･ ⟢ ⋮ a different angle ゛༝.
a thriller!michael x curvy!popstar!reader oneshot inspired by this req! i hope you enjoy it!
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ synopsis: when a performance that should've been remembered for its music becomes a tabloid mockery instead, she's forced to confront years of insecurity she thought she'd left behind. while the world reduces her to headlines and photographs, michael sees only the artist he fell in love with, quietly settnig out to make sure everyone sees her that way too.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ cw: fluff and hints of angst (hurt/comfort), established relationship between reader and michael, reader is a pop star, reader is curvy, i had a black/mixed reader in mind but theres no specific appearance mentions other than body wise so take that as you will, body shaming from media, michael is protective and soft and cute i love him!!!
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ a/n: i hope this fic isn't offensive at all... i tried to make it avoid the "reader is insecure" trope but i came up with this idea a few nights ago and rlly wanted to put it into words! also NOT proofread so sorry if theres any grammar mistakes or anything teehee
— comment here if you'd like to be part of a future tag list! ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶
the headline had been in the morning paper for less than twelve hours before you stopped reading.
you’d learned that lesson the hard way—not this time, but the time before, and the time before that. this was apparently how you learnt most things in this life you’d chosen: repeatedly, at a cost, until the lesson finally wore itself deep enough that your hand stopped reaching before your brain had finished forming the thought.
twelve hours this time. better than last time. progress, maybe. or maybe it was just exhaustion wearing a different face from all the other times.
at least the show had been good.
that part you were absolutely certain of—the feeling settling with ease, low in your sternum with the particular resonance that lived there when everything clicked into alignment at once. last night, the room had been with you from the very first song. three thousand bodies pressed together in the heat of a sold-out venue, swaying like a single organism breathing in the dark, your voice and the band merging into one sustained, electric vibration. you’d felt the beat thumping through your body like a second heartbeat; the specific hum that only happened when you felt like everything was going right for you.
you’d worn a gold dress on stage that night.
your stylist had pulled it from the rack backstage three days before the show, held it up in the fluorescent dressing room lights, and said this one with the certainty of someone who didn’t need to explain her opinion whatsoever. the fabric was cool and heavy between your fingers when you took it—all those sequins catching the light like calm waves in the ocean. you excitedly slipped behind the fitting room curtain on your tiptoes, your pulse already going at the speed of lightning.
when you stepped in front of the mirror, the world dropped from your fingertips.
the dress fit like it had been made for you, like it had been waiting for you for decades. it was short and fitted, low-backed with thin straps that felt like nothing against your skin. the hem of it hit your mid-thigh, staying at that teasing height without apology. the gold caught every curve of you—the roundness of your hips, the soft weight of your thighs where they were pressed together, the way your waist curved in before widening again, your breasts perfectly filling the bodice. it held all of it not like something to hide but instead as something to celebrate, like proof that the point of clothes was always to make you feel real, feel confident, in your own skin.
and you looked absolutely beautiful.
not beautiful in the way magazines dictated or in spite of anything. just beautiful, full stop, period. the dress moved against your skin when you shifted, catching the light and throwing it back in surges of warmth and gold. you turned slightly and watched the fabric shimmer against you, seeing how it hugged and applauded you in equal measure. the confidence that surged through you was immediate—similar to the particular electricity of the forty seconds you have before you walk on stage, when your hands finally stop shaking and your breath settles when you finally remember exactly who you were. you could see it clearly: yourself up there in the tiny dress, the lights hot above you, the microphone heavy and familiar in your hand as three thousand people press forward when you hit your first note; your body doing what it did best. making art.
it felt like power that belonged entirely to you.
then reality crashed back in like cold water, drowning you.
there would be cameras. lenses and angles, photographers who knew exactly how to find the least flattering moment and freeze it into a moment that lasts forever. critics with their columns and their loud opinions about a body that didn’t belong to them—about your own figure specifically. gossip columnists who would have a field day with you, radio hosts who would make jokes, reviews that would spend more words on what you wore than what you sang. the confidence drained out of you so fast it left you completely dizzy as you stood there still in front of the mirror.
