america's sweetest feud (michael jackson x popstar!reader)
summary: the tabloids have painted them as rivals, (y/n) thinks michael hates her (and that he's an asshole!), and michael is simply shy, too shy, when it comes to talking to the princess of soul
or,
the story of how the king of pop and the princess of soul go from being rivals (were they even really rivals at all?) to friends to lovers
warnings: medical emergency (not detailed), canon(?) inaccuracy (tried very hard to stick to mj's real-life events and timeline, but there might be some inconsistencies), music industry inaccuracy? (i know very little of music, but i did my best i promise!)
word count: 18k-ish (longest fic i've ever written, i think i was quite literally possessed or smth)
a/n: bro never in my life would i have thought i would be writing about the one and only mister michael jackson, but this man has taken over my life lmao and i have absolutely no control once an idea strikes so here's my humble contribution to the mj fics! hope u enjoy <3
(quick disclaimer: this is a work of fiction created for entertainment purposes only. it is written with respect for michael jackson and it does not claim to accurately depict his life. the portrayal of michael is based on my own perception of him.)
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INSIDE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY'S MOST FASCINATING FEUD by Simone Faulk Hollywood loves a good-old rivalry. Elvis had Boone. The Beatles had the Rolling Stones. And now, music may have found its newest and biggest battle yet: Michael Jackson and (Y/N) (Y/L/N). The King of Pop vs. The Princess of Soul. Everywhere one goes, the other somehow follows. The two biggest names in today’s music industry have spent the last few years locked in an endless race for dominance, battling over award nominations, album sales, concert attendance, you name it! If there’s a music milestone to achieve, they are there! "It is, in every sense of the word, a two-horse race," an industry executive commented. "But who will come out on top? That I cannot say." It is hard, trying to measure them up against each other. After all, when Jackson shattered records with his album 'Thriller' and swept the award season, (Y/L/N) responded with her 'Recognition' tour, selling out stadiums from Los Angeles to London and setting a new historical attendance record. And, when (Y/L/N) released 'Midnight Confessions', a six-time platinum blockbuster that produced four Top 10 singles and spent twenty consecutive weeks in the Top 5, it didn't take long for Jackson to answer with the release of the “Billie Jean” music video, effectively taking over MTV, reclaiming the headlines, and reminding the industry why he remains the standard by which every pop star is measured. That is, in essence, the story of Michael Jackson and (Y/N) (Y/L/N): neither stays ahead for too long. Time and time again, one artist's triumph is met by an equally impressive response from the other. Despite their contrasting style—of which we could talk about endlessly (turn to page 6 for more on that topic!)—the similarities between these two young musicians has become impossible to ignore. Both started performing at a remarkably young age, both possess what seems to be an effortless ability to captivate audiences around the globe, both are on their way of transcending music itself, and they both continue to compete for the same prizes, the same headlines, and the same place at the top of the industry. Whether the rivalry exists only in the minds of fans and reporters, or behind closed doors as well, one thing is certain: no two stars shine brighter in today's music world than Michael Jackson and (Y/N) (Y/L/N). And, as the decade marches on, the question remains: when the history books are finally written, whose name will stand tallest?
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The headlines are everywhere.
BAD BLOOD IN HOLLYWOOD! Michael and (Y/N)’s Secret Feud Exposed!
and
CAUGHT ON CAMERA! THE ICY-COLD MOMENTS BETWEEN THE MUSIC’S BIGGEST STARS
and
The Smiles Are Fake—Sources Say the Rivalry is Real
oh, and (Y/N)’s absolute favorite so far
EXCLUSIVE: (Y/N) (Y/L/N) TALKS ABOUT WHY SHE CAN’T STAND MICHAEL JACKSON
(She really wants to know who they spoke to, because it certainly was not her.)
It’s annoying, such an obvious sham, and of course everyone falls for it. The public loves it, the rumors, the whispers, the juicy gossip. There is something enticing about a battle of giants, she supposes, the taller they stand, the harder they fall.
If someone were to ask—not that anyone every would, if you don’t ask, you don’t get direct answer, and without direct answer you can make up just about anything without technically lying—(Y/N) would vigorously deny hating Michael Jackson. Hate is too much of a strong word, it carries too much weight, settles too heavy. Hate implies passion which requires effort and those are two things Michael Jackson does not evoke from her.
Heavily dislikes, now that’s more accurate, describes pretty accurately how she truly feels about Michael freaking Jackson. This, however, she would never admit. Her media training would never allow it—she’s almost certain some perfectly crafted response would fall out of her lips if she dared try—and Thomas Allen, her darling, sweet manager and publicist, would no doubt throttle her to death if she ever uttered the words ‘I don’t like Michael Jackson’ or anything of the sorts to anyone other than him. Oh, his nagging would be relentless. (Y/N) would rather avoid that.
But if she were to ever admit it, talk about the ugly feelings that fester at the bottom of her chest when she thinks too hard about Michael Jackson—not that she does that often or anything—she would be adamant on the fact that they have nothing to do with the phoney rivalry the tabloids have fabricated. No, (Y/N) does not care about Michael Jackson’s wins and awards and achievements, she does not care about the fact that their careers seem to constantly eclipse each other, following trajectories that are so similar it is almost eerie, she does not even mind the constant comparison—for all she dislikes him, (Y/N) cannot deny his talent, cannot deny he is one of the best to ever be, and she likes being in league with the best. (Y/N) (Y/L/N) heavily dislikes Michael Jackson because he, like almost every other man in the music industry, is an asshole.
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(Y/N) vividly remembers the day she met Michael Jackson.
Hands down the most disappointing day of her life.
(Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but she does recall deflating, just a little, after meeting him for the first time, nervousness quickly melting into something cold and paralyzing. Maybe not the most disappointing days of her life, but top ten for sure.)
The things is, (Y/N) had been a big fan of Michael prior to meeting him. She’d felt that they kind of grown up together, in an odd sort of way. After all, they’d lived these two bizarre parallel lives—two kids thrown to the wolves to be devoured whole, childhood memories filled with music and work and pressure, so much pressure. They’d orbited each other, even back then, moving close but never meeting, like the universe knew better than allowing them to collide. And yet, despite not knowing him, (Y/N) would hear Michael Jackson on the radio, his voice fading in after hers would fade out, songs overlapping for the briefest of moments, and she would see him on TV, dancing and singing with his brothers, and some sense of fondness would bloom in her chest, a kinship built on that innocence that only children can have. If he performed like she did and was managed by his father like she was and lived on the road like she did, then they already had so much in common. They could be friends! As a child, (Y/N) had dreamt of meeting him. She hadn’t had many friends back then, much less friends who understood what her life was truly like.
But they never met. Not really. They saw each other, of course. As children at local stage and regional theaters and later, as they got older and their careers began to really gain traction, at music events and industry parties. It was only logical, for them to catch brief glimpses of each other, they ran in the same social circles, worked with some of the same people, had a few acquaintances in common. So they knew of each other, sure, but had never been properly introduced, never exchanged a single word.
And then came that fateful day.
Their first interaction should have never happened. (Y/N) was not supposed to be anywhere near Quincy Jones’s studio that day, she was supposed to be recording the music video for her latest single. But her director had cancelled last minute, something about a family emergency, and when she tried to start working on the last song for her album—the one that’d been giving her a massive headache, stubbornly refusing to cooperate, apparently hell bent on tormenting her—she’d found out her music director had mistakenly left some of her demos at Q’s studio.
And that’s how she ended up there, awkwardly standing in a hallway covered with platinum records and framed photographs as she waited for Beth, Quincy Jones’s very nice executive assistant, to retrieve the demos for her.
When she’d heard footsteps coming down the hall, she’d expected to see Beth. (Y/N) had turned, mouth ready to express her gratitude for the thousandth time, and had stopped short when she’d seen him. Michael Jackson, in all his glory, standing right in front of her. (Y/N) had never felt awestruck the way she did at that moment, a weird fluttering creeping into her stomach.
Michael had frozen mid-step, too, when he’d caught sight of her.
For a second, they’d just stood there. Two teenagers staring dumbly at each other.
Then he’d spoken, and the first words Michael Jackson ever said to her had been, “What are you doing here?”
(Y/N) had flinched, caught off guard by the curtness of his tone. She’d stuttered, like an absolute fool, “Um— I— I am picking up some… stuff?”
Michael had looked at her, unblinking, for a long moment, his face twisted in some detached expression she couldn’t quite decipher.
“I am (Y/N) (Y/L/N),” she’d said, offering him her hand and trying to shake off the initial aloofness of their conversation. “It's so nice to finally meet you.”
“I know who you are,” had been his response. It’d come out very dismissive, and (Y/N) had felt her stomach tighten with unease.
She’d shifted a little, awkwardness slowly creeping in. She’d gone to pull her hand away, certain that he wouldn’t shake it, and it was at that moment that Michael seemed to pay it any mind. He’d looked at it, briefly, before hastily reaching for it, shaking it firmly before cringing away.
A few seconds of painful silence ticked by. (Y/N) had found herself praying that Beth would hurry and interrupt whatever this thing was, she could feel the awkwardness in every bone in her body.
“I should go,” Michael had mumbled, after it became evident neither of them was about to start speaking again. Looking everywhere but at her, he’d side-step her, and simply walked off.
“What the hell was that?” She’d whispered to herself, the remnants of the conversation enough to keep her feeling off-kilter.
Later that week, she’d found out that he’d been working on a new solo album with Quincy, Off the Wall, and so, she’d chalked off the weirdness of their interaction to stress.
But the weird interactions just kept happening.
Now that she’d met Michael, talked to him, (Y/N) couldn’t seem to escape him. It was as if the universe, which had fought very hard to keep them apart for so long, had suddenly decided it was no longer necessary to do so. It appeared to now be playing the ‘let’s throw them together at every given opportunity’ game, much to (Y/N)’s dismay.
Every interaction was painful. (Y/N) tried, she really did, but she was always met his terse words and clipped answers. Michael would look at her and go all stiff, like he would rather be anywhere else than around her. He was never cruel or mean, just cold and indifferent, like he was too good to spend time talking to her.
It took her a while to understand that his whole problem with her was her.
Because Michael seemed to have no issue talking to other people—executives, producers, actors and celebrities. He would easily make small talk, exchange stories, share a quick laugh. For whatever reason, he would only turn frosty with her.
It grew old very quickly. The way he dismissed her, so offhandedly, stopped being confusing and became annoying, really annoying.
(She spent years being cast aside—because she was a little, whiny girl, her voice too pitchy, too deep, too soft, because she was not pretty enough, not tall enough, not smart enough, not talented enough—and she worked hard, paid with blood, sweat and tears, to not be looked down upon. When Michael did this thing of his, of giving her a tense, polite nod and then immediately avoiding eye contact, like the mere idea of talking to her sickened him, (Y/N) felt small. And she’d worked hard to leave the pain and embarrassment of not feeling good enough in the past.)
And all that anger, once she rationalized it, mellowed into displeasure.
So now (Y/N) finds herself disliking Michael Jackson as much as he dislikes her, maybe even more.
She finds him to be absolutely insufferable.
And finding Michael Jackson to be insufferable is nothing if not an uphill battle. Because everyone—literally everyone— in the industry adores him. They have nothing but good things to say about the guy. They’ll insist that he’s sweet and shy and gentle, and every time (Y/N) hears it she isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or pull out her hair. Because yes, he is sweet and shy and gentle with everyone but her. Sometimes she wonders if it’s all in her head, if she’s going insane, if she’s meeting and entirely different Michael Jackson, but then she sees him again, at some award or dinner party, and she's met with short, stilted answers and that odd unreadable expression on his face.
