussions about michael used to be annoying to you, but it was normal, like arguments about his music. but now, it was different, colder. reporters who used to beg for michael's exclusives are now turning his back on him, acting like they were more superior now. what even irritates you is how they talk about him like he was already guilty when nothing is proven yet. it was against your morals, the whole point of why you became a journalist in the first place.

during a televised panel discussion, you sat with the other journalists while huge headlines flash behind them. it was overwhelming to say at least, everyone was talking over each other and trying to sound righteous for the cameras. you just stayed and sat quietly, remaining unbiased and maintaining your professionalism in the whole situation.

"public opinion doesn't turn this violently unless there's truth behind it," a reporter suddenly says.

you heard it, of course you did. you hated how easy it was for them to say such things.

"public opinion thought a lot of people were guilty before trials even happened. that's not evidence." you immediately cut in.

the entire room goes quiet for a second, because nobody expected you to push back. especially not you.

another journalist smirks at you.

“you sound very defensive of him.”

you snap back immediately.

"i'm defensive of the fact that journalism is supposed to involve facts before assuming one is guilty when nothing is even proven yet."

overnight, people started accusing her of being manipulated by michael jackson. fans were shocked when you defended him after years of combative interviews between you and michael. your own network quietly warns you to stop sounding 'emotionally involved.'

but you knew you were hard-headed because you kept going even after being told not to. not blindly defending him, not saying he's perfect, but refusing to participate in the media frenzy.

then the first interview with michael jackson after the allegations exploded, the atmosphere was different from their old interviews.

and you noticed the change immediately.

the teasing disappears, the room is quiet, and he stops sneaking up behind you because he doesn't know if he's still allowed to be close to you anymore.

he doesn't meet your eyes for long. he seems exhausted, guarded. smaller somehow. you realized he was emotionally preparing himself for you turning on him publicly, as everyone else has. your realization hurts you more than you expected.

and for the first time, you get nervous interviewing him.

your producers expect confrontation from him. they want tears, outrage, dramatic moments for the television. even your coworkers expect you to finally 'break' him on screen.

but instead, you ask quietly,

"how are you holding up?"

michael looks at you, genuinely confused. like he expected an attack from you, like kindness from you specifically feels impossible because he spent years thinking you disliked him.

he gives a careful PR answer at first, but your eyes landed at his trembling hands. you knew him well after all these years interviewing him, and you notice every small thing the audience misses.

at one point, you asked a difficult question- because you still have to, you're still a journalist. the room goes quiet afterward.

michael looks down for a second before answering quietly instead of defensively.

and suddenly you hate that question too.

because this wasn't the same man who used to challenge her back with smug little remarks anymore. this version of him seems deeply, deeply lonely.

the interview airs, and the public reaction is chaos. people accused you of going easy on him; others say you were emotionally attached.

and because the media loves turning women into villains, suddenly you become part of the story too.

'she's biased,'

'she's in love with him,'

'she's defending him for access.'

your coworkers become colder towards you. some openly mock you for still interviewing him.

you walked into the newsroom, your head up high. you didn't care about what the media thinks, let alone your coworkers. you stick to what you believe is right, even if it means losing everything.

"careful, your boyfriend's on the front page again," you hear someone joke.

the entire room laughs, except you. because now it doesn't feel funny anymore.

michael notices the backlash she's receiving because of him, and it genuinely messes him up. he was used to people attacking him, but watching you get dragged into it because you stood beside him? it destroys him.

so he starts pulling away from you on purpose. not because he doesn't trust you anymore, quite literally the opposite. distancing himself is a way to protect you; he doesn't want your career and reputation to be destroyed because of him.

he leaves right after the interviews, stops making smug little remarks, and stops trying to make her laugh.

you noticed, and you were angry- but in reality, you were hurt because you thought he didn't trust you anymore.

you walked backstage and cornered him, and a confrontation finally exploded between them.

"are you seriously avoiding me now?"

"you shouldn't be around me," he immediately says, not in a cold tone. just defeated, like he genuinely believes it.

you scoffed, getting angrier because he means it.

"they ruin everyone near me eventually."

you blinked, that was the moment where you finally understand how isolated he's become.

alone.

that made you more determined. so you published about pushing back against the media frenzy again, and the backlash was brutal this time. your network questions your professionalism, coworkers stop speaking to her normally, and tabloids are saying that you were romantically involved with michael jackson.

michael sees all of it.

after a particularly awful broadcast one night, you were alone backstage gathering your things after everyone else had left. your eyes were red and tired, you were exhausted, angry, maybe even wondering if defending him was worth losing everything over.

"you should've let them hate me alone."

you turned around, and you see him standing there. you get even angrier, because you could tell that he genuinely believes that people caring about him only ends up badly.

"well that wasn't exactly an option anymore, was it?" you snap back.

for the first time in a month, you both argue properly again. not the distant and careful conversations you've both been having. real emotion.

"why do you keep shutting people out? shutting me out like i'm everybody else?"

"you're destroying your own reputation trying to protect me, it ain't worth it."

"you don't get to decide for me whether you're worth standing beside, michael." you blurted out.

michael was silent because nobody says things like that to him anymore. all his life, he was surrounded by most people who either wanted something from him or were terrified of being associated with him.

but you were standing there, fully aware of the consequences, but you still refused to leave. that's the moment when his walls finally start to break.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

after the worst of the noise, you both start finding your way back to each other.

during backstage, a quiet moment where you hand him orange juice before an interview.

"if you start giving boring answers again, i'm walking out."

and for the first time in months, he smiles properly.

the playful teasing comes back gradually, but at first, it's small things. in one interview, michael made sarcastic comments under his breath during interviews again, which made you roll your eyes whenever he gets difficult on purpose. he started stealing your pen backstage like old times.

you immediately notice, because those tiny habits from him means that he feels safe enough to be himself around you again, you felt relief.

then the court case came in.

it felt exhausting instead of triumphant; it emotionally drained not only him but you as well.

the media coverage becomes nonstop, cameras and speculation were everywhere, and people were treating the trial like it was entertainment.

you kept defending michael and the importance of evidence on television, while most reporters sensationalize everything for ratings.

michael gradually stops looking numb and starts looking angry instead- not in a dramatic way, just years of exhaustion finally surfacing.

then when it becomes clear that there was absolutely no evidence on him that could prove the accusations.

after a major court developement in his favor, reporters swarm him outside the courthouse, screaming questions, shoving cameras onto his face.

now everybody suddenly wants access to him again, now that public opinion is shifting, like they didn't turn their backs on him.

through the midst of the chaos, he sees you, standing farther away from the crowd. not chasing headlines, just watching to make sure he's okay.

meeting his eyes, you gave him a small smile, and something shifted in him. so instead of addressing the reporters first, he walked directly towards you.

the crowd completely loses it. cameras were flashing everywhere, and people were yelling questions.

you were stunned to say at least. because you never thought he would publicly choose her side that openly before.

"you stayed," he says quietly. it was simple, honest, and devastating.

because to michael, that was the thing he couldn't get over- that you stayed when leaving him would've been easier. standing beside him when everyone turned away, and for the first time ever, he didn't feel alone in this world.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

[mvsticmoony]

dates, kisses & fake mustaches

part 1 ; part 2 ; part 3

SUMMARY: Michael and reader finally stop pretending they’re “just friends”, but dating the biggest rising star in the world comes with fake mustaches, secret kisses, and increasingly dangerous levels of tension.

CONTENT: michael jackson x reader. established relationship. heavily making out. fluff.

.・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・.・。.・゜✭ .

Something had shifted between Michael and Y/N so quietly that neither of them could pinpoint exactly what happened.

One day they were best friends sprawled across his living room floor arguing over movies and stealing bites of each other’s ice cream.

And then suddenly Michael was pulling her into empty hallways at family parties just to kiss her until neither of them remembered what they’d originally left the room for.

It happened constantly now. Sneaking around. Disappearing from rooms at the same exact time. Finding stupid excuses just to be alone together for five minutes. Ten if they were lucky.

Michael would mumble something about wanting to show her a new demo or needing help finding a cassette tape and Y/N would immediately follow him trying not to smile too obviously while his brothers booed dramatically behind them.

And every single time?

They ended up making out somewhere.

Against studio walls.

Inside parked cars.

Curled together on the couch long after everyone else had gone to bed.

It was honestly becoming ridiculous. Especially because Michael, despite kissing her every chance he got now, still acted painfully shy about it afterward.

Like he’d pull her flush against him one second, kissing her slow and deep like he physically couldn’t get close enough and then immediately hide his face in her shoulder afterward because she smiled at him too sweetly.

Y/N found it devastating. Because this was still the same Michael from the Twister mat.

The same boy who looked at her like she hung the moon every time she made him laugh.

Only now he touched her constantly too. And not even intentionally half the time.

Hand at the small of her back while walking through doors. Fingers hooking into the belt loop of her jeans absentmindedly while talking. Pulling her into his lap during studio breaks like it was instinct.

Like somewhere between Human Nature and Thriller and late-night drives through Los Angeles, Michael Jackson had quietly become addicted to touching her.

Y/N wasn’t doing much better than him.

His hand brushed hers once while reaching for the radio in Bill’s car and she spent the next twenty minutes staring out the window trying to remember her own name.

Especially now that she knew what kissing him felt like. Because that had changed everything.

The first kiss beneath the streetlights outside her house had broken something open between them permanently.

Now every glance lasted too long. Every joke carried tension underneath it. Every playful touch threatened turning into something else entirely.

And the worst part?

They still teased each other exactly the same way they always had. Which somehow made everything worse. Especially for Michael.

Because Y/N had realized very quickly that flustering him was embarrassingly easy now.

Like today.

The Jackson family kitchen buzzed with noise around them, Jermaine arguing loudly with Tito while Michael sat at the table pretending to write lyrics. ‘Pretending’ being the keyword. Because Y/N had just walked into the house three minutes ago and he hadn’t had a single coherent thought ever since.

She wore denim shorts and one of his old jackets over a tank top, his aviator sunglasses shoved into her hair because apparently she’d decided those belonged to her permanently now.

Michael looked up automatically the second she entered. And froze on the spot.

Jermaine noticed instantly. “Damn it, Mike.”

“Shut up,” Michael muttered weakly, eyes still fixed on her.

Y/N caught the interaction instantly and grinned.

“Well, hello to you too.”

Michael visibly swallowed.

“…Hi,” he answered softly.

Tito gagged. “This is disgusting.”

Y/N giggled while Michael turned pink immediately. She tilted her head affectionately at the sight of him blushing. It never stopped affecting her.

Because Michael always got shy in the prettiest way possible. Eyes dropping. Little nervous smile. Shoulders curling inward slightly whenever attention landed on him too hard.

Which only made Y/N want to kiss his entire pretty face.

She walked toward the table slowly before sliding into the chair beside him, close enough that her thigh brushed against his beneath the table.

Michael’s breath caught softly. Still, she noticed. Their eyes met for half a second. And suddenly that familiar tension slid quietly into place between them again.