you looked into your reflection and saw yourself now through their eyes. not the power otr the beauty your curves previously held inside the dress—now you saw too much thigh, too much hip, too much body. photographs taken from specific angles with specific intent, printed in the morning papers alongside captions that had nothing to do with the fact that you’d successfully sold out a three-thousand-person venue on your own merit.
the dress was still outstandingly beautiful. you were still breathtaking in it. but now that beauty felt like too much of a risk—an exposure you weren’t ready to take by the hand—like you were willingly handing ammunition to people who were already looking for a reason to tear you down.
“what’s goin’ on?” michael asked, his voice breaking through your insecure spiral.
he had been sitting on the small couch in the corner of the large fitting room, his long legs stretched out, leafing through a book without much urgency. he had looked up from his page when you went awfully quiet and still, the silence stretching past comfortability into something else he took notice of.
“nothing.” you whispered meekly, patting the dress down against your body self-consciously.
he set the book down, closing it softly. “you’ve been standin’ like that for a while now.”
you turned back to the mirror. the longer you stared, you noticed how the dress was beautifully gold like where sand and ocean met—catchnig the dressing room light and throwing it back onto both of your faces. but the problem was that you couldn’t look at it separate from your body now. the dress was on your body and your body was the thing people had loud and entitled opinions about that were shared in print and on the radio and in conversations you’d never be invited to.
he was behind you before you’d registered him getting up, which was something about michael that still caught you off guard even now, months into this thing between you—how quietly he moved for someone so present, someone who took up so much space in a room just by silently being in it. his hands settled at your waist from behind, warm through the thin fabric, and the heat of his large palms sank into you immediately, grounding you from your crashing insecurities. he looked at you in the mirror with patience, reminding you that he was someone who had nowhere else to be except happily wrapped around you.
“talk t’me.” he urged softly.
“it’s a lot of dress,” you answered. it wasn’t quite what you meant, not necessarily the right words, but it was the closest approximation of how you felt.
“it’s not a lot of dress,” he said, his voice laced with something amusing and gentle. “it’s a little dress.”
and he did, that much was clear from the way his expression shifted, settling into a sense of seriousness without losing its warmth. it was the particular attention he gave you when he noticed you working through something in your head. his hands then moved slightly at your waist—it wasn’t necessarily rubbing, but it made you aware of his presence. it was anchoring.
“i know what y’mean,” he said quietly. “and i think you should wear it anyway.”
“easy for you to say.” you scoff with disbelief at his words.
“mhm,” he hummed simply in agreement. “it is. ‘cause i’m lookin’ at you right now and i’m gonna tell you what i see, which is…”
he paused and let go of your waist, stepping back slightly to take you in properly. as his eyes slid across your body, he was choosing his words carefully in his mind the way he always did when accuracy mattered more than speed.
“...someone who looks absolutely extraordinary. in that specific dress, in this lighting, standin’ exactly like that.”
you looked at his reflection rather than your own. his eyes were steady and clear in the mirror, with no trace of performance lingering in them. what was found in the glint of his eyes was the plain and unadorned truth of his words.
“people are gonna have opinions,” you retorted.
“people have opinions about everything,” he noted. “we both know that. that’s not new information.”
his hands find their way back to the curve of your waist again, his chin coming to rest on your shoulder. “what they’re not gonna be able t’do is argue with what happens on that stage a couple days from now. ‘n you know that.”
you were quiet as his words sunk into your skin. the dressing room hummed around you, the fluorescent lights and the distant sound of the crew working around the venue filling up beyond the door, your own heartbeat filling in your eardrums.
“you know that,” he repeated himself, softer this time, and it was a statement that travelled through you and settled into the balls of your feet.
you did know it. beneath the old argument that you have every time you look in the mirror, beneath the familiar doubt that visited you like an unwelcome relative who showed up uninvited and overstayed you knew the show was going to be amazing. you could feel it in the readiness of your hands, the way the setlist sat in your body like a gun loaded and waiting to be fired.