It drives her mad.
On her lowest moments—of which, she must admit, she is ashamed about—, she wishes he was mediocre, talentless. That way she could dismiss him entirely, shake off whatever is wrong with him, roll her eyes and move on. But no, she can’t do that, because the universe hates her and God evidently has favorites and He decided to give Michael Jackson the ability to breathe magic into music. It is unbearable, his talent. (Y/N) would die before admitting this, but sometimes, just sometimes, she sits on the couch and plays his music and obsesses over his vocal arrangements. Then, she fumes, annoyed over the fact that the man is a genius.
A genius that is so utterly unimpressed with her.
(That, too, might be something that bothers her more than she’s willing to admit. Not because she wants his approval—although would it be too bad if she did? everyone considers that she is at his level, but does he agree? she hates that, in some way, that matters to her—but because she’s built her career to a point where everyone else gives it so freely. Not everyone might like her, but they respect her music. Michael doesn’t give the slightest indication of caring about either.)
(Y/N) wishes he would just come out and say it, that he finds her unremarkable, or doesn’t like her character, or whatever it is that he so evidently dislikes about her. It would certainly make things easier; it would pull her out of this eternal limbo of unease. (She’s always so sure about how to act and what to say. With him, it is impossible to guess—will she get a tight-lipped smile and a polite nod? will she be completely ignored, avoided even?—and it makes her feel unsteady. She hates unsteady.) Of course, that never happens. Michael, after all, has an image to maintain. The proper, gentlemanly image, a man who would never speak ill of a fellow musician. So (Y/N) is left to deal with this weird tension that follows them everywhere.
Whatever. So what if Michael Jackson ignores her at every public event? So what if he acts all strange and awkward when they’re in the same room? She doesn’t care. Really. She doesn't. Caring would require effort, and (Y/N) does not spend effort on just anyone, much less Michael Jackson.
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There are days when (Y/N) heavily dislikes her job. And it is odd, because even when she’s loathing it, when she would rather chew chalk than see one more music sheet, part of her, a big part of her, still loves what she does.
It’s the reason she’s still at the studio at half past three in the morning, even when she’s been unable to write for days.
The thing is, being a musician is fun, until it isn’t. Composing is great, until the beat and lyrics that have been bouncing around in your head relentlessly for weeks refuse to come out. It isn’t often that she suffers from this musical disease—a creative block, some may call it, but she likes to be dramatic—but whenever she does (Y/N) is plagued by headaches. She enters a never-ending loop of trying, and failing, to translate what’s going on in her head into the real world. It is frustrating and the more annoyed she gets the less she's able to create and the more her head pounds.
A true dilemma for someone who doesn’t know when to quit and likes to push through the pain.
(Y/N) sighs, laying on the ground and staring at the ceiling. With one hand she hold an ice pack to her head, just over her right eye. The other plays with a pencil, fingers twisting it around in circles.
She is tired. She also desperately needs to finish this song. She can hear it out perfectly in her head—the ad-libs, the baseline, the piano—but when she strums the guitar the melody doesn’t come out right. Self-control is the only reason she hasn't smashed her head against a wall. That and the fact that it already hurts enough.
Knowing that she will not get anything done if she lets herself keep cycling over the same thoughts, she drops the pencil and carelessly twists around on the floor, reaching upward to grab the remote control that she left by the mixer. It tumbles downward and, even in her sleep deprived mind, she manages to catch it before it slams against the ground. She huffs out in satisfaction, giving herself a mental pat in the back. At this moment she’ll take any small victory she can take, preventing the smashing of the remote control included. It’s pathetic. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Her sudden movement makes some of the papers she’d rested over her stomach fall to the ground beside her. She wishes they would disappear, stop haunting her. Better yet, she wishes the bridge of the song would write itself.
The TV that has been playing mutely in the background comes to life. (Y/N) allows the chatter of voices to fill the studio as she resumes her previous position and stares, hard, at the ceiling. Little droplets of water trail down her cheek, courtesy of the melting ice pack, and she wills herself to relax. Her thumb, as if having a mind of its own, presses the control's buttons, surfing through channels without any real purpose, as she tries to disengage from the world around her.
It’s a testament of the terrible state of her mind, and a probable indication that she is losing whatever sanity she has left, that she doesn’t recoil, doesn’t immediately switch to the next channel, when she hears a familiar voice. Michael’s voice is distinctive, soft and melodic. Usually, it fills her with dread and something akin to annoyance. She’s surprised when she reaches deep within herself and comes up empty. Against her better judgment—because, really, she knows better than to engage with any sort of celebrity media, especially Michael's— she sits up and watches the rerun of his interview.
(It's annoying, that despite not liking him she is not immune to the gravitational pull of him, his natural charisma. Michael is like the Sun and everyone around him, (Y/N) included, is Icarus, willing to burn for a flicker of warmth. She detests it and yet, she watches.)
“You and your brothers are about to set out on the 'Victory Tour',” the interviewers says and that's almost enough to make (Y/N) turn her TV off—because she knows the words that are going to come out of the interviewer’s mouth next, the inevitable comparison that follows them everywhere—, but she doesn’t, because she is curious. It was certainly a choice to decide to tour with his brothers after producing his biggest—and best, (Y/N) has to admit that 'Thriller' is really freaking good—album to date. “It is projected to be the highest-grossing tour, surpassing (Y/N)’s 'Recognition' tour'.” And there is it. “How do you feel about that?”
(Y/N) wonders, as she shifts the ice pack from her right eye to her left one and rests back against the couch, if Michael ever tires of it, the way everything they do always ties back to the other. Sometimes, she does. It is hard, having every single detail of your career inspected and dissected and compared to someone else’s.
She awaits his response, expecting the perfectly manicured PR words to fall from his lips—how she did a good job, how him and his brothers are trying to go for something different, bigger and unique, the subtle shift back to his own music—but it doesn’t come.
He looks genuinely confused, “What do you mean?”
“Well, with the rivalry thing going on between you guys, how do you feel about beating her in this?”
“Rivalry?” It sounds so demeaning that even the interviewer laughs in disbelief. Michael looked genuinely perplexed, like he cannot fathom the comparison between them.
What a dick.
Honestly, this is what (Y/N) gets for breaking her own unspoken rule of not consuming Michael Jackson media.
In the screen, Michael opens his mouth, but (Y/N) switches the channel before she can hear him utter another word.
That annoyance she hadn’t felt a couple of minutes before makes itself present. (Y/N) looks down to her rumbled music sheets, at the annotations in the corners. The dismissive words (what rivalry?) replay over and over in her mind. She lets the ice pack, now barely even cool, drop against the ground. The sound resonates around the studio and, out of nowhere, triggered by the loud thud and those damned words, something clicks in her brain.
“Oh my God,” she mumbles to herself, almost gleefully, as she lurches forward for her notepad.
She spends the rest of the early morning mixing, composing, trying out different beats.
And if Michael’s words act as somewhat of an inspiration, she keeps that to herself.
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TOUR WAR! by Jaime Vynn The Jacksons are preparing what insiders are calling the most ambitious concert tour in music history. There's only one problem: (Y/N) got there first. Last year's 'Recognition' Tour shattered attendance records, sold out stadiums across multiple continents and generated enough revenue to make industry executives dizzy. Now, Jackson appears ready to challenge those numbers. The question everyone is asking is, can he do it? (turn to page 3 to read more!)
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(Y/N) has decided, as the mature adult that she is, that avoiding Michael is the only viable option left.
He very much does not care about her and she is tired of being filled with a terrible sense of dread and uneasiness whenever she's attending an event she knows he will be at. (She knows the root of those emotions, much as she likes to ignore it. She’d realized it late one night, as she’d furiously scribbled lyrics on a ketchup-stained napkin in the corner booth of her favorite diner. It’s not being disliked that bothers her or being in the receiving end of scorn and contempt, she is much too used to that. It is having the coldness come from a person she, begrudgingly, admires, a person that everyone else regards as warm.)
She is tired of trying to figure the whole thing out, of trying to figure him out, of overthinking every interaction and feeling unsteady—she really does hate feeling unsteady—, so she just starts mimicking his actions.
She’s subtle with it, too. Gracefully avoids any possible interaction, tries to stay as far away from him as societal, and music industry, norms allow.
Four months in, she’s going a great job, if she does say so herself.
Tonight, (Y/N) has managed to successfully avoid being anywhere near Michael a total of four times (a new record!). She’s about to move away from a conversation, having caught Michael in the periphery of her vision, when she catches Thomas glaring at her from across the room.
(Y/N) knows, immediately, that her attempts at having some peace of mind have not gone unnoticed are not being well-received.
She cringes to herself, smile faltering ever so slightly.
Tom is an angel. He's been by her side for ages, as long as she can remember. There are few people who truly care about her— (Y/N) as a person, not as a celebrity or a symbol or a money-making machine—, and Tom is undoubtedly one of them. The man practically raised her, he is probably more of a dad than her father ever was, and (Y/N) loves him. Up until the point where he tries to speak reason into her and starts making sense. Then (Y/N) sort of wants to fire him. Why must he have her best intentions at heart? It's so annoying.
He gives her another pointed look, and tilts his head, subtly, toward one of the side exits. (Y/N) knows that look, knows that signal. He wants to have some words with her, in private.
Great.
Trying not to draw much attention to herself—something she's not really ever been successful at, especially not tonight, since her stylist decided to go all out and dressed her in a beautiful, deep emerald silk that hugs every curve and catches the light every time she moves—(Y/N) politely excuses herself from the conversation she was already planning on extracting herself from and begins to cross the room.
The room blurs into movement around her. Conversation, laughter, music. Famous people, powerful people, the type who shape careers with a single phone call, all around. It smells like flowers and money and (Y/N) really wants to go home. Everything to avoid being reprimanded by Tom. The man might be an angel, but he's also the tough-love kind of guy, somewhat intimidating when he wants to be. He says it like he sees it, no filters and absolutely no sugarcoating.
People stop her along the way, and she takes her sweet time with every interaction, smiling and exchanging pleasantries. (Y/N) can feel Tom’s stare burning a hole through the side of her face. Apparently, she’s not being subtle about wanting to delay this as much as possible and he’s not planning on relenting.
By the time she reaches him, he’s already moving, heading toward one of the side hallways without looking back.
Anxiety twists in her stomach. It’s not like she was doing a bad thing. She’ll be fine.
Tom stops near a tall window overlooking the city, Los Angeles stretching endlessly below them. He waits for her to join him before turning around.
Okay, maybe she will not be fine.
He doesn’t look angry. Irked, is a better word for it, and Tom has had enough years to master that look to make it deadly efficient. (Y/N) has been on the receiving end of what she calls his 'disappointed dad' look many times before and not once has it ever failed to make her feel guilty.
“You need to stop it,” he says, arms crossed over his chest.
(Y/N) squirms under his stare, just a little, before mirroring his position, “Stop what exactly?”
He arches his eyebrow, a very clear do not play with me, girl.
“Avoiding Michael,” he specifies, even though there is no real need for it. (Y/N) knows what he is talking about and Tom knows she is just being difficult for the sake of it. “The press is beginning to whisper about how it looks intentional.”
(Y/N) rolls her eyes. Well, duh, because it is.