Warm. Dangerous. The kind of tension that had been following them everywhere lately.

Y/N looked away first this time, suddenly feeling shy herself.

Which was kind of new to their dynamic.

Normally she could tease Michael endlessly without losing confidence. But lately? He looked at her too softly and it would completely unravel her.

Especially when he touched her. Like right now.

Michael’s fingers brushed absentmindedly against her bare knee beneath the table.

Not even dramatic. Just resting there lightly.

Y/N’s widened a little bit at the feeling of his warm fingers against her skin and she felt her cheeks getting warm.

The second Michael realized what he had done, he visibly panicked a little. His hand twitched like he meant to pull away.

Then Y/N placed her hand on top of his and Michael stopped functioning entirely.

Jermaine looked between them and groaned.

“This is actually hard to watch.”

Neither of them answered. Because Michael was too busy trying not to stare at Y/N’s mouth. And Y/N was trying very hard not to think about the fact his hand was still resting warm against her leg beneath the table.

It had gotten bad.

At one point earlier that week Michael had pinned her gently against the recording studio door after she’d teased him about the Thriller jacket and they’d ended up kissing for so long Quincy actually walked back out of the room muttering ‘absolutely not.’

And somehow, even after all that? Michael still looked stunned every single time she kissed him first. Like he couldn’t fully believe this was real.

Now Y/N felt her mouth dry, after staring at his hand on her leg for a bit too long. “I think I’m gonna get something to drink.” She rambled.

Automatically, Michael reached for the glass of orange juice that he head next to him on the table handed it over to her without even thinking.

The kitchen went dead silent.

Because Michael Jackson loved his orange juice more than life itself and almost never shared it with anybody.

Y/N blinked once realizing it at the exact same moment Michael did.

And suddenly both of them looked horribly aware of each other again.

Jermaine pointed aggressively across the kitchen.

“Love? In this economy, Mike?”

Michael covered his face immediately, a groan leaving his mouth.

“I hate this family.”

Y/N laughed helplessly beside him, cheeks as red as his now.

Then quieter, just for him: “You gave me your orange juice.”

Michael peeked at her through his fingers.

“Yeah.”

“So this is really serious, huh?” She teased, which should’ve made him embarrassed.

Instead Michael just looked at her with intensity and something else in his eyes.

Brown eyes soft beneath messy curls.

And something in Y/N’s chest flipped over completely because suddenly he didn’t look flustered anymore. Just honest.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “It is.”

Y/N immediately forgot how to speak. “Damn it, Michael.” It was her turn to cover her face with her hands as she tried to fight back a smile.

Because there it was again. That terrifying sincerity Michael carried so naturally.

No games. No performance. Just the brutal truth. And somehow that affected her more than all the kissing did.

Michael noticed her sudden silence and immediately got shy again himself.

His fingers curled nervously against the table.

“I mean—”

“You’re both disgusting,” Tito interrupted loudly.

With that, the moment was over.

Y/N burst into laughter while Michael groaned dramatically once again. His brothers did had a talent to frustrate him.

Without thinking too much about it, he reached for her hand beneath the table anyway. And intertwined their fingers.

Small. Instinctive. Shy. Possessive in the gentlest way possible.

Y/N looked down at their hands and felt her stomach twist. He held her hand like it was something precious.

Like he couldn’t believe she kept letting him do so.

Jermaine watched the entire thing happen and leaned against the counter. “But they’re just friends, right?” He asked rhetorically as he faced Marlon.

“Oh, Jermaine, don’t you know that nobody flirts harder than two ‘we’re just friends’?”

Michael hid his face against Y/N’s shoulder immediately while she laughed so hard the orange juice almost came out through her nose.

But then Michael mumbled softly against her shoulder, just for her: “Don’t laugh.”

Y/N melted instantly.

“I’m not laughing,” she whispered, trying to contain her giggles, smile softening. “I think you’re cute.”

Michael made the smallest embarrassed noise imaginable.

And the fact that Michael Jackson — global superstar, future owner of the biggest album in history — still got flustered because a girl called him cute?

That honestly ruined Y/N a little bit every single time.

“Boys, why won’t you leave Michael alone?” Katherine asked, stepping into the kitchen.

Then Marlon delivered the final blow.

“His girlfriend’s here.”

Silence.

Brutal silence.

Michael froze.

Y/N froze.

His brothers collectively lost it instantly, wheezing at their faces. Katherine just shook her head and winked at Y/N. The poor girl felt her blood running cold.

Michael opened his mouth automatically to correct him—

and stopped.

His girlfriend.

The words echoed around his skull for one horrifying second.

And unfortunately he liked the sound of them way too much.

Y/N slowly turned toward him, eyes still wide and cheeks pink.

Michael’s face went bright red immediately.

“I mean— not that you’re not— I just mean—”

Jermaine was crying from laughing at this point. “Oh my GOD.” He wheezed, his mom slapping the back of his head.

Michael looked seconds away from spontaneous combustion.

Meanwhile Y/N kept staring at him with wide eyes and pink cheeks and suddenly the kitchen felt way too hot.

Because Michael hadn’t corrected it.

And judging by the way he couldn’t even look directly at her right now that seemed very important.

Michael stood abruptly.

“I’m going outside.” He blurted out while fleeing the kitchen.

“Coward!” Tito yelled after him.

Y/N let out a nervous laugh. But then, a few seconds later, still a helpless smile made its way into her face. “I’m gonna—“ She motioned to the door Michael had just gone through, but didn’t really waited for an answer, following after him anyway.

Michael sat on the back steps with his face buried in his hands when Y/N stepped outside.

“You’re alive?”

Michael groaned dramatically, his voice muffled by his hands. “No.”

Y/N sat beside him, shoulder brushing softly against his.

“That bad?”

“I’m never opening my mouth again.”

That made her laugh quietly. Michael glanced sideways at her then. And immediately got distracted again.

Because Y/N just looked so pretty in the afternoon sunlight. Too pretty.

That was becoming a serious issue for him.

Especially wearing his jacket. Especially looking at him all soft like this.

“I didn’t mind it,” she admitted quietly after a moment.

Michael blinked.

“Huh?”

“The girlfriend thing.”

Oh.

Oh no.

Michael’s heartbeat immediately became catastrophic. ‘What the hell is was happening’, he thought to himself. He was trying so hard to act cool and nonchalant, but it was backfiring so badly.

Y/N looked down at her hands now, suddenly feeling (more) nervous.

“I mean…” She smiled, trying to avoid his gaze. “If you meant it.”

Michael stared at her for one full second. Then another. Because he had meant it.

Accidentally. But also not accidentally at all. And suddenly the words came rushing out before fear could stop him.

“I do.”

Y/N looked up immediately, eyes locking on his.

Michael swallowed hard.

“I mean— if you wanted— I mean only if you want to—”

“Michael.”

“—because you don’t have to and I don’t wanna make things weird and—”

Y/N cupped his face with her hands suddenly.

Michael stopped vomiting words instantly.

Then she smiled. Soft. Warm. Completely devastating.

“I do wanna be your girlfriend.”

Michael genuinely looked stunned. He felt like he would burst into flames at any given moment. Like that sentence coming out of her mouth knocked the air out of him.

“R-Really?”

Y/N laughed quietly, taking a second to just look at his beautiful face. Warm, brown and kind eyes. Cheeks flushed. Lips so inviting.

“Yes, really.” One of her hands caressed his cheek softly.

And Michael smiled so hard it almost looked painful. Hopelessly happy. Like he physically couldn’t contain it.

Then very shyly, he squeezed her hand tighter.

And for the next several minutes neither of them really knew what to do.

Because now they were together.

Officially.

Which somehow made them both dramatically more awkward.

At one point Michael tried putting his arm around her shoulders and nearly elbowed her in the face by accident.

Y/N laughed so hard she snorted.

Michael hid his face in embarrassment immediately while she kissed his jaw, still laughing.

God.

That girl was going to be the death of him.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

The problem was that Michael really did want to take Y/N on a proper date afterward.

Desperately.

He wanted normal things with her.

Movies.

Holding hands.

Sharing popcorn.

Stupid little moments that didn’t involve screaming fans or cameras.

He just wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend.

But Michael also knew what happened anytime he stepped into public now.

Especially with Thriller about to release.

The crowds were getting bigger every week.

People pushing.

Photographers yelling.

And the thought of Y/N getting caught in that because of him made guilt twist painfully in his chest.

So by the time he picked her up one Friday night, he already looked nervous.

“We don’t have to go,” he said immediately while she climbed into the passenger seat beside him.

Y/N blinked. “What?”

Michael kept both hands tight on the steering wheel.

“I just mean— if people recognize us or something…”

Y/N’s expression softened instantly.

Because there it was again. That guilt Michael carried everywhere now. Like being in love with him had consequences she didn’t deserve.

“Michael.” He glanced over quietly. “You know I don’t care about any of that.” She shook her head.

Michael didn’t look convinced.

“You say that now, but—”

Then Y/N rolled her eyes and stretched herself to the driver seat, pecking his lips and shushing him.

“Good thing I came prepared.” She said while staring at him, their faces really closed.

Michael pecked her lips again and frowned slightly. “Prepared for what?”

Without answering, Y/N reached into her bag dramatically and pulled out:

Two baseball caps.

Huge sunglasses.

And and two absolutely ridiculous fake mustaches.

Michael stared at her in silence.

“What in the world is that?”

“Our disguises.”

“Those are not a disguises.”

“They are!” Y/N complained, placing the fake mustache above her lips and the baseball cap on her head. She looked absolutely ridiculous.

“You look like a divorced father of three.”

Y/N looked delighted. “Perfect, I knew you’d be into that.” She added.

Michael burst out laughing so suddenly he had to lean forward against the steering wheel for a second.

And just like that, the tension eased.

Because Y/N always did this somehow.

She could make him laugh in the middle of any fear.

Eventually Michael put on the other cap and mustache too, plus sunglasses despite the fact that it was fully nighttime.

“You look more suspicious than famous,” Y/N informed him in a very serious tone, doing her absolute best to keep a poker face.

Michael pointed at her mustache. “You literally cannot speak to me right now.” The two kept staring at each other for about two seconds before busting out laughing.

Miraculously, they actually made it inside the theater unnoticed.

Mostly because nobody was expecting Michael Jackson and his weird little mustached girlfriend to be buying popcorn and a insane amount of candy together at 9 p.m. of a Friday.

Y/N looked unbearably proud of herself the entire time.

“I’m a genius.”

Michael shook his head laughing at her. “You’re insane.”

“But did it work?”

“Fortunately, yes.”

The theater itself was mostly empty.

Dim lights.

Cold air.

That soft movie-theater quiet before previews started rolling.

And suddenly both of them got weirdly nervous again.

Because this was technically their first real date.

Michael sat beside her clutching popcorn like it had personally wronged him.

Meanwhile Y/N kept stealing glances at him beneath the flickering screen light.

He looked so beautiful tonight. But then again, she had that thought every time she laid eyes on him.

Soft curls tucked beneath his cap.