“okay,” you exhaled, grounding yourself to the here and now.
he pressed a quick peck to your cheek, then patted your shoulders gently, urging you to push them upright. you watched yourself straighten in the mirror, the dress catching the light once more.
his arms came around you properly then—a real, unhurried and complete hold, his chest resting against your back and his chin finding the curve of your shoulder like it was meant for him. you stood there together in front of the dressing room mirror for a moment that stretched out into something you didn’t want to end.
══════════════════════════════════════════
days passed and your first show came to an end, and it was genuinely, entirely good. maybe your best performance yet.
the satisfaction followed you home and sat warm in your chest while you washed your face, peeling off the gold, tight dress under your coverup from after the show, letting it pool onto the bathroom floor all the while getting into bed with your skin still humming from the vibrations of the bass speakers and the heat of all those bodies pressed together in the dark.
michael had said your performance was outstanding in approximately seven different ways by the time you finally emerged from the bathroom since that’s just how he was—specific and sincere about the things he loved, which included you. he never just said you did good, but instead praised you by telling you which moment, which line, which note had him seeing stars in his eyes.
he was already in bed when you came out, propped up against the headboard with his legs stretched out beneath the covers, watching you pad across the room in one of his t-shirts. you climbed in beside him and he immediately pulled you close, your head finding his chest and his hand settling warm at the curve of your waist.
“the bridge in heart’s a mess,” he continued his ramble into your hair, “when you dropped down to that low note ‘n held it—the whole room went still. and i mean still, girl. like everyone forgot t’breathe,”
you’d closed your eyes and giggled against his chest, the ecstasy flowing back through you as you felt the echo of the stage come back to you with his words—the note resonating in the floorboards, in the air itself, in the three thousand held breaths.
“and that moment in inner glow where y’stopped singin' and just let the crowd carry it,” he continued, his thumb moving absently against your leg, tracing small circles through the fabric of your comfy shorts. “i watched you just stand there and listen to them singin’ your words back at you, ‘n your face—”
he’d stopped then for a moment, his hand slightly tightening, lovingly, on your thigh.
“what about my face?” you’d asked, opening your eyes and tilting your head to meet with his.
“you looked like you couldn’t believe it was real,” he said quietly. “like you were hearin’ it for the first time. three thousand people singin’ your song ‘n you looked—”
he took another pause, his jaw working slightly as he thought about what word would fit best with your expression in that sweet moment in which he was admiring your talent.
“—grateful,” he finished. “you looked so grateful.”
you smiled at him, settling back into his chest. his hand found yours beneath the covers and he turned his palm up and laced his fingers through yours. the room fell quiet and dark and warm in that moment, and that was enough for both of you to drift off to sleep.
══════════════════════════════════════════
and now you’re brought to the present—the morning.
the sun came up with its particular shine, the cold, early brightness felt like an unwanted exposure on your face—like being seen before you were ready to be—and the newspapers came with it; delivered to the doorstep with a thump that woke you before the alarm. three different papers greeted you because your publicist insisted you needed to see everything. you grabbed them and held your breath as you noticed how the reviews were obviously meticulously placed between the headlines, as well as the gossip columns, and the photographs taken from specific angles with specific intent—angles that emphasized, exaggerated, turned your body into something to be dissected and discussed in the fine print.
you’d sat at the kitchen table in one of michael’s t-shirts and shorts, spreading the papers in front of you like evidence at a crime scene.
the times critic had been relatively kind about your music but obviously couldn’t resist stating: “...though one wonders if the costume choices were entirely necessary for a venue of this caliber.”
the tabloid gossip columnist had been less subtle: “she’s got the voice for sure, but someone should tell her that sequins and curves like that are better left to the disco floor. this is supposed to be art, not a strip-tease.”
the weekly entertainment magazine had run a full-page photograph—you mid-spin, the dress slightly riding up causing your thighs to become more prominent than intended, your body caught in the least flattering possible moment. the caption underlined the photo made your stomach turn: “Too Much of a Good Thing?”