“Why does it matter, anyway?” she asks, “Let them talk. God knows they’re already having a field day with the supposed rivalry thing we have going on.” A thing Michael had made very clear did not exist. He was too good for her.
Tom studies her for a second, and when he speaks again his tone is sterner, “Get out of your head, kid, and think. Do you really want to feed the beast? You always talk about how you feel like the press makes it seem as if you live in Michael’s shadow,” (Y/N) opens her mouth to interrupt him, because those words have never left her mouth, but Tom raises a hand, “I know you, (Y/N). I can see it. You don’t have to say it for me to know.” He knows her too well, it is an unfair fight. “This thing you’ve got going on will only make it worse. It will be all people will talk about. It will overshadow your music. Is that what you want?” This is what (Y/N) means when she says she hates when he starts talking sense. Why can’t he just let her be petty, for once?
She sighs, frustrated, “What do you want me to do? Go up to him and strike a conversation? It's impossible! The man hates me!”
“He does not hate you,” Tom says, placating, like she’s a child. She does feel like a child, complaining to her father about the most stupid thing ever.
“Pardon me if I disagree.”
“Where did you even get that silly idea from?” Tom asks and (Y/N) swears that there’s an amused glint in his eyes, one he’s trying very hard to hide, the one that always shows when he knows something she doesn’t. (Y/N) really wants to fire him. “You've spoken no more than six sentences to him!”
“And that was more than enough, trust me.” She breathes deeply, trying to get the simmering annoyance under control. Words keep spilling from her mouth, anyway. “He looks at me like I killed his pet monkey or something.”
Tom lets out a startled laugh.
“He does!” She exhales out and allows what she knows to be true to tumble out of her lips, spoken out loud for the first time. “And he has no respect for me, or my music, and he’s openly dismissive and always so short with me and it is unbelievably irritating. So, yeah, I know avoiding him is childish, but please, Thomas, do try to understand that I am doing this for my own mental health.”
She’s begging, but Tom is not looking at her anymore. He’s looking over her shoulder.
His face morphs and he allows the amusement to fill his eyes completely.
(Y/N)’s stomach drops.
Oh, no.
Tom finds her eyes again, smiles cheekily. The audacity of this old man.
“I am going to get a drink.” He goes to move away, and (Y/N), quite desperately, grabs the edges of his sleeve to prevent him from leaving her. It is pathetic and ineffective.
“Do. Not. Leave. Me.” She mouths, eyes pleading.
“Talk. To. Him.” He parrots back, using the same whisper-shouting tone, and leaves.
What a traitor.
With dread, (Y/N) turns around and, yeah, just like she guessed, Michael is standing there, looking somewhat awkward. He rubs the back of his neck, nods his head at Tom as he makes his way past him and then looks back at her.
Great.
For a second, she déjà vu hits her and she sees platinum records, framed photos, a marble hallway and a very painfully awkward conversation.
Oh, she hopes this one goes better than that one did.
(Y/N) opens her mouth, probably to blabber some nonsense, but he beats her to it.
“I needed some quiet,” he explains, words falling from his mouth in quick succession. “It gets too loud sometimes, you know? And I just... well, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
Any hope she had that he, by some sort of miracle, hadn’t heard them, immediately evaporates. God truly has favorites and she is, at the moment, apparently not on the list.
(Y/N) sighs, closing her eyes and rubbing her temple, where a headache is beginning to bloom. She feels like she's twelve again, caught doing something she shouldn't. It's embarrassing.
“I’m sorry,” is all she can say when she finds the willpower to meet his eyes again. “I shouldn’t be...” Talking about you? Complaining that you very evidently hate me? She's not sure what she’s going to say, but, once again, Michael beats her to it.
“I don’t hate you,” he blurts out.
She stills, eyebrows furrowing in confusion, because that’s not what she’d been expecting from him at all. She’s actually surprised he’s still here, talking to her.
Michael shifts, from one foot to another, and (Y/N) catches a glimpse of that person everyone talks about, the one she’s never been privvy to. Shy, gentle Michael.
“It’s okay if you do, you don’t have to lie,” she responds, somewhat hesitant and a bit uncertain, like she is unsure if she should be providing reassurance on whether it’s okay to dislike her after just complaining about that.
“I’m not lying.”
She lets out a soft laugh, not particularly amused, “Well, I mean, you did say that thing, so excuse me if I don’t particularly believe you.”
It's Michael’s turn to look confused. “What thing?”
(Y/N) blinks, “About the rivalry?”
He stares at her for a long second, eyes completely blank, and (Y/N) realizes, with a start, that he has no idea what she’s talking about, probably does not even remember the comment he made, the disdain that had coated his words.
(Y/N) shakes her head, “Forget about it.”
“No, no, wait. What rivalry thing?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She wants to extract herself from this conversation, have the earth swallow her whole, but Michael is looking at her intently and she caves, speaking fast to try to outrun the embarrassment that’s began to prickle her skin. “There was an interview. They were asking about the tour, wanted to know how you felt about beating me with the rivalry thing going on. You said something along the line of there being no rivalry.”
“Because there isn’t?”
And there it is, but he doesn’t sound arrogant or dismissive when he says it. Not this time. That odd blank look he always gives her is also gone. It’s like the confusion of this whole conversation has laid him bare for her.
“Because you don’t respect my music enough to consider me to be competition, right.” She's not sure why she says it. Maybe she wants to take a dig at him, pinch and hurt the way he’s done with her many times in the past, but the words come out too soft for that, somewhat vulnerable.
Apparently, confusion has laid her bare, too.
For a second, Michael only stares at her.
“What?”
And now it's her turn to stare at him, because what does he mean what?
He shakes his head and, as realization settles in, his eyes go wide, “Oh my God. No, no, no. That’s not—” He runs a hand through his curls, looking distressed.
(Y/N) cannot do anything but just keep staring, eyebrows raised.
“Why would you think that?” He seems genuinely appalled at the conclusion she has arrived to and (Y/N) cannot help the disbelieving, startled laugh that comes out of her lips.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes!” Exasperation bleeds into his tone and then shifts to something kinder, “How?” The question sounds almost pained.
(Y/N) blinks at him, parrots back his own question, “How?”
Michael nods, “How did you get that from what I said?”
(Y/N) stares at him and Michael stares right back. It’s the first time they've ever held eye contact for longer than a second. The longest conversation they’ve ever had. And (Y/N) is hit with the startling realization that they’re just not understanding each other. Maybe that's the issue, maybe they never have.
So, she relents, sighs, “It wasn’t what you said, it was the way you said it.” She sounds absolutely silly, like a brat throwing a tantrum, and Tom is to blame for all of this. She would be happy sipping champagne and making idle conversation if he hadn’t dragged her here. Why couldn’t he just let it be? She breathes deeply, forces herself to get this over with, “You made it sound like the mere idea of a rivalry was ridiculous, like I wasn’t good enough.”
(Y/N) does her best to talk matter-of-factly, objectively, but she can taste the hurt in her tongue. And the way Michael's face shifts, cracks a little, lets her know that he heard it too.
Embarrassing.
“No, no.” He shakes his head, as if trying to organize his thoughts. “I mean it more like— like, why would they even compare us?”
It comes out all wrong. Michael cringes and (Y/N) cocks her head at him, chuckling in disbelief. “That’s exactly what I meant, by the way, that tone.”
Michael groans, closes his eyes and turns his head to the ceiling, like he’s praying to the Lord for help. It’s a bit amusing, the most human he's ever been with her.
“I am not good with words.” He says it softly, like it’s an admission that he doesn’t make to most people. He looks shy, honest. And yet, (Y/N) doubts it— she doubts that Michael Jackson, the man capable of filling albums with melodies and stories and emotions that people carry with them, is truly bad with words. He must read it on her face, her disbelief, because he rushes to explain, “Songs are simple, the music helps. I don’t have to explain everything for people to get it.” He shrugs, helplessly. “Talking is much harder.”
She gets it, in a way. Journaling has always been easy for her, expressing her thoughts on pieces of paper is straightforward, trying to detangle said thoughts to properly articulate them is another thing entirely. It’s why she sometimes struggles when writing songs, everything becomes too convoluted.
(And wow, won’t you look at that. Not only is she having an actual conversation with Michael Jackson, but she’s also found they have something in common. (Y/N) from thirty minutes ago would’ve never believed it.)
“I did not mean it like that, at all.” Michael tries again and (Y/N) feels like she’s seeing him for the first time. His shoulders are tense, he’s fiddling with his fingers and there's this nervousness about him, one so at odd with the idea she has of him, one she hadn’t glimpsed before. She wonders if it’s been there all along, if she’d been too busy looking for other things in him that she’d just missed it.
“What I meant was— I don’t sit around planning how to outperform you, and I know you don’t spend your time thinking of ways to beat me, either. Everything you do comes from a love of music, I can sense it in the way you perform. You’re a professional.” She is listening, but she's mostly watching him. The softness and openness of his expression catch her off-guard. (Y/N) knows how to read people—an essential skill she’d developed as a child to try to survive the music industry—and Michael Jackson is being earnestly honest.
It dawns on her, with some sort of terrible, comical horror, that she might’ve possibly, just maybe, misinterpreted everything. Every awkward, tense smile, every strange look, every curt comment. Because the Michael standing in front of her, trying to desperately get her to understand him, does not seem to hate her. Not even dislike her, really.
Oh God, he might just be impartial to her, uninterested.
(This is exactly what Tom meant when he’d told her, many years ago, that she has the terrible habit of jumping into conclusions and then refusing to change her mind. Had she simply been reinforcing a narrative she’d created for herself?)
Throwing herself off the window suddenly sounds like an amazingly rational decision. It would be one hell of a way to ease the embarrassment that’s now taken over every fiber of her body.
She’d been such an idiot.
(Y/N) tries to apologize, to explain—because goddammit Tom had been right, Michael did not hate her, and she would've known if she’d spoken more than a total of six sentences to the man—, but Michael keeps talking.
“And I just think it’s silly, for the media to create this rivalry thing when in reality I just—”
“Look, Michael—”
“I just really admire you.”
Everything goes quiet.
Naturally, (Y/N) freezes, suddenly aware of the distant chatter in the ballroom around the corner, of the soft, velvety music, the clinking of glasses, the sound of laughter.
She’d just began to process the whole ‘hey! so maybe he doesn't hate me and i’ve been wrong all along’ thing. She was not, in any way, prepared for that admission.
What?
(Y/N) doesn't realize she’s spoken out loud until she catches the glimpse of confusion and amusement in Michael’s eyes.
“I admire you,” he repeats, slower this time. Hearing that isn’t any less shocking the second time around. “Truly. There are things that you do that I cannot begin to even dream about. When you perform, it’s like—” He struggles for a second. “It’s like watching somebody do what they were born to do.”
(Y/N)'s breath catches. That might be the most sincere thing anyone has ever told her, the best compliment she’s ever received.
“You’ve seen me perform.” She says, stunned, because of course that’s what her mind has decided to focus on.
“At The Forum, yeah.”
“You went to my tour?” Now she just sounds dazed.
Michael shrugs, like the answer is obvious, “There’s no way I would’ve missed it.”
She pinches herself, hard. Okay, good, not a dream.