Big brown eyes hidden badly behind sunglasses he absolutely did not need indoors.

And that ridiculous mustache resting on top of his lips.

Every few minutes their hands brushed against each other in the popcorn bucket. And each time both of them reacted like they’d been electrocuted.

At one point Michael reached for popcorn at the exact same moment she did, their fingers tangled briefly. And both of them froze.

Y/N looked down immediately smiling shyly.

Michael held his breath for a second.

Then very carefully, very nervously, he turned his hand slightly until their fingers linked together properly.

Y/N’s felt like she might drop dead right there.

Because Michael looked so shy doing it.

Like he was still asking permission somehow.

And when she laced her fingers through his?

The smile Michael gave her could’ve ended wars.

The movie played was being completely ignored in the background. Neither of them had any idea what was happening onscreen anymore.

Y/N kept leaning closer accidentally (not acidental at all).

Michael kept stealing glances at her mouth.

And eventually the tension became genuinely ridiculous.

Until finally Y/N whispered: “Can I ask you something?”

Michael looked over instantly. “Yeah?”

She tried to sound casual. Failed completely.

“…Should we make out right now?”

Michael choked. Actually choked.

Y/N burst into helpless laughter immediately while Michael covered his face with one hand, shoulders shaking. She patted him in the back lightly as he cough.

“You can’t just say things like that.” He whispered softly after regaining his composure.

“Why not?”

“Because—” Michael looked at her. At the teasing smile on her face. The fake mustache still somehow hanging on crooked. The softness in her eyes only meant for him. And suddenly he couldn’t think straight anymore. “…Okay,” he whispered.

Y/N blinked and raised a brow at him.

“Okay?”

Michael nodded once, visibly flustered.

“Yeah.”

And then somehow they were kissing in the back row of a movie theater like two teenagers.

Soft at first. Shy.

Both smiling too much against each other’s mouths because neither of them could believe this was real.

Michael’s hand stayed tangled carefully with hers the entire time.

And when Y/N laughed quietly into the kiss because his sunglasses bumped her nose, Michael started laughing too.

Which only made them kiss harder.

Messier.

Sweeter.

Completely drunk on each other.

“You know,” She mumbled in between kisses. Michael didn’t answer. “You still have a mustache on.” He stopped kissing her for a second, pulling apart. She let out a small laugh at his face. Sunglasses crooked and mustache almost falling off.

“What?” Michael asked breathlessly. "You know what, I really don't care. You still look hot and I'm trying not to kiss you senseless right now." He blurted out, not really giving his words a second thought before pulling her close again, locking their lips one more time.

Y/N laughed into his lips, reaching out for his jaw and forgetting about everything around them.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

A few weeks later, Thriller released.

And suddenly the entire world shifted beneath Michael’s feet. The release party was massive.

Industry executives.

Celebrities.

Press everywhere.

Everyone in Los Angeles seemingly desperate to witness what Quincy Jones was already calling history.

Meanwhile Y/N stood in front of her mirror at home feeling wildly out of place.

Because this wasn’t her world. It didn’t feel like it was.

Michael belonged here. He was becoming something untouchable now. Bigger than life.

And suddenly the idea of standing beside him in a room full of famous powerful people made insecurity curl painfully in her stomach.

So when Michael called before Bill came to pick her up, she sounded quieter than usual immediately.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

Y/N hesitated.

“Should I even go?”

Silence.

“What?” He questioned, sounding genuinely confused at her words.

She sat down slowly on the edge of her bed.

“I don’t know, Mikey.” She laughed nervously. “It’s your release party. There’s gonna be all these celebrities and important people and I’m just…”

Michael frowned instantly hearing her voice shrink like that.

“Just what?”

Y/N picked nervously at her sleeve.

“I don’t really belong in that world.”

Michael went completely quiet for a second.

“Yes you do.” He said firmly.

Y/N blinked.

“Michael—”

“No, don’t ’Michael’ me.” His voice softened slightly now. “Listen,” And suddenly he sounded so sincere it made her chest ache. “Where I’m going, you’re going.”

Y/N’s breath caught.

“You’re my priority,” Michael said quietly. “Not those people.”

Nobody had ever spoken to her like that before.

Like choosing her was the most obvious thing.

Like he couldn’t imagine not wanting her beside him.

Michael sighed softly on the other end of the line. “I invited you because I want you there.”

Then quieter:

“I need my girlfriend there.”

That completely ruined her.

Because beneath all the excitement surrounding that stage of life, Y/N knew how overwhelmed he really was.

The pressure.

The expectations.

The fear nobody else besides her saw.

And suddenly this wasn’t about social circles anymore.

It was about Michael wanting someone safe beside him while his whole life changed overnight.

Y/N smiled softly despite herself.

“…Okay.”

Michael sounded relieved instantly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The grin in his voice became obvious immediately.

“Good.” He paused briefly. “And wear something pretty.”

Y/N laughed.

“So you’re saying I’m not already pretty?”

Michael made the most offended sound you can imagine.

“You know that’s not what I meant and you also know that I find you the prettiest when you’re wearing pajamas.”

She smiled wider, her cheeks were starting to hurt.

“…I know.”

And later that night, when she stepped into the party and immediately spotted Michael across the room—surrounded by executives and cameras and people desperate for his attention—his entire face lit up the second he saw her.

Not the superstar smile.

Not the public one.

Something softer, meant just for her.

Like out of everybody in the room, she was the only person he’d actually been waiting for.

And when she finally reached him, Michael didn’t even hesitate before reaching for her hand.

Holding it proudly. Openly. Like he wanted the whole world to know exactly who she was to him.

“Hi.” She blurted out, smiling up at him. He already was smiling back at her.

“Y-you look…” Michael felt a blush make its way up to his face as he stared at her. “Wow.”

Y/N giggled at him and shook her head.

“You don’t look too bad yourself.” She said and bit her bottom lip, trying not to think too much about how ridiculously hot he looked at that moment.

Because Katherine Jackson absolutely knew what she was doing. That became painfully obvious the second Michael really looked at Y/N standing in front of him.

Because somehow—without discussing it beforehand—their outfits matched perfectly.

Michael wore a deep violet-black sequined suit that shimmered indigo beneath the lights, silver detailing sharp against the tailored lines of his waist and shoulders while layered necklaces rested against the open collar of his shirt.

And Y/N? She looked like midnight wrapped in starlight.

The gown Katherine had helped her pick flowed over her body like liquid amethyst, tiny crystals shifting between lavender, silver and blue every time she moved beneath the lights. The neckline draped elegantly across her chest while the slit along her leg flashed every time she walked.

Michael forgot to breath for a moment.

And Quincy, who observed the scene unfolding in front of him, noticed this ‘coincidence’ instantly.

“Oh Katherine absolutely planned this.” He pointed out to Tito, who stood next to him with an amused expression on his face as he watched his little brother and his girlfriend struggle.

Michael blinked, finally looking away from Y/N “What?”

“Mom knew exactly what she was doing,” Tito continued gleefully. “You two look like a damn wedding topper.”

Michael turned bright red immediately.

Meanwhile Y/N stared at him with a grin. “Aww, we’re matching!” She pointed out excitedly, looking down at her dress and at his suit.

Michael looked so flustered.

“I— I didn’t know.”

“Neither did I.”

Their eyes met again.

The kind of eye contact that had become genuinely hazardous lately.

Especially after the movie theater.

Especially after weeks of sneaking away from rooms just to kiss until neither of them remembered they’re names.

And right now? Michael looked one compliment away from combusting.

Y/N leaned closer carefully.

“You look really handsome tonight.” She told him in a low voice.

Michael swallowed hard immediately.

Handsome.

God.

She always called him things like that like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

His hand found her waist instinctively, warm fingers pressing lightly against the crystal fabric of her dress.

And suddenly it seemed that both of them forgot there were hundreds of people around them.

“You’re staring,” Y/N whispered teasingly.

Michael’s eyes dropped to her mouth immediately.

“…Can you blame me?”

Her stomach made a catastrophic flip.

Because Michael still sounded shy saying things like that. Adorable. Still looked almost embarrassed by how badly he wanted her.

Y/N felt heat crawl up her neck immediately.

“Michael Jackson,” she whispered, half laughing, half gasping.

Michael ducked his head slightly, smiling to himself. Then quieter:

“You’re making it very hard to behave right now.”

Y/N’s smile dropped immediately. Because Michael never said things like that directly. Not with that low shy honesty in his voice.

“Oh my God.”

Michael immediately looked embarrassed afterward. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” Y/N answered way too fast. “No, actually, you should say more things like that.”

Michael burst into a flustered laughter while Quincy and Tito turned away muttering:

“Lord help these children.”

The party kept swelling louder around them.

Music.

Laughter.

Industry executives orbiting around Michael every few minutes trying to congratulate him.

But despite all of it? Michael kept drifting back toward her.

Every single time.

One hand on her waist.

Pulling her closer while introducing her to people.

Looking for her across rooms automatically anytime they got separated.

And the chemistry between them was getting hard to ignore.

Especially because Michael could not stop touching her tonight.

A bit inappropriately.

Constantly.

His fingers brushing the small of her back.

Hand settling low against her waist while talking.

Thumb absentmindedly stroking over her hip through the shimmering fabric every time she stood close enough.

Like he needed reassurance she was really there.

At one point Y/N laughed at something Quincy said and tipped her head back slightly—

and Michael stared at her mouth. Completely hypnotized.

Obviously Jermaine noticed instantly.

“I’m starting a rumor.” He said bluntly, a smirk on his face at the sight of Michael.

Michael snapped out of it immediately.

“Isn’t this embarrassing,” He mumbled rhetorically, scratching the back of his neck.

“You’ve been staring at her for twenty minutes straight.”

Michael looked horrified.

“I have not.”

“Mhm.”

Y/N smiled innocently beside him before jumping into the conversation.

“Yeah, he kinda has.”

Michael looked at her in betrayal while she and Jermaine burst into laughter.

Then suddenly the opening bassline of Billie Jean exploded through the ballroom speakers.

The entire room reacted instantly.

Cheers erupting everywhere.

And Michael groaned.

“Oh no.”

Y/N grabbed his bicep immediately, eyes completely wide and a giant smile on her face.

“Oh yes.”

“Baby—”

“Nope.” She started pulling him toward the dance floor. “Absolutely not. You are dancing to your own song.” Jermaine clapped and cheered after them.

Michael laughed helplessly while letting her drag him anyway.

The second they hit the dance floor? Chaos.

Because Michael Jackson physically could not hear Billie Jean and act normal.

The crowd around them immediately opened up watching him instinctively fall into the rhythm, shoulders loosening while the familiar confidence slid naturally into place.

And Y/N? She matched his energy instantly.

Dancing dramatically beside him, pointing accusingly during the lyrics while Michael laughed so hard he almost missed his cue mouthing along.

“She says I am the one—”

Y/N pointed at herself dramatically.

Michael clutched his chest theatrically.

“—but the kid is not my son!”

The two of them dissolved laughing.

And people around them were losing it.