your eyes scanned the words over again and again, finding new ways to hurt yourself with the same syllables, the same language you’d been hearing in one form or another your whole life. eventually you pushed the papers away and got up to make coffee, your hands unsteady as you measured the grounds. you stood at the counter and watched the coffee drip into the pot and forced yourself to not look at the scattered papers left on the table.
the coffee was too hot when you finally took a sip from it. it burned your tongue but you continued to drink it anyway to distract yourself from glancing at the elephant in the room. you stood at the counter, staring at the morning light creeping across the kitchen floor instead.
michael found you there twenty minutes later, still standing as still as possible at the countertop, holding a mug of coffee that had gone completely cold. he didn’t ask if you were okay. he just looked at you for a moment, trying to decide how to help, and then he got to moving.
he gathered the sprawled out newspapers first—folding them closed without a word slipping from his mouth, moving them to the far end of the counter, completely out of your line of sight. then, he put the kettle on and found your favourite mug, making you tea the way you liked it. when it was ready he carried it to the couch and settled in, looking over at you quietly, patiently.
you followed shortly behind him of course, as quiet as a mouse. you curled up into his side and he tucked you in close, one long arm wrapping around your shoulder as his thumb moved in a slow absent rhythm along your elbow. the television murmured some nonsense softly in the bathroom, completely inconsequential to the moment. the warm tea replaced the cold chill of your untouched coffee.
he didn’t say anything, and neither did you. but it was somehow the kindest thing he could’ve done in that moment.
══════════════════════════════════════════
the interview had been in the calendar for weeks, long before any of this nonsensical statements about your body started.
it was for one of the serious publications—a magazine with a long history of treating artists as worth the effort of a real conversation. they’d wanted you both, which had been their suggestion, and you’d hesitated. you’d done enough press to know how shared interviews tended to go, how the woman in the room became context for the man’s story regardless of anyone’s intentions. but the journalist was someone whose work you admired. the timing aligned with your newly released album, and michael had said he wanted to do it with a quietness in his voice that told you there was something underneath it he purposely wasn’t telling you yet.
in the car on the way, you watched the city slide past the window—buildings and pedestrians turning into blurs with the sharp-sot quality of the afternoon light—and you promptly said: “you don’t have to bring it up. if it comes up, you know.”
“i know i don’t have to,” he quickly answers.
“i’m serious though, michael. i can handle it.”
“i know y’can handle it.” a pause settled between the two of you, his hands staying steady on the wheel. “that’s not why i’d say something.”
you looked at him. he was watching the road, his jaw set in a particular way that kept you a bit on edge. he turned and looked at you with a steady expression—one that didn’t ask anything of you or perform anything, just to be yourself.
you turned back to the window.
he hadn’t addressed the reviews directly in previous interviews and wasn’t going to unless you brought it up, which was something you’d learned about him in the months you’ve been dating him—he never pushed at closed doors, nor did he demand access to the parts of you that weren’t ready. but what he did do was notice everything and remembered everything, acting on it in his own time, in his own way. like tea in the morning without being asked, or folding those newspapers out of your sight. placing his hand on your knee with the television on low without any words about whether you were okay, because he already knew and understood that being asked it repeatedly never changed the answer.
you understood the reason for the interview now as you watched the city continue to move past you both.
he was going to say something, no doubt about it.
not because you needed him to—you’d been handling this alone for years before he arrived—but because he needed it to exist somewhere outside of just the two of you. he needed it to be in print, permanent and undeniable for the public to see.