“Okay. Wait. Hold on.” She has to get her bearings, process all the information she’s received. Michael had bought tickets for her concert. He’d seen her perform. How could she not know that? How had the tabloids missed that? “But… you’re always so dismissive.” That’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense, the part of the puzzle that doesn’t fit. Because the way he’d acted, that hadn’t been in her brain. He had been weird towards her—skittish, awkward, cold—and she’s having a hard time reconciling what she’s hearing and what she has experienced. “Every time I’ve ever tried to talk to you, you shrugged me off.”
He opens his mouth, closes it.
“Oh.”
The soft whisper bounces around in the hall.
“No, I—” A hand comes up to cover part of his face and when he lowers it (Y/N) can almost swear he is blushing. He bites his lip, annoyingly cute, before blurting out, “You intimidate me.”
Michael recoils immediately, like he hadn't really meant to admit that much.
(Y/N) can’t do much but blink at him.
“A little.” He adds, a bit softer.
“Me?” It comes out filled with disbelief. “Why?” She lets herself walk a bit closer to him, a bit amused at the way Michael's eyes follow her as she closes the distance between them. “You’re—” She gestures at him. “You're freaking Michael Jackson.”
Michael lets out an incredulous laugh, his shoulders untensing. “And you are freaking (Y/N) (Y/L/N)!” He mimics her own actions, gestures at her.
Huh.
Guess she never thought of it that way. (Y/N) always judges herself through the harshest of lenses, in the most brutal manner. It makes it hard to see herself from an outsider perspective, the way others do. She is just, well, (Y/N).
Fair enough, she supposes. Still, it’s hard, to wrap her mind around the fact that Michael Jackson had been too shy to speak to her. That everything she’d perceived as dismissal had been nervousness.
“So, just to be clear,” she finds herself saying, “You don’t hate me.”
It comes out more as a question than a statement.
“No!” He relaxes some more, like finally getting her to understand has settled something in him. “You really thought I did?”
“Yeah! For the last five years I’d been trying to figure out why.”
Michael sputters, aghast, “Five years?!”
“Yeah.”
“But we met five years ago.”
“I know.”
Michael stares at her, “So all this time you thought—”
“Right.” She nods, then amends, a tad bit playful, “Well, I didn’t think you hated me, just heavily disliked me, or, you know, something like that.”
Michael chuckles, “Oh God.” He shakes his head, “That doesn’t really make it much better. I feel terrible.”
It's bright, his laughter, sweet. And (Y/N) suddenly understands why people who know him—not Michael the popstar, but Michael the person, stripped from all headlines and myths and assumptions—talk about him the way they do.
Oh, she’d really been such an idiot. Tom is not going to let her live this one down. Ever.
They look at each other, lingering smiles on their faces. Neither of them looks away.
“Let's rewind, then. Take it from the top.” She extends her hand for him to take, “(Y/N) (Y/L/N).”
Michael’s smile widens. He takes her hand in his, “Michael Jackson. Pleased to meet you, Miss (Y/L/N).”
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FROM RIVALS TO FRIENDS? THE INDUSTRY'S MOST TALKED-ABOUT DUO SPOTTED TOGETHER AGAIN by Danielle Marks For the third time this month, Michael Jackson and (Y/N) (Y/L/N) have been photographed together. The two artists were seen leaving a charity gala on Thrusday evening after spending several hours speaking inside the venue. Witnesses report that the pair arrived separetly but remained together for most of the night (...)
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“THEY'RE ALWAYS TALKING” PEOPLE MAGAZINE If you attend enough music industry events, you'll eventually notice a pattern: Michael Jackson and (Y/N) seem incapable of staying away from each other. At last week's benefit concert, the pair were seen backstage, deep in conversation. Three days later, they appeared together at a record industry luncheon. Now, insiders claim (Y/N) has visited Jackson's recording studio on multiple occasions. Whether friendship or something more is developing remains unclear (...)
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SECRET ALLIANCE?!? by Carl Kesterson Fans are growing excited after a sudden increase in public appearances involving music icons (Y/N) (Y/L/N) and Michael Jackson. The pair have been spotted together at award shows, charity events, industry parties, recording studios and private dinners. One source claims the stars speak on the phone regularly, having become "nearly inseparable". Coincidence? We think not. Are they planning a musical collaboration? A surprise project? Stay tuned to find out more!
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It's incredible, how easy they settle into a friendship.
(Y/N) had never had a friend who understood what it was like to carry the pressure and expectations of the world on your shoulders, who’d been raised similar to the way she’d been—constantly on the road, always performing, unable to make friends, permanently exhausted, chasing a dream that wasn’t hers, not completely. Michael gets it. He gets her.
They make space for each other in their lives so quickly, so easily, that (Y/N) often forget he hasn’t always been there.
The media eats it up. The blooming friendship between the King of Pop and the Princess of Soul becomes the hottest topic. They talk about a possible collaboration, about a secret relationship. It's all background noise for (Y/N), she just enjoys hanging out with Michael. Her social battery never seems to drain when it comes to him. Maybe, it’s because she doesn’t feel the need to pretend, put up an act, as she does for others. Maybe, he is just that person for her.
They spend whatever little free time they have with each other. Michael comes over and they watch movies, the old ones he likes, or they play board games, the ones (Y/N) never got the chance to play as a kid, too busy working. He gives her the keys to his house and sometimes, when everything gets too loud and her head starts to pound, she hides there, even if he’s not around.
They talk on the phone, all the time. (Y/N) feels like a teenager again, especially when Tom—who does not let her forget that their friendship exists thanks to him and that she should forever be grateful and maybe start listening to him more—gives her that amused, knowing look and she pokes her tongue out at him in response. He’s such a dad, honestly.
“Did I wake you?” Michael asks, sheepish. It is three in the morning and the only reason she picks up is because she knows it’s him.
“Well, Mike, it is the middle of the night.” She yawns, her voice thick with sleep. Michael’s soft chuckle manages to efficiently cut through the fogginess of her brain.
“Sorry,” he says, not sounding very apologetic at all.
The thing about Michael is that once the nerves leave him, once he gets comfortable and comes out of his little shell, he becomes surprisingly teasing and self-assured. (Y/N) finds it unbelievably endearing.
“No, you’re not.”
"I am!” Michael protests, laughing a bit. The sound is full, rich, (Y/N) loves it. “I didn’t mean to wake you, I promise. I thought you’d be awake, you usually are.” (Y/N) can’t see him, but she can hear the tentative smile in his voice.
“That I am,” she confirms. “What’s up?”
“I am working on something and I need you to hear it, let me know what you think.”
She smiles into the darkness, settles more comfortably in her bed. “Play it for me.”
Sometimes they stay on the phone just to keep each other company. The silence settles between them, gentle, easy, and (Y/N) loves it, the way she can just exist with him.
(Because she has spent her entire life surrounded by people—producers and fans and journalists—and still loneliness has been her fiercest, most loyal companion. It is the price of success, of fame, of growing up in an industry that would chew you up and spit you out for its own amusement. Michael understands it. He’s lived it too. She never feels alone when she’s with him, even if it’s a phone line what’s connecting them, even if they don’t talk at all.)
“I miss you,” he whispers sometimes, low over the phone, when life becomes hectic and they haven’t seen each other in weeks.
“I miss you, too.”
She’s never meant those words more. She’s found out, with some sort of startling surprise, that her heart has created a little gap in the shape of Michael, and she finds his prolonged absence painful. She doesn’t mention that.
(Y/N) realizes just how important Michael has become, how much she truly trusts him, when she finds herself giving him a duplicate of her keys to her personal studio. Three keys exist: Tom’s, hers and now Michael’s.
Music is the most intimate thing (Y/N) possesses. She does not let many people see past the perfectly curated version of herself, much less let them into the place where all the ugly, jagged, complicated pieces of herself end up, and that place is her studio.
Every version of herself exist, in some way, within those four walls. In pages of lyrics scattered across every available surface and half-filled notebooks that lie open on chairs and couches. In the yellow sticky notes plastered across the entire wall, connected by symbols and arrows sometimes even she struggles to understand. In voice memos labeled with cryptic letters and dates, perfectly stacked in a drawer, that will never see the light of day. In songs she hates but refuses to get rid of, songs she loves too much to share, songs that contain things that are too personal, that cut too deep.
It is a terrifying thing, letting someone into that space, allowing herself to be seen. It is the reason creating has always been a solitary thing for her—sacred, in a way—because it leaves her feeling raw. She writes alone, curled up on the floor of her living room at two in the morning, records rough melodies on cassette tapes nobody will ever hear, hides her jumbled thoughts in journals she keeps under lock and key.
Most people only ever see the polished versions of everything, the almost finished products. He is the first person—Tom excluded because, well, he is Tom—that she lets see the mess, lets see all of her.
And Michael seems to understand how much of herself she’s offering to him. He treats her studio with so much respect, as if it’s something holy. Never peaks or wanders without asking first. He is careful with her equipment, her instruments, her lyrics. (Her heart, he is so very careful with her heart.)
Somewhere along the way, she finds herself growing comfortable with scribbling down in her journal when he’s around. Next thing she knows, she’s letting him listen to songs before they're even close to being finished. Not many people have ever had such privilege.
Letting him in is easy. Dangerously easy.
(Y/N) should be scared, terrified really.
She finds out that she isn’t.
And just like, as quickly and easily as falling asleep, Michael Jackson—once her rival—becomes the safe places she falls back into.
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(Y/N) knows she’s a perfectionist, an overachiever. She’s intimately aware with the fact that she pushes herself too hard, that she suffers from the ailment of being viscerally brutal with herself, that she doesn’t allow herself any margin of error.
But she has no other choice. The music industry isn’t kind, much less to women. Talent is not enough, never enough. Every achievement is scrutinized, every mistake magnified. Male artists get some respite, messy performances are excused by personal difficulties, failures easily swept under the rug, forgiven. Experience has taught (Y/N) that women are not allowed the same grace.
She cannot be just good; good gets replaced, good is easily forgotten.
To survive, she has to be constantly exceptional—any little mistake would result in a fall and she’s built herself to high, achieved so much, that the tumble would be catastrophic, undoubtedly deathly. And the only way she knows how to keep control over everything, to be perfectly consistent, is by running herself to the ground.
And (Y/N) doesn’t complain. After all, isn’t she lucky? She is passionate about what she does, completely in love with her job. Complaining is for those who have it hard, who really struggle. So what if it consumes her? So what if there are days the exhaustion threatens to drown her, swallow her whole?
Greatness demands payment—even as a young girl, nothing but a child, she’d understood this, that success meant sacrifice, it demanded blood, and she’d been willing to bleed herself dry to make it big, there’d seemed to be no other option—so (Y/N) pays the price.
And she’s been paying it for so long—in the shape of blooming headaches and absolutely no sense of privacy from the outside world, in the way her private and professional life have become so intertwined she can no longer distinguish them, threads so tightly woven she cannot pull them apart—that it has become instinct. She no longer feels the ache.
(It’s not a conscious choice, not anymore. Once upon a time, a young girl had wanted to be the best, to climb the ladder, and so she’d trained her body to withstand it all, to push past basic physiological needs, to function properly while running on nothing on fumes. (Y/N) reaps the consequences of the sacrifices of her younger self.)
(Y/N) knows it isn’t exactly healthy—she does not lack self-awareness, despite what Tom often suggests—, but she doesn’t know how to stop. She’s been operating like this for so long that everything else feels unnatural, wrong, like she’s not doing enough, like she’s somehow failing if she allows herself to breathe.