Because Michael Jackson —coolest and most famous man alive— was currently being an absolute goofball with his girlfriend in matching sequins.

And the way he looked at her while dancing? It could’ve actually ended wars.

Every spin ended with him pulling her closer than necessary.

Every laugh turned into lingering eye contact.

Every playful touch started lasting a little too long.

At one point Y/N sang directly into his face dramatically:

“Billie Jean is not my lover—”

Michael grabbed her waist suddenly and pulled her flush against him. Y/N shut her mouth immediately.

“She’s just a girl,” he finished softly.

Y/N gulped.

The tension snapped instantly.

Michael’s hands remained low on her waist.

Too close now. Way too close.

The ballroom lights reflected gold against his curls while he stared down at her breathing slightly heavier than before.

And God.

That look.

That look had become a serious problem lately.

Like he wanted to kiss her until neither of them remembered their own names.

Y/N’s fingers curled lightly into the front of his sequined jacket.

“You’re staring again,” she whispered.

Michael’s eyes flicked to her mouth.

“I can’t help it.”

That did it.

Absolutely done.

“Okay, we’re done.” Y/N grabbed his hand instantly. “Come with me.”

Michael blinked.

“What?”

But she was already pulling him off the dance floor. Fast. Through crowded hallways and backstage corridors while Michael followed breathlessly behind her trying not to laugh.

“Where are we going?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“You’re kidnapping me.”

“Correct.”

Eventually they found an empty hallway near the dressing rooms.

Quiet. Dimly lit. Far enough from the party that the music became muffled through the walls.

And the second they were alone?

Michael barely had time to breathe before Y/N grabbed the front of his jacket and crashed her lips into his.

Hard.

Michael made a startled sound against her mouth immediately before kissing her back with equal desperation.

And oh.

Oh this was different tonight.

Hotter.

Needier.

Weeks of tension and sneaking around and wanting each other finally boiling over all at once.

Michael backed her gently against the wall without breaking the kiss once, hands sliding urgently along the glittering fabric of her dress like he couldn’t decide where to touch first.

Y/N’s fingers tangled into his hair.

And the sound Michael made?

Devastating.

He was completely hopeless for her.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he whispered against her mouth.

Y/N actually shivered hearing it. She felt something warming up with urgency inside of her. Specifically between her thighs, if we’re being honest.

Because Michael still sounded shy saying things like that.

Still sounded almost embarrassed by how badly he wanted her.

Which somehow made it infinitely hotter.

His mouth moved down her jaw slowly.

Then her neck.

And when he kissed the sensitive spot beneath her ear Y/N’s knees nearly gave out entirely.

“Michael—”

“I know,” he breathed shakily against her skin. “I know, baby.”

Michael’s hands tightened instinctively at her waist while she kissed him harder, pulling him impossibly close against her.

Sequins scratched softly together every time they moved. Their matching outfits glittering beneath the dim hallway lights while they practically melted into each other.

And somewhere far away Billie Jean still echoed faintly through the ballroom while Michael Jackson kissed his girlfriend like a starved man.

Completely ruined. Completely in love.

And absolutely never recovering from her.

.・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・.・。.・゜✭ .

Taglist:

@skiicoreee @18lkpeters @ami-kay-01 @bouncylikebouncyball @hewassunshine @umafanficdoidaqualquer @darkgreengrl @boredpretty @thatonegirl412 @velournoir @watamotee33 @nodisdino @leipforggy @amoravelee @defmaybesam @niyahctrl @daniela75201 @d3adlyclassrat @bangtan7553 @romansbbg @chims-kookies @needjoekeery @cruelsummer01 @dreyar-palacez @maxivstappen @iris-xoxo-juhu @maerawrrr

[floravkhl]

Don’t

Summary: Michael's insecure about the age gap between you and you're trying to comfort him.

Gen: angsty, romance

A/n: the movie was so good bro, I went and saw it 2 times at the cinema alr. Also, requests are open😝😝

The tabloids had been ruthless for weeks. Not that this was new for Michael Jackson. Cruel headlines followed him everywhere, constant and unavoidable, but this one seemed to linger longer than the others.

“Pop King Dating Woman Half His Age.”

“Father or Boyfriend?”

“Michael Jackson Mistaken for Her Grandpa.”

You hated them. Not because they embarrassed you — they didn’t — but because you saw what they did to him.

At first Michael laughed them off with that soft little chuckle of his, shaking his head as he folded magazines shut and tossed them aside. “People say anything,” he’d mumble. But after a while, you noticed the quieter things. The way he stared too long at mirrors. The way he tugged baseball caps lower over his face whenever the two of you went out. The hesitation before he reached for your hand in public. And worst of all, the way he stopped believing you whenever you called him beautiful.

Rain tapped softly against the windows of Neverland that evening, turning the whole house silver-blue beneath the storm clouds. The fireplace crackled low while old vinyl records played faintly somewhere in the background. Michael sat curled into the corner of the couch in gray silk pajama pants and a loose white button-down, one leg tucked beneath him. The TV was on mute, some entertainment program flashing photos of the two of you at a charity gala from earlier that week.

You walked in just in time to read the subtitles across the screen.

She’s young enough to be his daughter.

Your stomach twisted.

Michael reached for the remote too quickly, fumbling it from his hands before finally shutting the television off altogether. Silence settled heavily between you.

You crossed the room slowly. “Baby…”

“I’m fine,” he said immediately.

Too immediately.

He wouldn’t look at you.

The firelight danced across his face, catching the exhaustion beneath his eyes. At thirty-nine, Michael was still heartbreakingly beautiful, but lately there was a fragility to him that made your chest ache.

You sat beside him carefully, the couch dipping under your weight. For a moment neither of you spoke. Then quietly, almost too quietly, he asked, “Does it embarrass you?”

Your heart cracked open instantly. “Michael—”

“They laugh at you because of me.” His fingers twisted nervously together in his lap. “I hear them. I see the headlines. Sometimes when we go places people stare at you like…” He swallowed hard. “Like you’re wasting your life on someone old.”

Old.

God.

You turned toward him fully. “You are not old.”

He shrugged faintly, still refusing to meet your eyes. “Compared to you?”

“You’re fourteen years older than me, not eighty.”

A tiny breath of laughter escaped him before disappearing just as quickly.

“You could have anybody,” he whispered. “Someone younger. Someone normal.”

“There’s nobody else I want.”

“But one day there might be.” His voice cracked slightly. “And I keep thinking… what if you wake up one morning and realize they were right?”

The vulnerability in that sentence nearly destroyed you. Because this wasn’t Michael Jackson the icon speaking. Not the legend. Not the King of Pop. Just Michael. A man who had spent his entire life being picked apart by strangers until every insecurity bled openly.

You reached for his hands slowly, giving him enough time to pull away if he wanted to. He didn’t. His fingers slipped into yours almost desperately.

“Look at me,” you said gently.

He hesitated before finally lifting his eyes to yours. God, those eyes. Still soft. Still enormous. Still carrying that wounded little-boy sadness hidden underneath everything.

“You wanna know what I see when I look at you?” you asked quietly.

His lashes lowered slightly.

“I see the sweetest man I’ve ever known. I see someone who stays up all night helping children he’s never even met. Someone who cries during movies and laughs at his own jokes and dances in the kitchen when he thinks nobody’s watching.”

His mouth twitched faintly.

“I see someone beautiful,” you continued. “Not despite his age. Not despite his scars. Just beautiful.”

Michael looked down again quickly, already overwhelmed.

“You know what I don’t see?” you whispered.

He shook his head once.

“An old man.”

A quiet breath left him.

“You don’t understand,” he murmured. “You walk into rooms and everybody notices you. You’re young and bright and…” He shook his head helplessly. “Then there’s me.”

“Michael.” You moved closer until your knees touched his. “Do you have any idea how loved you are?”

“That’s different.”

“No, it isn’t.”

You lifted one hand to his face, fingertips brushing gently along his jaw. He melted immediately, like he always did whenever you touched him with tenderness instead of worship.

“I love your hands,” you whispered. “I love the lines around your eyes when you smile. I love your voice in the morning. I love the way you hold me like I’m precious.”

His eyes closed.

“And I love that you’re older,” you admitted softly.

That made his eyes open again in surprise.

“I do,” you said with a small smile. “You’re patient with me. You make me feel safe. You listen to me. You understand people in a way men my age don’t.”

Michael stared at you like he genuinely couldn’t process what he was hearing.

You brushed a curl back from his face. “I don’t want somebody younger,” you said softly. “I want you.”

The room fell silent except for the rain. Then suddenly his eyes started shining.

“Oh, baby…” he whispered shakily.

You barely had time to react before he pulled you into him. Not graceful, not composed — just needy. His arms wrapped tightly around your waist while he buried his face against your neck, holding you with heartbreaking intensity. You felt him exhale slowly against your skin, like relief, like finally setting down something unbearably heavy.

“I love you so much,” he whispered. “You don’t even know.”

“I do know.”

“No…” His voice turned fragile again. “You don’t understand what you do to me.”

You held him closer, stroking softly through the curls at the nape of his neck. For several long moments he simply stayed there quietly, breathing you in. Then eventually he pulled back just enough to look at you again.

And something had changed.

The insecurity was still there — you knew it wouldn’t disappear overnight — but underneath it now sat certainty. Deep, unwavering certainty. The kind people spend lifetimes searching for.

His thumb brushed across your cheek almost reverently. “You really mean that?” he asked softly.

“Every word.”

Michael stared at you for another second before finally smiling. Not the practiced public smile. Not the dazzling performer grin. The real one. Small, warm, completely in love.

And somewhere deep inside himself, something settled permanently into place. Because for the first time in years, maybe ever, Michael stopped wondering if he was enough.

The next morning you woke up alone, which wasn’t unusual. Michael kept strange hours. Still half-asleep, you wandered downstairs expecting to find him at the piano or curled up somewhere with coffee and music playing softly.

Instead one of the staff smiled at you. “Mr. Jackson left early this morning.”

You frowned slightly. “Early?”

“He said he had something important to do.”

You smiled to yourself. Probably another surprise trip for sick children or some secret project he hadn’t told anyone about yet. Classic Michael.

But what you didn’t know — what you couldn’t possibly know — was that at that exact moment, Michael Jackson sat inside a private jewelry showroom in Los Angeles nervously tapping his fingers against his knee while staring at rows of engagement rings.

Terrified.

Certain.

And completely, utterly in love.

[ilyjane]

i know dada.

[mvsticmoony]

Thriller sessions

part 1 ; part 2

SUMMARY: Michael invites reader into the process of creating Thriller. Something is shifting between them.

CONTENT: michael jackson x reader. friends to lovers. fluff. mj creating thriller. kissing.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆

There were very few people Michael Jackson willingly let into the studio while working on Thriller.

Actually, that wasn’t true. There was exactly one.

And even asking her had taken him three full days.

Because Michael Jackson, global superstar and soon-to-be owner of the best-selling album of all time, somehow still turned shy and as red as. tomato whenever it came to Y/N.

Especially when something actually mattered to him. And Thriller mattered more than anything.