══════════════════════════════════════════
the interview room was a hotel sitting room—two sofas upholstered in something soft and expensive with a low table between them. the afternoon light was pouring through tall windows that overlooked the city, and the journalist was already there when you arrived, notebook in hand, cassette recorder placed on the table between you. she had the particular alert quality of someone who listened for a living and was good at it, who heard not just the words but also noted the spaces between them, which frankly had you a bit nervous.
you settled onto the sofa that was soft beneath you, the fabric smooth against the backs of your thighs. michael sat beside you, close enough that his knee was pressed warm against yours, which he did without any remark.
the first portion moved well—the album, the writing process, the tour, the experience of being a new artist playing rooms you'd spent years imagining from the outside. you talked about what it felt like to write a song that was entirely yours and then watch it become something shared with millions of other people—how strange and necessary that transfer was, how you had to let it go a little to let it work, had to release your grip on it and trust that it would find the people who needed it just as much as you needed it to be out there.
then the journalist set her pen flat against her notepad—a deliberate gesture, a shift in the energy of the room—and said: "i'd like to ask about this week, if you're open to it."
"go ahead," you said with expectancy hinted in your tone.
"the response to the show has been… loud," she said carefully, choosing her words with visible precision. "the reviews, the gossip columns, the photographs. how are you doing with it?"
you thought for a moment. not because you didn't have an answer but because you wanted to give the right one—not the one your publicist would have prepared for you.
"i wore a dress i loved on stage in a room full of people who showed up to listen to me sing my heart out," you said lightly, a grateful chuckle leaving your lips. "and i did my job—and the show was incredible. i know it was because i was there and i felt it. i felt it in my chest, in the veins of my hands, in the way the room moved with me…” you paused, thinking about your next words, glancing at the slow rotation of the wheels in the cassette recorder. "what happened after—the reviews, the columns—i understand what that was about. it wasn't about the dress. it was about the fact that my body doesn't match a particular expectation and i was visible in a way that made it impossible to ignore or overlook."
you looked at the journalist steadily, held her gaze once you finished your sentence.
"that's an old conversation. and i’m honestly not particularly interested in having it again."
"fair enough," the journalist said, and there was something in her expression that suggested she meant it, that she understood exactly what you were saying and why.
she was about to continue until michael spoke.
he hadn't shifted his position—knee still against yours, hands loose in his lap, his body still relaxed against the sofa—but something in him had gathered, like the way air gathers before a storm—you felt it in the space between you, that particular quality of attention that meant he'd arrived at a thing he intended to say.
"can i add something?" he said.
the journalist looked at him in a short surprise, but then gestured for him to continue. "please."
"i was there," he said. his voice was quiet but clear, no hesitation threaded in it. "i was standin' in the wings for most of the show, which is where i usually end up when she performs, because—"
a small pause with something almost private in it, something just for you even though he was speaking to the room.
"—because i find i can't be somewhere else when she's performing. i've tried. it doesn't work. i end up there anyway, like there's a string tied between us 'n it just pulls me there."
the journalist's pen was moving as she noted his words.
"what i saw," michael continued, and his voice had settled into something that felt less like a statement for the record and more like testimony, like bearing witness, "was someone doin’ somethin’ that most people never figure out how to do, which is stand in front of a room full of strangers and make them feel somethin’ they didn't feel before they walked into the room. make them feel something they didn't know they could feel."
he was looking at the journalist but you could feel the weight of what he was saying as though it were directed at you, into you, like he was speaking the words directly into your chest, landing heavily like stones dropping into still water.
"and she did that looking—"
a deliberate pause, the kind that meant the word coming was one he'd chosen specifically for this moment, the same word he had silently turning in his mind during the drive on the way here.
"—extraordinary. because she was. because she is."
he announced it without decoration or the performance that crept into a voice when a person was saying something for an audience rather than because it was simply the truth, plain and unadorned. he said it the way he'd said it in the dressing room, like it was just information to him—true and plain and not requiring any compliment in return.
"the people who were actually in that room aren't confused about what they saw," he said. "the confusion comes from people who looked at a photograph taken with a specific intent, from a specific angle, by someone who wasn't there, who didn't feel what the audience felt—what i felt. it was printed in a paper the next morning by someone with an agenda, which is a completely different thing from actually looking and seeing her in her element."
his knee pressed slightly harder against yours in reassurance. you pressed back.