Tom does his best to get her to pace herself—brings food and won’t stop glaring until she pauses and eats, forcibly drags her out of the recording booth when she refuses to take a break—but they both know that she’s as stubborn as they come, that once she starts something she cannot physically stop until it’s done. (Y/N) finds it shameful, embarrassing, the way she sometimes lacks control of her own mind, her lack of regard for her own well-being, so she pretends it isn’t a thing. She doesn’t allow anyone to see how bad she gets, not even Michael, especially not Michael.
Most of the time she can manage it, but not during tours. (Y/N) sort of loses all grasp on reality when she’s touring. Meals are often forgotten, replaced by recording sessions that start late at night, after she’s performed, and bleed into the early mornings, because she cannot leave until every note feels perfect. The rehearsals feel endless, the interviews more so. Sleep becomes a foreign concept. It’s grueling. She keeps going. Takes another plane, lands in a new city, and repeats the cycle. Again and again.
The warning signs are there.
Explosive headaches that become migraines more and more often, pain spreading from the back of her eye to the base of her skull. Dizziness, nausea, shaking limbs after concerts.
Which is to say, she knew better and just went ahead and ignored the way her body was begging her to stop. She should’ve known it would end up the way it did. Maybe she thought herself untouchable, unbreakable. Maybe she just couldn’t find time in her schedule to worry.
By the time the final concert of the European leg of the tour arrives, (Y/N) is functioning entirely on adrenaline and muscle memory. Just one more, you just have to push for one more, is the mantra she repeats after every night. It’s true this time around. She gets a whole three-month break after this, a little space to breathe.
The Wembley is massive. She’s been here before and the sheer size of it never fails to impress her. Empty, it feels huge. Sold out, it feels gigantic. And when it’s filled with fans, with a crowd that screams her lyrics back at her so loudly she feels them reverberate through the floor, it feels like magic.
The music flows through her in that all familiar way and she feels that heavenly rush of excitement and elation. Lights flash so bright the world seems to blur together, sweat clings to her skin, her lungs burn every time she inhales, but she loves it. Lives for it really.
For three hours it’s just her and the music and the fans and everything else quiets down, fades into the background.
This is what she loves. This is why she bleeds herself dry. All of this makes up for the exhaustion clawing at her bones. It makes it worth it.
And when the final note rings through the stadium, when the crowd erupts and she lifts her hand in a sweet farewell, she lets herself relax. Just the tiniest bit.
She’s done it.
And then, as she makes to leave the stage, the world tilts.
Her sight becomes hazy, distorted, and she thinks it’s just another dizzy spell, until her legs refuse to cooperate.
Suddenly, everything is too loud and somehow strangely distant at the same time. The edges of her vision blacken.
Someone calls her name, she thinks, but she cannot focus on it.
The stage sways beneath her feet, like the floor itself is moving.
At least the concert’s over, a deluded part of herself ponders, somewhat amused.
(Y/N) is out before she hits the floor.
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COLLAPSE ON STAGE! MUSIC SUPERSTAR (Y/N) (Y/L/N) RUSHED TO HOSPITAL AFTER SHOCKING CONCERT INCIDENT Last night, thousands of fans watched in horror as global music sensation (Y/N) (Y/L/N) collapsed moments after finishing her final song at Wembley Stadium. The performance marked her third and final night of three sold-out shows at the iconic venue, as well as the final concert of the European leg of her 'Resonance' World tour. Fans have reported that (Y/L/N) appeared to be unsteady on her feet before suddenly collapsing. Medical personnel reportedly arrived within moments, and the singer was transported to a nearby hospital. Representatives for The Princess of Soul have yet to provide a detailed statement.
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When consciousness returns, it’s a slow, progressive thing.
She hears murmurs nearby, but can’t quite make out what they’re saying. She can feel someone’s touch, someone holding her hand, but cannot find the strength to return the gesture.
Everything hurts. There’s a dull ache behind her eyes. A throbbing in her head.
For a moment, (Y/N) doesn’t know where she is. Not even who she is, really.
Then the memories come back in waves, all at once.
Embarrassment hits harder than the pain. And the pain is bad.
“Oh God.” Talking feels unnatural. Her voice is raspy, her tongue feels heavy, the sound of it is odd.
A chair scrapes sharply beside her bed.
Suddenly, there’s a hand in hers, the hold steady.
Her head pounds, moving it to the side makes her ears ring. Slowly, she opens her eyes. She’s met with warm brown eyes, concern lingering in every corner.
“Mike?”
“Hey.” The relief that floods his features is overwhelming. There's a heaviness in his voice, some sort of strain, that (Y/N) pain-filled brain cannot comprehend.
“What—” She looks around. White walls, the pungent smell of antiseptic. Her hand, the one that isn’t entwined with Michael’s, is connected to an IV drip. There’s a low beeping in the background, her heartbeat resonating around the room. A hospital, okay, that makes sense. She knows where she is, she remembers flashes of what happened—her vision blackening, the stage tilting—, she does not understand why Michael is here. Thinking is too hard, it makes the dull ache of her head spread, so she asks, “What are you doing here?”
“You collapsed,” he says, as if that explains everything. It explains nothing at all, really, because she’d been in London and last she remembers Michael had been in New York, recording the music video for one of the songs of his newest album, 'Bad'.
“I know that.” She does, the memories are getting cleared by the minute. It’s enough to let her know it had been bad and most likely downright embarrassing. She hopes no one recorded it. Oh, God, the tabloids are going to have a field day with it. She can already see it; pregnancy rumors, drug rumors, whispers that will get traction, until they follow her everywhere. Great, just fucking great. Still, it does not explain why he’s here. Her mind’s confused, the pain lingers and she’s pretty sure they're giving her some sort of medicine through the drip, one that’s aggravating the fuzziness. “Are you— Michael, please tell me you did not fly across the Atlantic Ocean because I passed out?”
He opens his mouth, closes it, stares at her for a long minute, like he's unsure of what to say. “I saw the video.” Well, of course there is a video, that’s just her luck. Someone just bury her alive already. Truly, is she in God’s blacklist? “It didn’t look like you'd passed out. It looked like—” Michael stops, looks away. Whatever he meant to say, he keeps to himself, swallows it down. “Anyway, I managed to get in contact with Tom. He was frantic. He’s always so in control that the sound of him completely losing it scared me, (Y/N). He said they couldn’t wake you up and I thought—”
Michael’s voice falters, cracks a bit, and the alarm in his voice is enough to make something akin to fear clutch (Y/N)’s chest. It had been bad, then. Really bad.
She squeezes his hand, tries to reassure him that she’s here and she’s okay. Michael offers her a wobbly smile, but the worry in his eyes does not dim.
“So, I took the first flight. I had— I couldn’t—” Michael exhales, deeply. He squeezes her hand, mirroring her action, and pulls it to press the back of it against his lips. He murmurs against her skin, “I had to be here.”
She doesn’t know how she feels about it, the fact that Michael dropped everything to be here with her. Warmth floods throughout her, a knot forms on her throat; it’s affection and something more, something her hazy, muddled brain cannot identify. She suddenly hit with the striking realization that she would do the exact thing for him, cross every ocean and mountain to be there if he needs her. She doesn’t know what to do with that information, either.
“Thank you,” she says it so quietly, but the words still reverberate around the room. He’s here, with her. (Y/N) still can’t believe it. Her heart feels full in a way it never has before. “For being here.” His eyes soften when they meet hers and (Y/N) is surprised by how much of an open book Michael is. She sees so much when she looks into his eyes, raw vulnerability, glimpses of affection and some other emotion she can’t quite place. She wonders what Michael sees when he looks at her, sometimes (Y/N) thinks he sees too much.
“Always.” It sounds like a promise.
She’s still trying to process the information, when her brain catches up to everything he said. Tom was frantic. Where is Tom?
Tom has always been there, the one constant throughout (Y/N)’s life. He’s seen the good, the bad and the ugly, and not once left her side. Tom is the shoulder she leans on, the solid presence that grounds her, the person she looks for support. In between the pain and confusion and Michael’s presence, (Y/N) hadn’t noticed his absence. Now, it’s a palpable thing. He wouldn’t have left, (Y/N) knows him. Irrational panic grips at her. Tom would’ve never left her alone in an unfamiliar place.
(But he hadn’t left her alone, had he? Tom had left her with Michael. (Y/N) does not have the mental capacity at the moment to realize that, to understand the magnitude of that trust, what it signifies.)
(Y/N) tries to sit up, “Where’s Tom?” The movement makes dizziness crash through her in waves. She winces.
“Hey, hey,” Michael soothes, voice gentle. He must notice the twinge of alarm in her voice. “I convinced him to go back to the hotel to shower and have some breakfast. He hadn’t left your side since, well, the concert.” He hesitates a bit on the last two words, like he isn’t sure how to refer to what happened. “He’ll be here soon. Just try to get some rest in the meantime, yeah?”
It’s hard. She’s not sure if she knows how to rest anymore. Now that she’s awake her mind is going at a thousand miles per hour—she needs to talk to Tom, see him with her own eyes and apologize for making him worry, she needs to know what people are saying, what has been printed, how bad the situation is and what she needs to do to fix it.
Then she feels it, Michael’s thumb slowly caressing the back of her hand, almost an absentminded gesture. She’s not sure he even notices he’s doing it, but it helps. It grounds her, pulls her out of her mind and back into her body. To keep herself from spiraling away, she talks.
“How long was I out?”
“Almost four days.”
(Y/N) gapes at him, “You are kidding.” Michael just shakes his head, face somber. No shit Tom was losing his mind. Being unconscious for four days due to exhaustion and dehydration... Jesus. (Y/N) can’t believe she left herself get that bad.
“Well, you did hit your head pretty hard when you collapsed,” Michael offers as an explanation.
That explains the nauseating pain in her skull. It spreads everywhere, duller in some places and throbbing in others. It is only truly painful if she focuses on it, otherwise she can block it out pretty well, she has experience in managing headaches, after all.
(Y/N) allows her free hand to drift upwards, letting her fingers explore her scalp.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Michael states, face twisting in worry as she tries to find the source of the pain.
With practiced ease, (Y/N) ignores him. She has to know, has to feel the wounds.
Everything feels okay and for a second there she questions whether the impact looked worse than it actually was. And then the pad of her index finger rubs against one spot in the back of her head, close to her right ear, and pain flares up so viscously that her vision whitens.
“Fuck.” It comes out as a pained whimper. Michael’s hold tightens on her. When she looks at him, he's wincing, like her pain causes him pain, too. “You were right,” she tells him as she lets her hand fall back to her lap, “It was a terrible idea.”
It’s a testament to how distressed the whole situation must’ve been for him, how distraught he must’ve been—maybe still is—that Michael doesn’t say ‘Told you so!’ and instead just huffs out a small chuckle. He still looks so worried, every muscle on his face tense, and something in (Y/N)’s chest constricts.
Michael cares too deeply, worries too much. She is lucky to be someone who gets to see this side of him, she also feels unbearably guilty at the traces of concern that linger in his face. That’s her fault.
In search of soothing him, she says, “Don’t look so gloom, Mike. I’m okay, I promise.” She squeezes his hand, offers him a tentative smile. “I got too carried away. You know how hectic things get during tours.”
“No.” Michael’s voice tightens unexpectedly, something shifts in his demeanor. He’s never used that tone, not towards her. It renders her speechless, the sternness of it. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to play this down. Tours are hell, sure, but this—” Michael gestures around them, desperate. “—this isn’t that.”