The pressure around the album had become suffocating lately.

Epic Records wanted another Off the Wall.

The label wanted perfection.

Critics were already waiting for him to fail.

Every producer, executive, journalist and random person on earth suddenly had opinions about what Michael Jackson should do next.

It exhausted him.

Even when he tried not to show it. Especially tonight.

The studio was dim except for the soft glow of soundboards and equipment, Quincy Jones speaking quietly with engineers while Michael sat curled into the corner of the couch scribbling lyrics into a notebook.

He looked tired. Not physically. Emotionally tired.

Like his brain hadn’t stopped moving in weeks.

Then the studio door opened quietly and immediately Michael looked up.

Y/N stepped inside carefully, almost hesitant.

Which rare for her. Normally Y/N walked into rooms like she owned them. Loud. Funny. Fearless. But this? It felt sacred somehow.

The Thriller recording sessions had already become legendary in the industry, and now Michael had invited her into that world personally.

Just her.

“You came,” Michael said softly.

Y/N stared at him. “You called.” She offered him a small smile.

Michael smiled back shyly immediately, ducking his head slightly like he regretted sounding too eager.

That smile alone nearly killed her.

Because Michael looked devastating tonight.

Soft curls falling into his face. White button-up slightly open at the collar. Long legs stretched across the couch. And those doe-like eyes warming the second they landed on her.

Y/N suddenly forgot how to behave like a normal human being.

“Hi,” she said stupidly.

Michael laughed softly under his breath.

“Hi.”

Quincy looked between them once and immediately smirked.

“Incoming,” he muttered quietly to an engineer, who nodded in agreement.

Y/N walked further into the studio slowly, taking everything in.

The microphones.

The layered vocal notes scattered everywhere.

The instruments.

Michael’s notebooks filled with lyric fragments and little sketches.

It felt like stepping directly into his brain. And that made her nervous.

“You okay?” Michael asked gently.

Y/N blinked quickly.

“Yeah.” She smiled awkwardly. “I just— this is weird.”

Michael tilted his head.

“Weird bad?”

“No.” She looked around again. “Weird like… this is where Thriller is happening.”

Michael immediately looked embarrassed.

“It’s not finished yet.”

“Michael.”

“I’m serious.”

Y/N stared at him flatly, eyes narrowed at him. “You could record yourself microwaving soup and people would buy it.”

Quincy burst out laughing somewhere behind them.

Meanwhile Michael physically covered his face smiling.

“Stop.”

“No, I’m serious.” Y/N sat beside him on the couch now. “This is historical.”

Michael glanced toward her quietly then.

And for a second the confidence disappeared completely.

“I just want it to be good.”

The honesty in his voice made something ache inside her. Because everybody else saw Michael Jackson the phenomenon.

The genius.

The perfectionist.

But moments like this reminded her he was still just a twenty-something kid desperately hoping people would love the things he created.

And somehow that made her love him even more.

“It’s not going be good,” she started quietly.

Michael looked at her raising a brow.

“No,” she added softly. “It’s gonna change everything, Mikey.”

Something in Michael’s expression shifted at that. Like hearing her believe in him mattered more than hearing it from anyone else.

Then Quincy clapped his hands suddenly.

“Alright genius, enough flirting. Come record.”

Michael immediately turned pink and Y/N held her breath for a few seconds.

“We’re not—” They both started, stopping mid-sentence when they realized they had spoken at the same time.

“Mhm.”

Y/N burst out laughing while Michael stood up muttering embarrassed little protests beneath his breath.

Watching him work ruined her life a little bit.

Because Michael transformed inside the studio.

Not louder.

Not arrogant.

Just completely consumed.

He moved constantly while recording.

Snapping rhythms into the air.

Layering harmonies instinctively.

Stopping suddenly to change one tiny detail nobody else would’ve noticed.

And when he sang—

Oh.

Y/N actually stopped breathing for a second.

Because hearing Michael Jackson sing live from inside the booth felt unreal.

Rawer somehow. More emotional.

His voice filled every corner of the studio effortlessly while Quincy adjusted levels behind the glass. She felt as if his voice filled her heart, a warm feeling taking over her chest.

And Michael looked absolutely beautiful doing it.

Sweat beginning to dampen the curls near his temples.

Eyes closed while harmonizing with himself.

Hands moving instinctively with the music.

Y/N sat frozen on the couch completely mesmerized.

At one point Michael glanced toward the studio window mid-recording. And immediately smiled seeing her staring.

Y/N looked away so fast her neck actually snapped. Quincy started laughing.

“Get it together, lover-girl” Y/N widened her eyes at that, her cheeks so red it looked like the poor girl had run a marathon.

“Quincy!” Michael groaned instantly, listening to everything was being said through the headphones.

Quincy looked pleased at his attempt (and success) at embarrassing the two of them. Very pleased.

Hours passed like that.

Music.

Laughter.

Michael bouncing excitedly between ideas.

And slowly the stress that had been weighing on him all week seemed lighter somehow.

Because Y/N stayed.

Not because she wanted something. Not because of fame. Just because she genuinely loved watching him create and just being around him.

At around two in the morning Michael finally collapsed back onto the couch beside her exhausted. He chuckled at the sight of her with his aviators on her face and shook his head.

“Tired, P.Y.T?” Y/N asked softly, she joked.

“Ha Ha, really funny,” But he smiled while saying it. “Just a little.”

Y/N looked at him quietly for a second and lowered the glasses on the tip of her nose. She stared at him for a few seconds.

“I think watching you work just altered my brain chemistry.”

Michael laughed softly.

“What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re…” She searched helplessly for words. “I don’t know. There’s something wrong with you.”

Michael blinked.

“That sounds insulting.”

“No, I mean it nicely!” Y/N laughed. “You just… different,” She paused. “You know, than everyone else.”

Michael got shy immediately at that, breaking the eye contact.

He always did when compliments felt too sincere.

Y/N’s expression softened.

“You’re magic, Michael.”

And there it was again.

That look.

The one he got whenever she said something that reached too deep inside him too quickly.

Michael looked down smiling faintly, almost overwhelmed.

“You really think so?”

Y/N stared at him in disbelief and hit him lightly behind the head. “Are you kidding me?”

Michael shrugged a little, suddenly looking much younger than the superstar everyone imagined him to be.

“I don’t know.” He smiled shyly. “Sometimes I worry maybe I’m doing too much.”

Y/N looked genuinely emotional now. Because how on earth could someone this gifted still doubt himself?

“You could never do too much,” she said quietly.

Michael looked at her for a long second after that.

Really looked at her.

And something changed quietly in the room.

It felt… warmer. More honest, somehow.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Later that week Human Nature happened.

It started after one of their late-night drives through Los Angeles.

Michael liked driving around with her because it made him feel normal for a little while.

No screaming fans.

No executives.

Just music playing softly while Y/N sat beside him rambling about random things.

They’d sneak out behind Bill’s back —he absolutely loathed the idea of Michael driving with Y/N by his side, claiming they shared a single brain cell and would get themselves killed or lost— and left Encino quietly.

Tonight Y/N had been rambling about stars.

Pointing excitedly through the windshield every few minutes while Michael smiled helplessly beside her.

“You ever think about how weird it is we’re alive at the same time?” she asked suddenly.

Michael laughed softly. “What?”

“I’m serious!” She looked over at him dramatically. “Like what if I’d been born in the eighteen hundreds?”

“You’d hate it there.”

“I would die immediately, thrown into the fire!”

Michael burst out laughing.

Then quieter: “Well, I’m glad you weren’t.”

Something about the way he said it lingered afterward.

After a few moments, she said quietly:

“Well, I would’ve manage to find you even back than,” She threw a look at his direction. “There’s no me without you.”

Michael almost lost control of the car after that.

“We would’ve been timeless, you know?”

Michael gulped, not knowing how to formulate an answer.

And later, back in the studio, those feelings followed him into the music.

Looking out

across the nighttime…

Michael sang softly into the microphone while the melody unfolded around him almost naturally.

Why, why…

tell ‘em that it’s human nature…

It wasn’t intentionally about her at first.

Not consciously, no.

But then came the feeling underneath it.

Curiosity.

Longing.

Wonder.

The strange ache of wanting closeness despite how isolating fame had become.

And suddenly all he could picture was her.

Y/N laughing in the passenger seat.

Y/N asleep on his shoulder while they watched movies.

Y/N dancing around his house in socks.

Y/N stealing his shades.

Y/N looking at him like Michael mattered more than Michael Jackson.

By the time he finished the demo, Quincy threw him a suspicious look immediately.

“This about somebody?”

Michael blinked innocently.

“No.”

Quincy stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Michael.”

Michael smiled shyly to himself instead of answering.

And later that night, when he played the unfinished version for Y/N alone in the studio, she went unusually quiet afterward.

Michael looked nervous immediately.

“You don’t like it?”

Y/N turned toward him so fast he almost laughed.

“What? No.”

“Then why are you looking at me like that?”

She felt emotional. Actually emotional.

Y/N swallowed once before speaking softly.

“This feels like you.”

Michael blinked.

“What do you mean?”

She smiled with melancholy.

“Like the part of you nobody else gets to see.”

That silence afterward felt huge somehow.

Then Michael finally admitted very quietly:

“I think maybe I wrote it about you.”

Y/N’s entire face softened instantly. “Oh,”

Michael looked embarrassed immediately after saying it out loud.

Not one second later Y/N threw her arms around his neck without hesitation. “I love you, Mikey.” He wrapped his arms around her. He took a deep breath, the faint smell of her vanilla scented shampoo taking over him.

“I love you, too.”

And for the first time in months, the pressure around Thriller disappeared completely for a little while.

Because suddenly Michael wasn’t thinking about charts or critics or expectations.

Just her heartbeat against his chest.

And how badly he never wanted to lose this feeling.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

A few weeks after Human Nature, Y/N found herself sitting cross-legged on Michael’s bedroom floor while he paced around rambling excitedly about zombies.

Actual zombies.

“And then Vincent Price does this whole creepy narration thing—”

“Michael.”

“—and there’s fog everywhere and we transform into monsters and—”

“Michael.”

“—Rick Baker’s doing the makeup effects—”

Y/N finally burst out laughing.

“You sound clinically insane right now.”

Michael stopped pacing immediately, curls bouncing slightly into his eyes.

“It’s gonna be cool!”

“I know it’s gonna be cool.” She grinned up at him from the floor. “You just explained it like a seven-year-old who drank too much soda.”

Michael laughed out loud.

He’d been feeling lighter lately.

Still stressed, still obsessing over Thriller constantly, but lighter.

Ever since the Human Nature sessions, something between them had softened further somehow.

More comfortable. More honest.

Michael had started reaching for her instinctively now.

Her hand.

Her waist.

The sleeve of her sweater.

Like touching her grounded him.

And right now, while rambling about Thriller, one of his hands absentmindedly rested against her shoulder while he talked.

“I’m serious,” he insisted dramatically. “This is something else.”

Y/N looked up at him softly then, a small, playful smile on her lips. Every time Michael talked about music lately, he glowed.