"i've been seeing how people respond to her since we've been together," he said, "'n what i know is that anyone who was standing where i was standing that night—in the wings, in the dark, watching—wasn't thinkin’ about anything except what was happening on that stage. because that's what she’s capable of doin’. she makes everything else irrelevant, and she has the rare talent of makin’ the whole world go quiet except for her voice. that's what the press should be talkin’ about."
the room was very quiet now. the afternoon light had shifted slightly, coming through the windows at a different angle, painting everything the same gold as your dress that night. the cassette recorder kept turning.
"she's goin’ to be one of the most important artists of our generation," he said, and his voice had settled into something that felt less like a statement for the record and more like something he simply needed to say while he had the opportunity, while someone was listening and writing it down and recording it for posterity. "i don't think that's a controversial opinion. people will figure it out eventually. 'n she is—"
a brief pause, his jaw working slightly.
"—genuinely, remarkably beautiful. 'n i'm aware those two things are separate facts. but for me they're not really separate, because they're both just who she is. they're both just… her. the whole thing. 'n anyone who looked at those photographs in the papers and saw something to mock was lookin’ at them wrong. was lookin’ at her wrong. they were missing the entire point, and they fell for the pathetic propaganda of something completely useless."
a beat. the journalist's pen had stopped moving. she was just listening now, the cassette recorder the only witness still working.
"that's all i wanted to add," he said quietly.
the journalist looked at him for a long moment. then at you.
you were studying the table in front of you with considerable focus, your vision slightly blurred. not because you were upset—the opposite, which was the problem. you were trying very hard not to cry in front of a journalist with a tape recorder running, which felt like it should be easy but was turning out to be remarkably difficult.
"that's quite a statement," the journalist said.
"it's just what's true," michael said simply. "she doesn't need me to say it. she already said it better than i did, said exactly what needed saying. i just—"
a pause. his hand found yours on the sofa between you, his fingers lacing through yours with the easy certainty of someone who'd done it a thousand times before.
"i wanted it on record. i wanted there to be a version of it that existed outside of just us saying it to each other at home. wanted it in print where it counts in a way that's bigger than just private."
you looked up at him then. he felt you look and turned, and for a moment it was just the two of you in the room—the journalist and the recorder and the afternoon light all going slightly out of focus, the edges of the world softening until there was just his face, his eyes looking at you in the specific way that made you feel seen in a way that didn't hurt like the tabloids did.
"sorry," you said quietly, to him.
which had the second meaning of: thank you, and: i don't know what to do with you yet, but i love you deeply.
"don't be," he said, just as quietly.
the journalist made a sound that might have been the beginning of a question and then appeared to think better of interrupting, which was exactly the right call, which showed the kind of emotional intelligence that made her good at her job.
══════════════════════════════════════════
the car ride home was the full kind of quiet.
not an empty or uncomfortable quiet, but the kind that was actually full of things—full of the interview still sitting in your chest, full of michael's affectionate words still ringing in your ears, full of the particular quality of late afternoon light as it shifted toward evening.
the city moved past in the last of the golden hour and you sat beside each other without filling the silence, which was something you'd noticed about being with michael—the silences were never awkward, never empty, they were just another way of being in the same place, another way of communicating without words.
his hand found yours on the seat between you, unhurried and certain, and you turned your palm up and laced your fingers through his and felt the warmth of his skin against yours, the particular weight of his hand that you'd come to recognize in the complete darkness.
"you said you wanted it on record," you said eventually, watching the city slide past the window.
"uh huh." he was smiling.
he looked at the window for a moment, his profile sharp against the evening light. "because things said in private are true," he said slowly, like he was working it out as he spoke, "but they exist only between the people in the room. 'n i wanted there to be a version of it that was somewhere else. somewhere public. somewhere it couldn't be ignored or dismissed or—"
he stopped. his hand tightened slightly around yours.