He pins her down with his stare and there is so much raw emotion there that (Y/N) thinks she might burn with the intensity of it. She wants to look away, but can’t.
“You didn’t get too carried away, you are running yourself to the ground, (Y/N),” Michael says, and all she can think about it how weird it is, to hear those words from someone other than Tom. “And I knew how hard you were working and how relentless you become with yourself under high stress situations and I should’ve—” Michael’s voice breaks. He shakes his head, clearing his throat as looks away from her. He’s not fast enough. (Y/N) notices the glassiness of his eyes, the tears brimming at the corners.
Her chest tightens painfully, almost uncomfortably. She needs him to stop blaming himself, needs the distress in his tone to disappear. (Y/N) cannot bear being the one making Michael hurt.
“Michael, hey,” she tugs at his hand, “Look at me.” He does, a bit begrudgingly. There’s a tear trailing down his cheek and (Y/N)’s heart hurts. She hates herself for making him feel like she’s his responsibility. “It’s not on you, Mike. There’s nothing you could’ve done. I knew I was asking too much of my body, I just couldn’t—” Couldn’t stop, couldn’t allow myself to breathe or fail or be anything but perfect. “I let it get too far. Not enough sleep, too many skipped meals, but I am okay.”
Michael breathes out, heavy and deep. He presses the back of her hand to his forehead, closes his eyes and whispers, “It wasn’t just exhaustion, (Y/N).”
(Y/N) frowns, confused. What does that mean? She doesn’t have to ask because Michael elaborates, looking back at her, “I don’t really know the extent of it, the doctors couldn’t give me any information. I am not family, so—” He shakes his head. “But Tom did mentioned something about low potassium levels,” Okay, that does not sound that bad, so why is Michael looking at her like she might disappear any second? “He also said something about a cardiac event.”
Oh.
“Did my heart stop?” The question comes out clinical, detached. Her mind is spiraling. She’s suddenly very far away, trying to grapple with this information. She feels like a spectator in her own body. All she remembers is blackness and nothingness, her heart couldn’t have possibly stopped.
“I don’t know, Tom didn’t—” Michael’s voice falters and he clears his throat to get rid of the shakiness. It doesn’t work very well. “He wouldn’t tell me much.”
Everything around her becomes heightened. She’s suddenly acutely aware of the dimmed light of the room, the beeping of the machines, the sharp smell of antibacterial, the heaviness of Michael’s gaze.
Michael is getting good, too good, at reading her emotions. The instant she feels the flare of panic, he’s already soothing it. He moves closer, presses the back of her hand to his cheek. The closeness works, his skin against her reassures her, grounds her, acts as a tangible reminder that whatever happened she is okay and she is alive and she is not alone. She wonders, for a fleeting second, if Michael needs the touch as much as she does, if it settles something in him as well.
“I’m here,” he tells her, tone so sweet and soft and tender it sort of makes her want to cry.
“Will you stay?”
She regrets the words as soon as they leave her lips. It’s selfish, to ask so much of him. He already flew halfway across the world to get to her, to make sure she was okay. How can she ask him to stay longer, now that she’s awake? Michael—for all that he is her best friend— is still Michael Jackson. He’s busy and she shouldn’t even be asking. But she doesn’t take the words back, she doesn’t find it in herself to do so. Because some part of her knows that the only reason she isn’t wallowing in pits of self-deprecation and self-hatred, the only reason her mind isn’t punishing her, is because Michael is here.
(Y/N) doesn’t have time to panic, to overthink, because Michael is already answering. He gives her a soft smile, the corners of his lips barely tilting upwards, and presses a fleeting, almost tentative, kiss to the back of her hand, “For as long as you want me to.”
She’s smacked with the sudden realization that she might want him to stay forever.
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TOUR SHOCKER: (Y/N) (Y/L/N) POSTPONES ENTIRE AMERICAN LEG FOLLOWING MEDICAL EMERGENCY Fans across the United States were left stunned after representatives for global sensation, (Y/N) (Y/L/N), announced the postponement of all the North American and South American tour dates following what sources have described as a "serious and unexpected medical emergency." The singer, who has spent the last year dominating international charts and selling out arenas worldwide, was hospitalized earlier this week after collapsing on stage. While official statements have remained carefully worded, citing only a "health related incident requiring immediate medical attention", insiders have suggested the situation is more serious than initially thought. The announcement comes as a devastating blow to thousands of concertgoers who had anticipated the highly successful American leg of the 'Resonance' tour, which was projected to become one of the year's highest-grossing concert runs, competing only with Michael Jackson’s upcoming 'Bad' tour. Questions surrounding the severity of the incident intensified after reports emerged about several members of the singer's inner circle flying immediately to her bedside following her hospitalization. Perhaps most notably, superstar Michael Jackson was spotted arriving at the London medical facility only hours after news of the emergency leaked. Witnesses reported seeing Jackson enter and remain at the hospital for extended periods over multiple days. Neither Jackson nor his representatives have commented publicly. As speculation continues regarding the exact nature of (Y/L/N)'s condition, representatives of the artist have urged fans to respect her privacy (...)
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Recovery is unbearable mostly because it forces her to stop and (Y/N) can’t remember the last time she did. Her body and mind aren’t wired for it, for long days doing nothing, for the lack of adrenaline. She is restless. She spends most of her time journaling, writing lyrics that don’t make much sense, pacing around the house while the speculations on the tabloids grow wilder.
The doctors order strict rest for at least three weeks, pending another medical evaluation, and it’s almost like everyone in her life conspires together to make sure she actually listens.
Tom confiscates her work schedule. After a long discussion with her, he decides to postpone the entire American leg of the tour, even though she should technically be okay by then.
(She doesn't fight him very hard on that decision, she knows just how badly she scared him, how worried he was. It turns out her heart had stopped, only for a few seconds, but enough to have Tom feeling like his own heart was going into cardiac arrest. It’d been a severe case of electrolyte imbalance what’d caused her to collapse. He’d seen it all from backstage, had been there when they’d used a defibrillator on her in the back of an ambulance, when she’d been rolled into the ICU. When he’d seen her awake for the first time after she’d collapsed, talking to Michael in hushed voices, he’d broken down completely. (Y/N) had never seen Tom cry before. It’d been enough to sober her up completely.)
Michael visits almost every other day, when he isn’t busy working on the last details for his upcoming tour.
He might be the only reason (Y/N) doesn’t lose all her sanity.
Sometimes they talk and Michael fills her in on the outside world, sometimes he brings board games, and they play until it’s late and Michael has to leave. Sometimes they just sit quietly, he works on his lyrics and she watches him, enthralled. There’s something magical in watching him create, in being allowed so close. Sometimes, and these are her favorite, Michael brings cassettes with unfinished versions of some songs and asks for her insight on the snares and basslines. Not only does she love being privy to the raw, unpolished, unguarded version of Michael’s artistry, but she loves pretending, for an hour or two, that nothing ever happened. They dissect songs together, piece by piece, and it is familiar territory, comfortable. It makes her feel less unsteady, like she has some semblance of control over her life.
Tom doesn’t say anything about Michael’s presence, but (Y/N) notices the way he relaxes a little when he’s around. Like he can rest for a while, knowing that Michael is there, knowing that she wouldn’t dare try anything crazy with Michael.
(Sometimes (Y/N) swears that Tom actually believes she’ll just rip out her IV drip—the one that she uses twice a day to ensure her electrolyte levels are balanced—and make a run for it. Which, in her defense, she only ever considered once, on the third day of this medical confinement, when she felt like she was going to lose her mind. And she didn’t even truly consider it. It was just a passing thought. She wouldn't do anything to worry him. Or Michael. She’s done enough of that. And yet, despite her being on her absolute best behavior, Tom still worries. She suspects that he would worry even if she sat quietly in a padded room doing absolutely nothing. He’s such a dad. (Y/N) is so grateful for him.)
She doesn’t understand it entirely, this sudden trust that Tom has in Michael. Not because of Michael—(Y/N) knows him, knows his character, she thinks he might be the person she trusts the most in the world—but because Thomas Allen simply does not trust anyone, ever. It’s not in his nature. But the tension in his shoulders loosens when Michael arrives and he seems to breathe easier and (Y/N) finds it so very interesting.
“You trust him,” she comments off-handedly, trying to catch Tom off-guard. Michael had just left, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and nodding at Tom, and (Y/N) had caught the way that stoic guardedness in Tom’s eyes had relented, just slightly, at the sight of Michael.
Tom doesn’t turn to look at her, busy going over some documents. (Y/N) tugs at the sleeves of her sweater—Michael’s sweater, one he’d accidentally left behind, and she’d stared wearing around the house when she was too lazy to think of what to wear—and studies him from her place on the couch. In response to her statement, he just hums.
“Is that a yes?”
Tom looks up, amusement in his eyes, “You didn’t ask a question, kid.”
She stares at him, a deadpan stare that has him chuckling.
“I do,” he confirms, adjusting his glasses to keep reading the pieces of paper in his manila folder.
“Why?” She can’t help but ask.
Tom raises his eyebrows at her, “Do you not trust him?”
(Y/N) scoffs, “You know that’s not what I meant. Of course I trust him, he’s my best friends.” She tugs at the sleeves of the sweater again, pulls her knees to her chest. “But you never trust any of my other friends.”
“Yeah, well—” Tom makes a sound, his tongue pressing against the back of his teeth, and shrugs, “Michael’s a good kid.”
But (Y/N) knows him too well, there’s something he isn’t telling her. Since Tom has made sure she has absolutely nothing better to do than spend her time annoying him, she presses, “There’s something else.”
“Is there?”
“Tom!” she pouts at him, using that petulant tone she knows drives him mad. “Come on, I want to know! What did Michael Jackson do to gain the unattainable trust of Thomas Allen?”
Tom looks up at her, rests his pen against the table. The shift in his semblance is sudden and (Y/N) straightens up immediately.
“What did he do?” she asks again, less playful this time around.
Tom breathes out, like he’s considering whether to tell her or simply walk out of the room. “It’s how he sounded, when he called that day.”
(Y/N) stills. Tom and her haven’t talked about the collapse, not since she was released from the hospital. It’s become this unspoken topic, a wound neither of them are willing to touch in fear of causing some infection.
“The panic in his voice—” Tom shakes his head. There’s a glint of dread in his eyes, like he is reliving it too. “He kept asking me if you were okay, if you were breathing.” (Y/N) had known, although neither had ever said it, that both him and Michael had thought she’d died. Hearing Tom confirm that is another thing entirely. She breathes out shakily, hugs her knees closer to her chest. “And then he was there, in London. I didn’t expect him to fly out. God, kid, you can’t even begin to understand how worried he was. He looked as terrible as I felt, and I care a whole lot for you, so I figure he must care a whole lot for you, too.”
(Y/N) suddenly feels like she can’t breathe.
She knows that Michael cares for her. Of course she does, it’s in every little thing he does—the late nights at her music studio, the random calls in the middle of the day, the way he appears to have memorized every part of her, how he accommodates her and prioritizes her—, but having Tom say it to her makes it more real, deeper, somehow.
She sniffs, rests her cheek against her knee. “He’s a good friend.”
Tom smiles at her, there’s kindness in his eyes and something that looks remarkably like pity.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he shakes his head, looks down at his papers, “Friends don’t worry to that extent.”
The words settle heavily between them.
Neither of them bring up the topic again.
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Michael leaves for tour three weeks later.