“You really love this one, huh?”

Michael’s expression softened immediately.

“Yeah.” It was like he already knew Thriller was becoming something bigger than himself.

Then suddenly he looked away weirdly nervous.

Y/N narrowed her eyes immediately.

“What?”

Michael glanced away. “Nothing.”

“That’s not nothing.”

“It is.”

“It’s absolutely not.” She insisted, bumping her shoulder lightly on his. “C’mon, tell me.”

Michael sighed softly before finally blurting out. “D-Do you wanna come watch tomorrow?”

Y/N blinked. “Watch?” She asked a bit confused. He couldn’t be asking her what she thought he was.

“You know, the video shoot.”

He was met with silence. Michael immediately started regretting asking.

“I mean you don’t have to—”

“The Thriller video?” She sounded like she was in shock.

Michael looked shy instantly. “It’s still unfinished—”

“Michael.”

“And it’s gonna be a really long day and there’s probably gonna be fake blood everywhere—”

“Michael Jackson.” She snapped.

Michael stopped talking mid-sentence. Y/N stared at him in disbelief.

“You’re actually inviting me to the Thriller shoot?”

Michael shrugged awkwardly, suddenly looking like a nervous teenager about to talk to his crush on the school break.

“I thought maybe you’d wanna see it.”

The thing was Michael almost never invited people into the creative process this intimately. Not really.

The studio already felt personal.

But the video shoot?

This was his brain completely exposed.

His biggest ideas.

His weirdest instincts.

His imagination turned physical.

And he wanted her there for it.

Y/N’s chest ached immediately.

“Yeah,” she answered softly. “Yeah, I wanna come. Of course!” She smiled, excitedly. “Why me, though?”

Michael smiled instantly. “Because you’re you.” He stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Y/N looked down, a small, relieved smile taking over her face.

Absolutely beautiful, Michael thought.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

The set looked unreal.

Fog machines filled the soundstage.

Fake graveyards stretched beneath enormous studio lights.

Dancers wandered around in partial zombie makeup drinking coffee while production assistants ran everywhere screaming about schedules.

And standing in the middle of all of it, was Michael.

Or technically zombie-Michael.

Y/N stopped on her tracks when she saw him.

“Oh my God.” A huge grin took over her face at the sight.

Michael turned immediately at the sound of her voice.

And there he was.

Full Thriller costume.

Red leather jacket.

Pale makeup.

Torn clothes.

Messy curls falling around his face while Rick Baker adjusted prosthetics near his cheekbone.

He looked horrifying. And unfortunately still ridiculously attractive.

Y/N placed her hands on her waits and tilted her head as she approached. “You make a really cute zombie, you know.”

Michael burst out laughing immediately.

“A cute zombie?”

“Yes.” She walked slowly around him inspecting the makeup seriously. “Like, if you tried eating my brain I’d probably let you.”

Bill snorted somewhere behind them.

Meanwhile Michael shook his head and laughed.

“That’s concerning.”

“No, what’s concerning is that this is somehow working for you.”

Rick Baker pointed at her immediately.

“She gets it. I like her.”

Michael groaned, smile so big his cheeks hurt.

Y/N shrugged and handed Michael a bottle. “Here.” He stared at the bottle confused.

“What—,” He begun, confused, while grabbing the bottle from her hands, their fingers brushing against each other’s.

“O.G.” She stated, like her bringing him his favorite beverage had not made him almost melt right on the spot. “I thought you might get thirsty with all of.” She motioned to the set. “,This.”

Michael’s gaze kept switching from the bottle in his hand to the girl standing before him. “Thank you.” He said with raw honesty.

Watching him film Thriller changed something permanently inside Y/N.

Because Michael wasn’t just performing.

He was creating an entire world.

Every tiny detail mattered to him.

The angles. The choreography. The timing of the fog. How the dancers moved.

At one point he stopped everything because one zombie “wasn’t walking creepy enough.”

Y/N almost cried laughing.

“No, seriously,” Michael insisted while demonstrating dramatically. “You gotta feel dead inside.”

The dancers collapsed laughing.

So did Y/N.

And Michael? He looked happiest when everyone around him was creating with him.

Like this huge impossible imagination in his head finally had room to breathe.

Between takes he kept gravitating back toward Y/N instinctively.

Standing beside her.

Talking excitedly.

Checking if she liked things.

At one point he dragged her toward the monitors, both hands on her waist as he stood behind her, the two of them watching the monitor.

“Okay look at this part.”

The playback started.

Michael transformed onscreen beneath flashing lights while the music exploded through the speakers.

Then came the choreography.

And Y/N’s breath got caught in her throat.

There was something terrifyingly magnetic about him performing Thriller.

The sharpness of his movements. The confidence. The way he completely transformed once the cameras rolled.

He looked larger than life somehow.

Not even real.

Y/N felt weirdly emotional watching it.

Because standing here, watching Michael obsess over details and choreography and storytelling with this much passion she suddenly understood.

Thriller wasn’t just gonna be successful.

It was going to become immortal.

Michael glanced sideways at her nervously.

“Well?”

Y/N looked at him slowly.

“I think,” she said quietly, “people are gonna talk about this forever.”

Michael stared at her for a second.

Then immediately looked down smiling shyly to himself.

And that somehow got her even worse.

Because despite all this genius and ambition and artistry, he was still Michael. Her Michael.

Still the boy who sat beside her in silence while writing Human Nature.

Still the boy who got insecure about whether his ideas were ‘too weird.’

Still the boy who looked relieved every single time she believed in him.

Later that night, after hours of filming, Y/N wandered onto the empty soundstage while fake fog rolled softly around her ankles. She had a ridiculous hair bow with werewolf ears on her head.

Michael followed behind her still fully dressed as a zombie.

“You know,” Y/N said thoughtfully, “this would be a terrible place to make out with somebody.”

Michael nearly choked. “What?!”

“I’m just saying.” She gestured vaguely toward the graveyard set. “Very romantic.”

Michael’s shoulders shook beneath the red jacket as he laughed at her. A sudden boost of confidence took over him.

“You’re flirting with me while I look dead?”

“Well, you do look handsome dead.”

“That sentence should concern you deeply.”

Y/N grinned. “Well, at least whatever is wrong with me makes me really funny.”

Michael shook his head helplessly before stepping closer.

And for a second neither of them spoke.

The fake fog curling around their feet.

Studio lights glowing softly overhead.

Michael still wearing zombie makeup while smiling at her like she’d hung the moon.

Then quietly: “You really like being here?”

Y/N looked at him.

Really looked at him.

At the excitement still glowing in his eyes despite exhaustion.

At the creativity practically radiating off him.

At Michael Jackson before the rest of the world fully understood what Thriller would become.

And softly, honestly, she answered:

“I think this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

⋆⭒˚.⋆

By the time filming for Thriller finally wrapped for the night, it was almost three in the morning.

Everyone looked exhausted.

Zombie dancers half-asleep in folding chairs.

Crew members dragging cables across the soundstage.

Quincy already threatening to force Michael to rest for at least six hours.

But Michael? He still looked energized somehow.

Tired, yes. But glowing.

Like creating Thriller had plugged him directly into electricity.

The only problem was he was still in full costume.

Rick Baker had removed some of the prosthetics, but Michael still wore the red jacket, dark makeup smudged faintly around his eyes and pale foundation clinging stubbornly near his jawline.

Y/N thought he looked unfairly beautiful.

Bill drove them back to Encino quietly while the radio played softly in the background.

Y/N sat curled near the window, exhaustion finally hitting her all at once.

Meanwhile Michael sat beside her still smelling faintly like makeup, fog machine smoke and cologne.

Neither of them talked much, a comfortable silence filling the car.

The kind of silence that only existed between people who already understood each other completely.

At one point Y/N glanced sideways at him and burst into quiet laughter again.

Michael looked over immediately.

“What?”

“You’re still a zombie.”

Michael groaned, leaning his head back against the seat. “I know.”

“No, but it’s really getting me now.” She laughed harder. “Like Bill’s just casually driving around with a corpse in the backseat.”

Bill snorted from the front.

Michael pointed accusingly at both of them.

“This is very disrespectful.”

“Well, I told you you,” Y/N repeated smugly. “You make a cute zombie.”

Michael shook his head, smiling helplessly despite himself.

God.

Every time she said things like that, his brain completely stopped functioning.

By the time they reached Encino, the neighborhood sat quiet and dark beneath the late-night summer sky.

Bill pulled up outside Y/N’s house first.

“I can walk her up,” Michael blurted out immediately and before Bill could even ask, he was out of the car, pacing fast around it to open the door for Y/N.

Bill looked very amused. “Mhm.”

Michael ignored him entirely.

The second they stepped out of the car, Y/N wrapped her arms around herself instinctively. “Geez,”

The California night had gotten colder while they drove.

Michael noticed immediately.

“You cold?”

“No.”

“You just shivered.”

“I’m alright.”

Michael narrowed his eyes slightly because Y/N had this deeply annoying habit of refusing to admit basic human weaknesses.

Then, without another word, he shrugged off his jacket.

Y/N blinked immediately.

“Michael.”

“Take it.”

“You’ll freeze.”

“I literally spent eight hours pretending to be undead.”

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

Michael laughed softly and shrugged before stepping closer and draping the jacket around her shoulders himself.

And the second the leather settled around her, Y/N forgot how to breathe for a second.

Because it still felt warm from him.

Smelled like him.

And suddenly she was standing there wearing his jacket while Michael Jackson looked down at her with soft tired eyes beneath messy curls and leftover zombie makeup.

Y/N cursed the universe in her head.

“You look cute,” Michael murmured absentmindedly while closing the zipper of the jacket for her. He did not know where that confidence came from.

Y/N’s stomach flipped violently. This boy was gonna ruin her life. “Shut up.”

They started walking slowly toward her front door while crickets chirped softly somewhere in the distance.

The world felt strangely still.

Like everything had quieted after the chaos of the studio.

And maybe it was the exhaustion. Or the late hour. Or watching him all night.

But suddenly Y/N felt painfully aware of him beside her.

Michael.

Her Michael.

The boy who trusted her enough to let her see the pieces of himself nobody else really got access to.

The boy who still got shy whenever she complimented him despite being Michael Jackson.

The boy who’d looked at her tonight like her opinion mattered more than anyone else’s in the room.

The boy who had been her best friend for years and years and for whom she’d move mountains.

Y/N stopped walking.

Michael looked over immediately.

“What?”

She stared at him quietly for a second too long.

Then smiled softly, placing her hands inside the jacket’s pockets.

“You know you’re my best friend, right?”

Michael’s entire expression softened, like those words reached somewhere deep inside him.

“Yeah,” he answered quietly. “You’re mine too.”

Y/N’s chest hurt suddenly.

Because he sounded so sincere. So open.

The silence stretched softly between them. She took a step in his direction, looking up at him.

Then Y/N swallowed once before asking nervously:

“Can I do something?”

Michael blinked as he looked down at her pretty face with confusion. “…Okay?”