"in print," he finished. "it's permanent and it counts in a way that's bigger than just me saying it to you in our kitchen at four in the morning when we both can’t sleep; when no one else but the crickets outside are listening." he slipped some humour in his words, but they didn’t distract from the tug at your heartstrings from his words.
you held his gaze. the car moved through the city, through the evening light, through the particular quality of air that came just before sunset.
"it already counted," you said.
something in his expression shifted, something small and warm, like a light turning on in a distant window.
"i wanted it to count more."
you looked back out the window and watched the buildings slide past, the people on the sidewalks, the whole city moving through its evening. his hand stayed intertwined with yours, warm and solid and real, and you held on, feeling something in your chest ease, some tension you hadn't known you were carrying finally releasing its grip.
══════════════════════════════════════════
the magazine featuring your interview came out four weeks later.
you were at the newsstand on the corner with a lousy disguise during the early morning, the city still waking up around you. you’d walked there alone, wanting this moment to yourself before you shared it with anyone else; scared of what’s to come.
the paper was right there on the rack, shining with a gloss that indicated how new it was. you pulled it down and paid for it, then walked to the small park right across the street. you sat down on a bench in the morning light and skimmed the pages as you searched for your article.
the journalist had quoted him directly and in full. what you hadn’t expected was the photograph beside his lovely words.
it was you, again, mid-performance. the gold dress was shining on your body like mercury, your figure caught perfectly in motion—one of your arms were raised while your head was tilted back, your eyes closed and your mouth open in a smiling vocal—your body was clearly given over to the sound of your music completely.
it was a very different photograph than the ones that had been in the newspapers weeks prior.
it was the same night, same dress, and the same body. but there was an entirely different intention behind these lens.
in this photograph, you looked like the you you imagine yourself to be. like the version of yourself that only shined to its fullest on stage; the bigger, brighter, more true version than the photos you’ve seen of yourself before. the person you’ve taken so much time to grow comfortable in. you looked absolutely beautiful, full of power, and you looked exactly like what michael had said you were: extraordinary.
you sat there on that bench for a long time, the magazine open in your lap, the morning light getting stronger around you. people moved pst you—commuters, joggers, some individuals walking their dog—the city waking up and advancing forward in its day as you sat there reading michael’s word in print, official and undeniable.
“she’s going to be one of the most important artists of our generation,” the magazine noted. “genuinely, remarkably beautiful.”
you folded the paper with reverence and held it against your chest in a cliche gesture you couldn’t bring yourself to be embarrassed about. the smile stretching across your face follows you home, burning bright enough to rival the golden wash of the sun beaming on your face.
michael was in the kitchen when you got back, pouring himself a cup of coffee. he was still in his pajama pants and old t-shirt; merch from his jackson’s days; and his curls were sticking up in every direction from sleep. at the sound of the front door, he glanced up and his eyes immediately find the magazine in your hands. the moment he realizes what it is, something in his expression melts and the corners of his mouth curl into a gentle, knowing smile.
“yeah?” he asked, quietly.
you meet his eyes finally, unable to stop the grin on your face.
you handed him the magazine and watched his face contort as he looked at the photograph and read the quotes—his own words reflecting back at him in the print. his eyes softened even more when he observed the photograph of you—the particular softness that was preserved only for looking at you.
“that’s what i saw,” he murmured, pointing at the photograph of your figure in movement.
he dropped the magazine onto the counter beside his coffee and his hand came up to your face, his soft thumb brushing across your cheekbone. you leaned into his touch without thinking.
“c’mere,” he said, pulling you into the warmth of his strong but lean arms, reveling in the particular safety of early morning when the world was still recovering from the day before.
“i love you,” you said into his chest, listening to the soothing beat of his heart.
his hand tightened in your hair. “i know,” he breathed. “i love you too, mama.”
taglist! @strawbevrri @syrraj @sugarbombfart @animegamerfox @pixieelixer-24 @sgecat @dontsellit-tothedevil @moonlight1002 @dykesaster @b3rk1ey @j-nae @gravenoirr @kazustqrzz @jacksonluvrr @michaelsapplehead @bluegangstaaaa @khxna @mickey-mp3