(It’d been a coincidence, the overlapping of their tours, something neither of them had realized would happen until (Y/N) was leaving for Europe and Michael was announcing tour dates. She was supposed to be closing up her tour, starting in South America and moving up all the way to Canada before doing the last show in New York, and Michael starting his in Japan.
They were going to be apart for a very long time, but (Y/N) had only been vaguely aware of that fact. She’d known the tour would demand too much of them, they would be too busy to notice each other’s absence. Now, with the American leg of her tour being pushed back and Tom advocating for her to take a break from music, placing her basically in house arrest until the doctor’s discharge her, (Y/N) is very aware of how long it’ll be before she sees Michael again.)
He comes to say goodbye, even though (Y/N) insists he doesn’t need to. She knows how chaotic the weeks leading up to a tour can be, she doesn’t want him to strain himself to much, least of all for her. Still, he shows up. (Michael always shows up.) He ignores the doorbell, as always, and bangs on the door in that particular way of his, always to the rhythm of one of her songs.
He stays too long—(Y/N) wonders if he, too, has suddenly become aware of the distance that’ll be between them, the time that’ll pass before they see each other again—until Bill starts honking the horn outside.
“You’ll miss your flight.” She has to physically drag him to the front door.
“Promise me that you’ll take care of yourself,” he says, offering little resistance as she moves down the hall, her hand wrapped around his wrist. “Good care of yourself.”
“I’ll do my best,” (Y/N) assures him. She isn’t sure how well she’ll do—she’s been managing these past few weeks, but he’s been here and that’s made it easier somehow, she doesn’t need to think about the fragility of her body, how unsteady she feels when she’s alone—but she will try, maybe more for Michael and Tom than for herself.
“And you’ll call, right?”
(Y/N) laughs, “Yes, Mike, all the time. You’ll get tired of hearing of me.”
Michael doesn’t skip a beat, “Impossible.”
She smiles, fondness spreading all over her chest. (Y/N) knows he means the words.
When they make it to the front door, he halts her, pulls at her hand, forcing him to turn around and meet his eyes
“If anything feels off, if the headaches come back, you’ll tell me?”
Her smile freezes as (Y/N) hesitates. It’s just a second, but Michael notices.
He raises his eyebrows, reaching for her hand and intertwining their fingers, “Promise me you’ll tell me.”
She sighs, pressing her lips together. She doesn’t want to make promises she might have to break. She’s never lied to Michael, she doesn’t want to start now.
“You’ll have much more important things to worry about.”
That’s the reason she’s so hesitant. Not because she wants to keep anything from him—they’ve gotten to a point where she’s not even sure she would be capable of deceiving Michael if she wanted, she’s certain he would be able to tell immediately, he knows her too well, has learned to read between the lines—but because he will need to be completely focused on his tour.
Michael opens his mouth, closes it. He sighs, running his free hand through his hair. He looks almost nervous, shy in a way he never is around her. Not anymore.
His admission is quiet, almost mumbled, “Nothing is more important than you.”
(Y/N)’s heart lurches. It’s gotten the tendency of doing that around Michael these days. She does her very best at keeping it under control. Instead, she pokes him on the cheek, her smile softening.
“Okay, a compromise, then,” she says. “If it gets bad, I will tell you.”
“How bad?”
“Need-to-go-to-the-hospital kind of bad.” She’s sure it won’t get to that point. She’s had some minor headaches and dizzy spells in the past few weeks, but nothing serious.
Michael doesn’t seem to like that answer. He looks over her shoulder, at Tom, and the older man must mouth something or do something because Michael relaxes. “Fine, deal.”
Once that’s settled, Michael breaks into a smile.
“C’mere.”
He opens his arms and (Y/N) happily walks into them. She closes her eyes and breathes him in, tries to commit the feeling of their hug to memory. She will miss him. (Y/N) has never had someone to miss before.
“Be safe,” she yells after him as he leaves her house. She watches his figure get smaller as he crosses the front yard to where Bill is waiting for him. He hasn't even left and (Y/N) already misses him. Oh, these upcoming months are going to be unbearable.
Michael turns around at the sound of her voice, walking backwards. He sends a dazzling grin her way and, there he is, that’s her Michael, sweet and handsome and all too mischievous.
(Y/N) squints her eyes, the playful look in his eyes too familiar. She isn’t surprised when he presses his index and middle finger to his lips and throws a kiss her way.
She rolls her eyes, good-naturedly, maybe a tad bit too fondly. Her grin widens. She plays along, catching the kiss and pressing it to her heart.
“Miss you already, pretty girl.”
Now that catches her by surprise.
The nickname hits her somewhere in the middle of her stomach. She’s glad that Michael’s not close enough to see the way heat crawls over her face.
“Miss you, too,” she sighs out, the words punched out of her.
From the corner of her eye she can see the way Tom is looking at her, all smug and amused and (Y/N) wishes she could fire him.
Instead, she turns around, pokes her tongue at him, and walks back to the house.
She does her very best to ignore the way her brain won’t stop replaying Michael’s words (pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl).
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(Y/N) does a great job at recovery, if she does say so herself. Tom would undoubtedly disagree, because he likes teasing and arguing and just overall disagreeing with her. He would say that she’s a terrible patient, always forgetting when it’s time to take her pills—which is true, she is very bad at that—but (Y/N) has noticed the way he no longer looks skittish. He no longer looks at her like he’s judging whether she’s two seconds away from fleeing. He has relaxed, maybe just a fraction, but when it comes to Tom, that’s a whole lot.
The doctor discharges her, officially, on a Monday. He makes a point by telling her she needs to take it easy, that her heart has incurred in permanent tissue damage—minor but still evident—and another severe electrolyte imbalance could kill her. Tom gives her a pointed look and (Y/N) flinches under the intensity of it. There won’t be a repeat, she’ll do better. She promised Michael she would take good care of herself and she’s never broken a promise to him.
She calls Michael as soon as she gets to her studio. Tom had said she’d be able to go back, start easing herself into the normal, hectic rhythm of her life once the doctors gave the green light. He’s not looking very happy about it, but he lets her do her thing. He keeps the hovering at a minimum and (Y/N) doesn’t think she could ask for more.
“Guess where I am,” she says as soon as he picks up.
(Y/N) doesn’t have to guess to know where he is, she has the dates and places of his tour memorized. He’s in Melbourne, probably just got back to his hotel after his first night performing in Australia.
“Hello to you, too.” Is his teasing response. She can hear the smile on his face, can almost picture it. It makes her smile in return.
“Hi Mike,” she amends, teasingly, “C’mon, guess.”
“Home?” His answer comes out like a confused statement, before he’s suddenly taking a sharp intake of breath, “No, wait. You had the doctor’s appointment today, didn’t you?”
(Y/N)’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. She hadn’t thought he’d remember, she’d only ever mentioned it once, very briefly.
“I did.”
“And how did it go?”
“Very well.”
“Officially discharged?”
“Yep! Praise the Lord.”
“That’s good,” he sounds heartbreakingly relieved. “You’re at the studio, then?”
(Y/N) chuckles, “I’m that predictable, huh.”
Michael hums, the sound of it traveling all the way across the line and settling somewhere in between her ribs, “I just know you too well.”
“That you do.”
“Are you happy?” There’s ruffling on the other side, like he’s settling into bed, “You sound happy.”
“I am very happy,” she confirms, twisting the telephone cord around her finger. Michael gets it, (Y/N) doesn’t need to explain that being cut off from music had felt like losing a limb, such an integral part of her life ripped away from her. It’d been necessary, she knows that, but it’d still hurt. Being back in her studio feels like coming home. She relishes on the feeling. “I had so much time to write and now I finally get to turn all the jumbled mess in my brain into something tangible. I’m so happy I could burst.”
Michael laughs, soft and full and (Y/N) loves knowing there’s someone out there that gets joy from her happiness.
“Will you play the demos for me?”
“You know I will.” She thinks it’s sweet, that he still asks. “Anyway, how was the concert?”
Distance changes things.
Not between them—if anything, they seem to grow impossibly closer, Michael calls her whenever he’s free, from airports and hotel rooms and backstage corridors, and (Y/N) drops everything when he’s on the other side of the line. No, the change happens inside her.
Maybe it doesn’t change a thing, maybe it just sheds light to what was already there, something (Y/N) had spent a long time ignoring.
Without Michael physically beside her at all times, without his constant presence filling every aspect of her life, (Y/N) has time to think about him.
Thinking is a dangerous thing.
(She thinks of his eyes and his hands holding hers. She thinks of their late night calls, the way his voice is enough to ease her worries, settle her anxiety. She thinks of days spent together obsession over music, watching movies, playing games. She thinks of those damned words (pretty girl, pretty girl) and the way she’d sworn her heart was going to beat straight out of her chest.)
(Y/N) misses him terrible, with an intensity she’d never thought herself capable of. Not in the vague ‘oh, things are sort of quieter without you around’ way she’s used to missing people and more in the ‘there is a whole in my heart in the shape of you and i don’t really know what to do with it’ way she’s never experienced before.
Every interesting thing that happens becomes something she wants to tell Michael about. Every exhausting interview leaves her reaching for the phone, because his voice is the one thing capable of quieting everything down, making the world tolerable.
One night, after a particularly grueling press event—where the journalists kept digging and pushing and reaching for information on her health, trying to dissect her private life for public amusement—she calls him without thinking.
She doesn’t think he’ll pick up—it’s too late and he’s most likely sleeping and God, he must be tired and she shouldn’t be calling him at all—but Michael does. It only takes him two rings.
“Hey,” he says softly, voice sleepy.
Relief floods through her instantaneously at the sound of it. She doesn’t reply, just breathes deeply, closing her eyes when she feels tears brimming at the corner.
“You okay?” He asks not even second later, sounding much more awake.
She clears her throat, “I’m fine. Just tired.” Michael must know she’s not being completely truthful, he must also know it is not the time to press because he keeps quiet. The sound of his breathing anchors her, makes everything feel steady. “Just wanted to hear your voice.”
The admission startles her.
Michael hums softly. “Is that so?”
She huffs out a laugh, “Don’t tease.”
“M’not.” His voice is rough with traces of lingering sleepiness, deeper. “I like hearing your voice, too.”
Suddenly, the ache of missing him becomes almost unbearable.
No one has cared for her so gently before, so openly. There is transparency when it comes to Michael’s love. He doesn’t wish to possess her or control her or polish her raw edges into something easier to hold. He loves with clarity, with intent, proudly, loud in the small ways that matter and (Y/N) loves him.
The thought appears so suddenly she nearly drops the phone.
She goes completely still.
On the other end, Michael keeps talking softly, completely unaware that her entire world had just tilted off balance.
She loves him.
Oh.
Oh no.
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JACKSON FEVER HITS BRISBANE: KING OF POP SET FOR FINAL AUSTRALIAN BAD TOUR SPECTACULAR Australia's biggest music event of the year reaches its grand finale as international superstar Michael Jackson prepares to take the stage for the final concert of his Australian tour. Thousands of fans have descended on Brisbane Entertainment Centre ahead of what is expected to be one of the most electrifying performances ever staged in Queensland. Tickets sold out months ago, with devoted followers camping overnight and traveling from across the country for one last chance to witness the King of Pop in action (...)
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Realizing she’s in love with Michael is the most consuming, terrifying thing (Y/N) has ever experienced. (And she almost died, so that’s saying a lot.)
Once the realization settles, once it sinks into her bones and becomes part of her essence, her truth, it threatens to overwhelm her, consume her entirely.