And before she could lose her nerve, Y/N stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. Right in the lips.

Just one small nervous kiss beneath the quiet Encino streetlights.

Michael completely froze.

Actually froze.

His brain stopped functioning instantly.

Not a single thought crossed his mind.

Because one second Y/N was standing there looking up at him in his jacket and the next her lips were on his.

Warm. Real. Kissing him.

Michael made the faintest startled sound against her mouth.

Not pulling away.

Just shocked.

Terrified.

Completely overwhelmed.

And when Y/N finally stepped back Michael Jackson looked like he’d just seen Jesus.

Eyes wide.

Cheeks bright pink beneath the remaining zombie makeup.

Entire body visibly tense like he no longer knew how to stand properly.

Y/N immediately panicked.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry, I just thought maybe—”

“No!” Michael answered so fast they both startled. Then he looked horrified by how aggressive that sounded. “No,” he repeated quieter now. “No, don’t— don’t apologize.”

Y/N stared at him nervously, her eyes as wide as his.

Michael stared back looking completely short-circuited.

Because this was Y/N.

His Y/N.

His best friend.

Y/N who played Twister with him and stole spoons of his ice cream and fell asleep on his shoulder during every movie they watched.

And now she’d kissed him.

His heartbeat felt genuinely dangerous at this point.

“You kissed me,” he whispered stupidly.

Y/N laughed nervously.

“Yeah, I did.”

Michael’s brain somehow got even worse hearing her confirming it.

He didn’t know where to look.

At her eyes?

Her mouth?

His jacket swallowing her whole?

Meanwhile Y/N started panicking. She stared down at her shoes and cleared her throat, starting to regret every single decision she had ever made in her lifespan.

Which made Michael immediately panic because he never wanted her regretting this.

So before fear could stop him he pulled her by the belt loops of her jeans kissed her again.

Softer this time.

Shy.

Tentative.

Like he still couldn’t believe he was allowed to do this.

It was Y/N’s turn to be shocked for a moment. And then, she deepened the kiss and placed her hands on his neck, pulling Michael closer.

Her fingers tangled in his hair, anchoring herself to him as his lips moved against hers with maddening patience. It was slow. Painfully slow. Like they were memorizing the taste of each other’s lips one second at a time.

And when they pulled apart again, Michael hid his face behind one hand laughing breathlessly. “Oh my God.”

Y/N burst out laughing too.

“What?”

“I can’t—” Michael shook his head helplessly, still blushing violently. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

Y/N smiled softly. “You hated it?”

Michael looked at her immediately.

And whatever expression crossed his face made her stomach flip.

Because beneath all the nervousness and embarrassment he looked gone for her.

Completely.

Hopelessly.

Devoted.

“No,” he admitted quietly. “I really like it.” He admitted before pulling her close by the waist and closing the space between them one more time.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆

Taglist:

@skiicoreee @18lkpeters @ami-kay-01 @bouncylikebouncyball @hewassunshine @umafanficdoidaqualquer @darkgreengrl @boredpretty @thatonegirl412 @velournoir @watamotee33 @nodisdino @leipforggy @amoravelee @defmaybesam @niyahctrl @daniela75201 @d3adlyclassrat

[mvsticmoony]

twister, pools and llamas

Part 1 ; Part 2

SUMMARY: Michael realizes he has feelings for his best friend.

CONTENT: inspired by the twister and pool scenes in ‘Michael’. Friends with feelings for each other. Fluff. This will probably be a small series! lmk what you guys think.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆

There was one thing Michael Jackson still hated admitting.

He got lonely easily.

Especially in that weird in-between stage of his life where everything felt like it was changing too fast.

Off the Wall had exploded.

People looked at him differently now.

The pressure was bigger.

The expectations louder.

And somehow the house in Encino felt emptier because of it.

Tonight was supposed to help.

Michael had spent an embarrassingly long time setting up Twister in the living room because he’d convinced himself his brothers would actually play with him for once.

“C’mon,” he tried again, holding up the box dramatically while his brothers grabbed jackets near the front door. “Just one game.”

“We already got plans, Mike.”

“We’re late.”

“We’ll play another time.”

Michael’s shoulders slumped slightly.

“But you said—”

“Another night, man.”

The front door shut behind them.

Silence.

Michael stared at the bright Twister mat spread across the carpet for a second too long before quietly sitting down beside it.

From the kitchen, Katherine Jackson looked over sympathetically.

“Oh baby…”

“I’m fine,” Michael muttered immediately.

Which meant he absolutely wasn’t.

Meanwhile, from his armchair, Joe Jackson barely glanced up from the television.

“You too old to be sulking over games.”

Katherine shot him a sharp look immediately.

Michael just looked down at the mat.

And then the doorbell rang.

Katherine moved to answer it, and seconds later a familiar voice drifted through the hallway.

“Mrs. Jackson, my mom said you forgot your baking dish again—”

Then Y/N L/N appeared in the living room doorway and stopped mid-sentence.

Because spread across the floor was Twister.

Her entire face lit up instantly.

“Oh my God.”

Michael looked up slowly.

Y/N pointed aggressively at the mat.

“Are we playing Twister?”

Michael blinked once.

“…You wanna play?”

“Michael.” She looked genuinely offended. “I love Twister.”

And just like that, something heavy in his chest loosened instantly.

Because Y/N always did this somehow.

She was the Jacksons’ neighbor in Encino. Loud, funny, dramatic Y/N who showed up unexpectedly and filled rooms without even trying.

Katherine adored her.

Joe absolutely did not.

“She distracts him,” he always grumbled whenever she came around.

Which honestly? Only became more true with time.

Because Michael looked at Y/N differently than he looked at everybody else.

Like he could breathe easier around her.

Even if neither of them fully realized why yet.

Y/N dropped onto the floor beside the mat dramatically.

“Set it up.”

Michael laughed softly for the first time all evening.

“It’s already set up.”

“Oh.” Y/N crossed her legs. “So this is serious.”

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Twister turned out to be a horrible idea immediately.

Mostly because Y/N cheated constantly.

“You moved your foot!”

“I adjusted it.”

“That’s cheating.”

“It’s called strategy.”

Michael laughed so hard he nearly collapsed onto the mat.

God, He needed this.

Needed someone who didn’t treat him like a celebrity or a machine or the future of music.

Just Michael.

At one point Y/N got completely tangled beneath his arm and burst into helpless laughter.

“We’re stuck.”

“Move your hand.”

“I literally can’t.”

“You’re dramatic.”

“Yeah, well, you like that about me.”

Michael opened his mouth automatically.

Paused.

Then smiled shyly instead. “I actually do.”

Y/N blinked at him for half a second too long before immediately looking away.

Because sometimes Michael smiled at her and her brain genuinely stopped functioning for a moment.

Not that she’d ever admit that out loud.

Meanwhile Katherine watched the entire thing from the kitchen trying not to smile too obviously.

Joe, unfortunately, noticed too. And he didn’t like it one bit.

Because Michael had spent all week locked in the studio obsessing over demos and rehearsals and choreography. Focused. Disciplined.

Then Y/N showed up and suddenly he was sprawled across the floor laughing over Twister like the weight of the world wasn’t sitting on his shoulders anymore.

Joe frowned.

“Boy’s distracted.”

Katherine looked at him flatly.

“Boy’s happy.”

Joe didn’t answer.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

Eventually the game dissolved into complete chaos because Y/N stopped following the rules entirely.

Then somehow they ended up on the couch with multiple cartons of ice cream spread across the coffee table while an old black-and-white movie played softly in the background.

Y/N sat curled into the corner beneath a fuzzy blanket she’d stolen from Michael’s room earlier.

“This,” she declared seriously around a spoonful of strawberry ice cream, “is the peak human existence.”

Michael laughed softly beside her.

“You say that about everything.”

“Only because I appreciate the beauty in life.”

“You said mozzarella sticks changed your life last week.”

“But they did, Mikey!”

Michael shook his head fondly.

She was absolutely ridiculous.

But tonight something warm settled quietly in his chest every time she made him laugh. Because earlier she’d noticed he was upset immediately.

And instead of brushing it off or teasing him, she stayed. Like his feelings mattered.

Like he mattered.

And Michael didn’t realize how badly he needed that until now.

The movie played softly.

The lights stayed low.

Y/N’s voice slowly got quieter and quieter while she rambled about how old movies needed ‘better kissing scenes.’

Then, eventually, silence.

Michael glanced sideways and froze slightly.

Because Y/N had fallen asleep against his shoulder.

Still holding the spoon.

Michael smiled instantly.

Carefully, trying not to wake her, he adjusted the blanket higher around her shoulders.

And for a second he just sat there looking at her.

At the way her hair spilled against his arm.

The faint remains of eyeliner beneath her eyes.

The tiny pout she always got when she slept.

Something in Michael’s chest ached suddenly, warm in a way he didn’t fully understand yet.

A few minutes later Katherine walked into the living room and immediately stopped.

Because there they were.

Michael sitting perfectly still so Y/N could sleep comfortably against him.

The empty ice cream cartons abandoned everywhere.

The old movie flickering softly across both their faces.

Katherine’s expression melted instantly.

“Oh,” she whispered softly.

Then Joe appeared behind her.

And immediately frowned.

“There she goes again,” he muttered. “Distracting him.”

Katherine looked ready to argue until Michael glanced up briefly.

And the look on his face stopped her. Because her son looked peaceful.

Not exhausted. Not pressured. Not overwhelmed.

Just happy. Safe, even.

Like for one evening he got to simply be a young man sitting on the couch with his best friend instead of carrying the weight of becoming Michael Jackson.

Katherine smiled quietly to herself.

Meanwhile Michael looked back down at Y/N sleeping against him and smiled too.

Small.

Private.

Completely gone for her.

Even if he didn’t know it yet.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

A few days after the Twister episode, the California heat had turned the Jackson backyard into something straight out of a magazine ad.

The pool shimmered bright blue beneath the sun.

Music drifted softly from outdoor speakers.

And floating lazily in the middle of the water was Michael Jackson with a notebook balanced against his bare chest, completely lost inside his own head.

One arm dangled into the water while he scribbled lyrics messily across the page, humming little melodies beneath his breath every few seconds.

His dark curls were slightly damp from the heat already, and his aviator sunglasses rested low on his nose while he concentrated so hard he barely noticed anything else around him.

Michael always got like this while writing.

Tunnel vision.

Obsessive.

Like the song became the only thing existing in the world.

Which was exactly why his brothers chose that moment to interrupt him.

“What are you doing?” Jermaine asked while stepping outside with Marlon and Tito trailing behind him.

Michael barely glanced up from the notebook.

“Working.”

Jermaine stared flatly at the inflatable raft.

“You’re writing music in a pool.”

“I’m thinking.”

“You look ridiculous.”

Michael ignored him completely, scribbling something down quickly before muttering the melody beneath his breath again.

Tito leaned closer.

“What’s got you acting possessed now?”

Michael finally sat up slightly, curls falling into his face while he pointed the pencil toward them dramatically.

“I gotta finish this.”

“You’re at the pool, Mike.”

Michael sighed heavily.

“If I don’t finish it, God’s gonna give it to Prince.”

His brothers exploded laughing immediately.

“That is not how music works!”

“Yes it is.”

“You are insane.”

Michael pointed accusingly at them.

“You laugh now but when Prince releases this six months later don’t come crying to me.”

Jermaine cried-laughed.

And then the back door slid open.

Michael looked up automatically. Big mistake.

Because Y/N L/N stepped outside.

And every coherent thought immediately left his body.

She looked like actual summer personified, wearing a tiny red-and-white checkered bikini tied at her hips with little bows, her hair piled messily on top of her head while oversized aviator sunglasses sat on her nose.

Michael’s aviator sunglasses.

The realization hit him instantly.

“Oh my God,” Jermaine whispered-yelled beside him immediately. “She stole your glasses.”

Michael barely heard anything.

Because Y/N was already walking barefoot toward the pool, sunlight glowing against her skin while the sunglasses practically swallowed half her face.

And somehow the fact she was casually wearing his things made the situation ten times worse for him.

“Oh!” Y/N smiled brightly when she spotted everyone. “Hi boys.”

Brutal silence. Jermaine slowly turned toward Michael.

And immediately started grinning.

Because Michael looked absolutely doomed.

Not subtle at all.

His eyes widened slightly before darting downward toward the notebook in his lap like he suddenly remembered he was supposed to be pretending to work.

“Ohhhhh,” Marlon whispered delightedly.

Michael snapped back to reality instantly.

“What?”

Tito crossed his arms trying not to laugh.

“Nothing.”

Meanwhile Y/N finally looked properly toward Michael.

And she froze.

Because Michael was shirtless.

And somehow her brain had never fully processed that possibility before.

Which now actually felt medically concerning.

The sunlight reflected against the water onto his skin while he sat stretched across the float in black swim trunks, curls messy from the heat, lean chest lightly glistening beneath the afternoon sun.

Y/N actually forgot what she was doing for a second.

“Oh my God,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “You’re shirtless.”

One of his brothers made a strangled noise immediately, trying to suppress a laugh.

Michael blinked once.

“…Yeah?”

“I’ve literally never seen that before.”

Michael sat up straighter automatically. Which somehow only made everything worse.

Because now Y/N got an even better look at him.

And Michael got a very clear look at Y/N staring.

“Oh this is bad,” Marlon whispered gleefully.

Michael tried looking back down at the notebook again pretending very hard to focus.

Unfortunately his body had already betrayed him.

Because Y/N kept walking closer to the edge of the pool adjusting his sunglasses and smiling at him in that absentmindedly sweet way she always did.

Michael shifted awkwardly against the float.

Immediately realizing the problem.

Oh.

Oh, no, He thought.

Actual panic flashed across his face for half a second. Because now Y/N was kneeling beside the pool and Michael suddenly became very aware that his swim trunks were doing absolutely nothing to hide the situation developing in real time.

Jermaine noticed instantly.

And the grin spreading across his face became genuinely evil.

“Oh my GOD.”

Michael snapped his head toward him immediately.

“Shut up.”

“You are fighting for your life right now, aren’t you?”

“I hate you.”

Y/N looked between them suspiciously.

“What’s happening?”

“Nothing!” Michael answered way too fast and his brothers nearly collapsed laughing.

Meanwhile Y/N narrowed her eyes briefly before shrugging.

“Anyway…”

And before anyone could react, she jumped directly into the deep end of the pool.

Then immediately regretted it.

“Oh my God WAIT—”

Y/N resurfaced flailing dramatically because she was way too short to comfortably touch the bottom.

“Y/N—" Michael started, but she launched herself at him without hesitation.

Michael barely steadied the float in time before Y/N practically climbed onto him in panic, arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders while she tried to keep herself above water.

The float tipped dangerously sideways beneath them.

And suddenly Y/N was pressed directly against him.

Chest to chest.

Legs tangled beneath the water.

Her thighs brushing his waist while she clung to him breathlessly.

Michael stopped breathing entirely.

Because this was already catastrophic before Y/N accidentally shifted against his lap trying to stabilize herself.

Michael sucked in a sharp breath.

His brothers turned away screaming laughing.

“Mikey is done.”

Michael wanted the earth to swallow him whole.

Because now he was painfully aware of everything.

The water dripping slowly down Y/N’s skin.

The coconut sunscreen smell surrounding her.

The fact she was wearing his sunglasses.

And most importantly: the very obvious problem he was desperately trying to hide while Y/N clung to him in the middle of the pool.

Michael grabbed her waist quickly to keep both of them from tipping over.

“You okay?” he asked, voice noticeably strained.

Y/N nodded breathlessly.

“I hate this stupid deep pool.”

Michael laughed weakly.

Except now Y/N noticed something too.

Not the full situation.

But definitely the tension.

The way his hands tightened carefully at her waist.

The way he kept avoiding eye contact.

The fact his entire face was pink now.

And honestly? Y/N wasn’t doing much better herself.

Because Michael this close felt genuinely unfair.

His chest warm beneath her hands.

His curls damp and falling into his eyes.

His arms flexing slightly every time he steadied her in the water.

And the way he looked at her completely flustered and overwhelmed and trying so hard to stay respectful despite very obviously malfunctioning.

Y/N suddenly became very aware of how close their faces were.

“Huh,” she said softly before she could stop herself.

Michael blinked.

“…What?”

“You look really pretty like this.”

Michael nearly short-circuited on the spot.

Jermaine collapsed into one of the lounge chairs laughing while Tito slapped the table dramatically.

Michael groaned quietly, dropping his forehead briefly against Y/N’s shoulder in complete defeat while she laughed helplessly against him.

And somehow neither of them made any effort to move apart.

⋆⭒˚.⋆

The sun was beginning to soften by the time they left the pool.

Everything felt warm and lazy in that golden late afternoon way California summers always did.

Music still drifted faintly from somewhere inside the house while the grass stayed hot beneath bare feet and the air smelled like sunscreen and chlorine.

And somewhere across the backyard, Y/N L/N was currently losing her mind over a llama. Specifically Louie.

Michael sat on the back steps with a towel around his shoulders and watched in helpless amusement while his best friend ran dramatically across the grass trying to feed Louie strawberries.

“Louie!” she gasped. “Save the drama for you llama!”

Louie stared blankly at her.

Michael laughed softly under his breath.

She really did talk to animals like they were people.

Y/N held another strawberry out toward the llama carefully.

“You just get me emotionally, don’t you?”

Louie sneezed directly in her face. Y/N did not move an inch.

Michael laughed really hard at that.

“Oh my God!”

Y/N wiped her cheek dramatically while glaring at the llama in betrayal.

“I thought we had something special going on, Louie.”

Her laughter echoed across the yard a second later anyway.

Bright. Contagious.

Real enough that Michael found himself smiling before he even realized it.

Because Y/N laughed with her whole body. Throwing her head back. Clutching her stomach. Nearly stumbling over herself every single time.

And Michael loved making her laugh more than almost anything.

Which was maybe a problem. A very big problem.

“You got it bad, don’t you?”

Michael startled slightly.

Bill stood beside the porch railing holding a soda, watching Y/N chase Louie around the yard with open amusement.

Michael immediately looked back toward the grass.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bill snorted.

“Michael.”

Across the lawn Y/N was now attempting to braid flowers into the llama’s fur.

Louie looked deeply exhausted by her existence already.

Michael smiled again without meaning to.

Bill noticed immediately.

“Mm-hm.”

Michael realized too late he’d done it again.

Done the stupid soft smile.

The one everybody kept noticing lately whenever Y/N was around.

Michael cleared his throat awkwardly.

“She’s just funny.”

Bill looked at him flatly.

“Boy.”

Michael groaned quietly, dragging one hand down his face.

“Please don’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“The talk.”

Bill burst out laughing.

“The talk?”

“Yes.”

“You twenty something old scared of a conversation?”

Michael looked genuinely distressed. “Yes.”

Meanwhile Y/N finally succeeded in placing one flower crookedly behind Louie’s ear.

“Oh my God,” she whispered to the llama. “You’re gorgeous.”

Michael chuckled at her, feeling helpless again.

Bill crossed his arms.

“You look happier around her.”

Michael’s smile faded slightly at that. Not entirely, just enough to become softer. Because the annoying part was that Bill was right.

Michael looked back toward the yard quietly while Y/N rammed dramatically into Louie’s side trying to hug him.

“She’s different,” Michael admitted softly.

Bill hummed knowingly.

“How?”

Michael took a second to answer. Because truth be told? He didn’t even fully know himself.

“She doesn’t…” He paused. “She doesn’t look at me like everybody else does.”

Bill stayed quiet.

So Michael kept going.

“She just comes over and steals my food and makes fun of my clothes and talks during movies.” He smiled to himself faintly. “And when I’m around her I don’t gotta think so hard.”

Bill’s expression softened at that and he clicked his tongue.

Because Michael spent most of his life thinking too hard.

Overworking.

Overanalyzing.

Overperforming.

But around Y/N? He looked light. Young again.

Like the fame disappeared for a little while.

Bill glanced toward the backyard where Y/N was now laying in the grass beside Louie dramatically.

“She likes you too, you know.”

Michael nearly choked.

“What?” He blurted out desperately and ridiculously fast.

Bill looked amused now.

“Michael,”

“No no no.” Michael sat up straighter immediately. “We’re friends.”

“Mhm.”

“We are.”

Bill took one sip of his soda.

“She wears your sunglasses.”

Michael froze. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“She nearly drowned looking at you shirtless.”

Michael turned bright red instantly, feeling his cheeks warming up. “Well, that was an accident!”

Bill snorted. “And you almost passed out when she climbed on top of you in the pool.”

Michael buried his face into the towel he held immediately.

“Oh my God.” He let out, his voice muffled.

“Son, everybody sees this except you two.”

Michael groaned dramatically into the towel.

Because unfortunately he knew Bill was right.

He did feel different around Y/N.

Too aware of her all the time.

Too happy whenever she showed up unexpectedly.

Too nervous whenever she looked pretty.

And today? It had been particularly catastrophic for him.

Especially the pool.

Especially Y/N wearing his glasses and clinging to him in the water with her legs wrapped around his waist while he fought for his actual life.

Michael groaned, face still in the towel. “Bill, I think I’m dying.”

Bill burst out laughing.

“No, son. I think you just got feelings.” He added between laughs.

Michael looked genuinely horrified by the concept.

Before he could answer though—

“MICHAEL!”

Both of them looked up.

Y/N stood halfway across the lawn waving excitedly while Louie wandered behind her aimlessly.

“Your llama likes me more than you now!”

Michael smiled automatically.

Completely helpless.

Bill watched him for exactly one second before laughing quietly to himself and walking away.

Because yeah.

That boy was falling hard.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ ⋆⭒˚.⋆

Taglist:

@skiicoreee @18lkpeters @ami-kay-01 @bouncylikebouncyball @hewassunshine @umafanficdoidaqualquer