She loves him.
Entirely.
Completely.
Irrevocably.
How she never noticed before is beyond her, because now that she knows, she cannot turn it off. It’s like the wiring in her brain and her heart have been altered beyond repair and she simply cannot force herself back into the comfortable shape of friendship. Not now that she’s glimpsed beyond it.
(Y/N) realizes, as she tosses and turns around in bed, as she stares at the darkness of her ceiling, that maybe the realization of being in love with him isn’t what’s scary— loving Michael is easy, it feels right, like everything has suddenly slotted into place and things make sense once more— it’s losing him that has her paralyzed, frozen in terror.
Because Michael is not just anyone. He is her best friend, her safe place, the person she trusts the most, the one she would look for in a crowded room.
Losing Michael would destroy her.
And that’s what she fears, the complexity of her feelings, the confusion of wanting him so badly it hurts, of missing him so deeply his absence is like a phantom ache she cannot rid herself of, of knowing she could be a few words away of ruining the most important relationship of her life.
(Y/N) does not want to lose Michael. She wouldn’t survive it.
So she says nothing.
Tries her very best to bury her affection, even it makes her feel like she’s dying.
And then Michael calls one night.
He sounds exhausted, voice rough from a day spent rehearsing and performing, but happy— happy because the crowd’s energy had been surreal and most of all happy because it’ll only be a couple of days before he sees her again.
Her heart sort of skips a beat when he says that.
“I wish you were here,” he says softly over the phone, as he’s done retelling most of his night.
Something in (Y/N)’s chest aches so violently she has to close her eyes to keep it at bay.
“I miss you,” And they say that to each other a lot—all the time, really— but something about the way Michaels says it this time sounds different. It’s in the way he enunciates the words, the tenderness behind them, the way they travel all the way and settle somewhere deep inside her.
After they hang up, she sits alone in the darkness of her room for a long time, thinking.
About fear and love and rejection.
And suddenly another fear rises above the rest, the stifling panic of regret, of watching Michael fall in love with someone else while she stands beside him, smiling as if her heart isn’t breaking apart inside her, of looking back to these days and wishing she would’ve done things differently.
The thought alone is enough to make her feel sick.
She cannot do that to herself.
So, the very next day, she gets on a plane.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” she admits to Tom before she leaves the house, finger looping around the straps of her sweater in a desperate attempt to calm herself down. He’d arrived early in the morning and found her moving around the house in almost a manic state. He’d said nothing as she’d explained where she was going and what she was doing, hadn’t even teased her about it taking her so long to finally realize what was most likely obvious to him. Instead, he’d called the chauffer and helped her pack.
“You’ll be okay.”
“Oh God, but what if he—”
Tom grabs her face between his hands, like he’d done when she’d been a kid about to spiral into a panic attack.
“Breathe.” She does, lifting her hands to grab Tom’s wrist in an effort to keep herself anchored. “You will be okay, kid.” Tom repeats and this time the words do cut through the panic. He’s looking at her like he’s certain, his words firm, and (Y/N) has no choice but to trust him.
The flight feels endless. Too much time to think and think and overthink, way too much time to panic— and without Tom by her side it’s harder to keep herself from losing her mind.
(What if this is the biggest mistake of her life? What if she’s wrong and Tom is wrong and all Michael has ever felt is platonic affection, friendship? What if she confesses her feelings and he doesn’t reciprocate and they drift apart?)
She forces herself to keep going.
Love, no matter how brief, is never wasted. And she thinks she could die happy knowing she loved without restrain, without fear. She owes herself that much.
By the time she arrives backstage, her heart is pounding and her stomach is in knots.
She might actually throw up.
The arena is enormous.
(Y/N) can hear the crowd roaring beyond the walls while staff rush frantically through the corridors. Music shakes the floor beneath her feet.
A young girl with a headset recognizes her immediately and nearly drops the walkie-talkie she’s holding.
“Holy shit.”
That manages to bring out a small laugh from (Y/N). It’s the first time all day that she’s felt something other than life-altering dread.
“Michael doesn’t know I’m here,” she finds herself telling the girl, “I was hoping to surprise him.”
“So you guys are friends.” The girl muses before immediately realizing what she’s said. Her eyes widen comically, “I just meant— I mean, with the tabloids you can never know. Like the rivalry, you know, I always thought it was such bullshit the way they pitted you against each other and—”
Huh, so there were people who didn’t fall for it. It’s good to know.
(Y/N) interrupts her with another laugh, because the girl looks like she’s about to go on a tangent about the media, “It’s okay. I get what you mean.”
The girl nods, visibly relaxing a bit, “Uh— Do you— Do you want me to take you to his dressing you?”
“I was hoping to sneak a little glance at him, from the wings, if it’s not too much trouble?”
The girl, who she finds out is named Isla, leads her through backstage hallways. The closer they get to the stage, the clearer Michael’s voice becomes. The sound of it loosens some of the anxiety in her chest.
They arrive at the spot, sheltered from the public by the wings of the arena, and (Y/N) finally catches a glimpse of Michael. There he is. Drenched in sweat, looking like God’s favorite creation, every feature enhanced by the stage light.
God, she loves him.
He’s breathing hard as the song ends and the crowd’s scream become even more deafening.
He turns slightly, to say something to his drummer, and that’s when he sees her.
Everything stops. (Y/N) feels the breath catch in her throat. Michael, who she has never seen falter, freezes mid-step, for the briefest of seconds. His expression shifts so fast she can’t process every emotion, but she can pinpoint the softness in his eyes, the one that’s always present when he’s looking at her.
Calm settles over her, unexpectedly.
Michael recovers quickly. He winks at her and she smiles back and then he’s back to performing, but all she can thinking about are those eyes.
She can’t even remember why she was so worried. This is Michael. Her Michael. The person who feels most like home.
For a quick second, the fleeting thought crosses her mind.
Maybe he loves me, too.
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Michael runs to her.
Once second, he’s waving goodbye to the crowd, sending kisses out to his fans. The next, he’s bolting.
He must be exhausted, about to be slammed in the face with that post-concert adrenaline crash, and yet, he’s still running to her.
There’s a bright smile on his face, his eyes are shinning, little crinkles around the edges. He’s moving like something is pulling him towards her, like finding his way to her is nothing more than muscle memory.
Michael pulls her into him so hard it knows the breath out of her lungs. His arms wrap around her waist, lifting her a bit so that only her toes touch the ground. Almost as if it’s second nature, her arms loop around his neck.
He’s covered in sweat, his skin sticky, curls damp against his forehead, and (Y/N) should be disgusted, but she isn’t. She feels nothing but an overwhelming amount of fondness, warmth. She pulls him closer, wishing she could sink into him.
For the first time since she realizes she loved him, (Y/N) feels like her heart and mind are at ease. The ache burning inside of her simmers down.
He’s here, and it’s almost as if her soul knows it.
“Oh my God,” he breathes against her hair, elated. “You’re here.”
(Y/N) laughs shakily against his shoulder.
Michael buries his head against the side of her neck, breathing heavy. His arms tighten around her waist, like he’s making sure she’s actually here and not a figment of his imagination.
And, God, (Y/N) wants to stay here forever.
She wants to pull him so close, until there is no space left between them, wants to crawl inside his heart, settle somewhere between his ribs. She wants to be consumed by him, by the love she has for him.
Somewhere nearby a camera clicks.
Neither of them pay it much mind.
(The picture, taken by one of Michael’s staff, will later become one of their most famous ones. (Y/N) doesn’t know it yet, but she will keep it neatly tucked in her wallet, carry it with her for the rest of her life.)
“I cannot believe it. You’re actually here,” he whispers to her. His breath is warm against her skin. “I missed you.” The words sound reverent somehow, like a prayer, like they’d sounded that night they’d been on the phone and (Y/N) had realized she couldn’t keep her feelings from him any longer.
Something inside her breaks open, “I missed you more.” And it is so true her voice cracks, filled with emotions she has not yet named, not out loud, and Michael, her sweet Michael, notices immediately.
He pulls away, only slightly, so that he can see her face. His arms stay wrapped around her, hands anchored firmly on her waist.
“What’s wrong?”
Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s wrong. (Y/N)’s not sure what to say or precisely what she’s feeling. It’s all too much and not enough at the same time.
She shakes her head, because she doesn’t know what else to do. Michael is looking at her with those eyes that see too much and God, she cannot hide a single thing from him. Tears gather at the corner of her eyes. She’s not quite sure if they’re happy tears or sad tears or I’m-scared-I’m-about-to-ruin-it-all tears.
“Hey, hey,” Michael murmurs softly, pulling her close against him once more. One of his hands slides gently to her hair, “It’s okay.”
And it is okay, she is in Michael’s arms and she is safe and she is alive and she is in love and she cannot help the way the words slip out of her mouth.
“I love you.”
Michael smiles, she feels it against her temple.
“I love you, too, pretty girl, you know that.”
Him and that stupidly endearing nickname.
She cannot pull away, does not want to see his face as she lays herself bare for him. Those eyes of his, (Y/N) would be able to see everything in them. She cannot bear it.
“No, I mean—” Her voice trembles. She presses her face harder against his shirt. “I am in love with you.”
And it’s an anguish-filled confession, one mumbled into his white, sweat-soaked shirt so quietly that (Y/N) would believe Michael didn’t catch it if it weren’t for the way he immediately freezes.
Slowly, carefully, he pulls back. Her arms untangle from his neck, hands settling on his chest. (Y/N) grabs the edges of his leather jacket to keep herself grounded, she doesn’t think she’s ever been more scared in her life.
They come face to face and there are so many emotions flashing though his eyes that (Y/N) cannot grasp them, she cannot read him.
“Say that again,” he says in a low voice, tentatively.
(Y/N) swallows, then breathes out, “I’m in love with you.”
A beat.
“Do you mean that?”
(Y/N) nods because she doesn’t know what else to do, doesn’t know what else to say.
Michael’s hands move to cup her face, thumbs brushing against her cheekbones. He’s looking at her so intently, like he’s searching for something. Whatever it is, he seems to find it.
“Do you really mean that?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
Michael’s eyes soften, face breaking into a devastating smile, “I am going to kiss you now.”
He does.
Hesitantly and oh so softly at first—like he’s testing the waters, like he doesn’t want to scare her away—then deeper, more intense.
Everything melts.
There is no arena, no people around them, every noise fades into the background; it’s just her and Michael and their hearts beating in sync and his thumb caressing her skin and his lips on hers.
He loves her too.
Somewhere, very far away, there’s another click.
(That photo never makes it to the public. Michael keeps it at their bedside table.)
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POP ROYALTY CAUGHT IN MOONLIT EMBRACE?! by Carl Kesterson Los Angeles was rocked last night when pop icons Michael Jackson and (Y/N) (Y/L/N) were allegedly spotted sharing a passionate kiss outside an exclusive after-party following a charity concert. For months, rumors have swirled around the chart-topping duo, with fans pointing at lingering glances, matching jewelry and suspiciously affectionate comments as evidence that there might be more than friendship between the two superstars. Neither Michael nor (Y/N) has commented on the photographs, but insiders suggest the pair has been quietly dating for nearly a year. Are wedding bells next for music's newest power couple? Is this all an elaborate publicity scheme? (turn to page 4 for more!)
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a/n: i might, possibly, write some little mj drabbles within this same au bc i had so much fun writing this fic! we will see:)
