۶ৎ pairing — michael x fem!reader
۶ৎ synopsis — you were michael’s girlfriend and you co-wrote billie jean. he brought brooke shields as his date to the grammys, so you put on a red dress and arrived with Prince out of spite, knowing michael would lose his mind.
۶ৎ themes — established relationship, mutual jealousy, possession, oral f!receiving, sexual content, angsty & hella tense
۶ৎ note — i felt soooo messy writing this but it was so much fun, i needed to capture the essence of that michael & prince rivalry lmaoo hope y’all enjoy xoxo
You were standing in the kitchen, halfway through a glass of water, when Michael leaned against the doorframe with that particular expression he wore when he was about to say something he already knew would hurt you. Casual, almost rehearsed, like if he said it lightly enough, it wouldn't land as hard.
"I'm taking Brooke to the Grammys."
The water glass stopped halfway to your mouth, but you didn't put it down. You didn't react, not right away, because reacting was exactly what he expected and you refused to give him that. So you took a slow sip, set the glass on the counter with a deliberate click and looked at him.
"Brooke Shields." You repeated the name like you were tasting it, deciding whether it was bitter or just plain stupid.
"It's not what you think." He was already defensive, arms crossing over his chest, jaw tightening the way it always did when he felt cornered. "It's optics, baby. If I show up with you, people are gonna ask questions. Who is she, how long have they been together, why is she on his arm? And then they dig. They find out you wrote on the album and suddenly it's not about the music anymore, it's about us."
"So instead, you show up with a supermodel and the music stays pure? Got it."
"Oh c’mon that’s not fair." He responded.
"No." You set your hands flat on the counter, leaning forward just enough to close the distance between you. "What's not fair is that I helped write the music being celebrated and I can't even be next to you when they hand you the trophy."
He opened his mouth then closed it, shifting his weight. You knew that particular brand of silence, the one where he was running through every possible response and discarding them all because none of them were good enough. Michael was brilliant at performing, at being exactly who the world needed him to be at any given moment. But here, in your kitchen, with you looking at him like that, he had nothing.
"I'm protecting you baby." He said finally, quietly, like that was supposed to fix it.
You stared at him for a long moment before picking up your glass and walking past him out of the kitchen. He didn't follow, he never did when he knew he was wrong.
The night of the Grammys, you took your sweet time getting ready. Not because you needed it, but because you wanted him to suffer.
You stood in front of the full-length mirror in your bedroom, the one propped against the wall by the window where the late afternoon light hit just right and you studied yourself with the kind of critical, deliberate eye usually reserved for photo shoots. Hair curled, bouncy, falling past your shoulders in loose waves that caught the light when you turned your head. Red lipstick, the shade you knew was dangerous, the one that made your mouth look fuller and sharper like a weapon disguised as a colour choice. Your skin was glowing from the lotion you'd spent an extra ten minutes working into your arms and collarbones, the vanilla scent still faintly clinging.
The dress was hanging on the back of the bedroom door, waiting.
You'd found it two weeks ago at a boutique on Melrose, tucked between a sea of pastels and shoulder pads and you'd known immediately. Red. Not burgundy, not coral, not any of the safe shades women were supposed to reach for at events like this. A real, unapologetic red that did exactly what it was designed to do. The hemline perched just above your knees, fitted through the torso without being obscene, the neckline dipping low enough to suggest but never quite crossing the line into desperate. It was sexy, provocative and tasteful all at once. It was the dress equivalent of a well-aimed insult.
You slipped it on, tugging the fabric smooth over your hips, adjusting the way it hugged your curves. The zipper ran up the back and you had to twist, fingers fumbling slightly, before it sealed you in. You turned back to the mirror.
You looked incredible. You knew it the way you knew a good melody when you heard it, instinctively, without arrogance. The red against your skin, the way the dress moved when you shifted your weight, the curls framing your face, the lipstick that could start a war. You looked like a woman who knew exactly what she was doing and had decided to do it anyway.
Michael was going to lose his mind and thought should have made you feel guilty, but it didn't.
You slipped into your heels, a simple pair of black pumps that elongated your legs without competing with the dress and grabbed your clutch from the dresser.
A horn sounded from the driveway, Prince was early. You took one last look at yourself in the mirror. The woman staring back at you looked steady, poised, untouchable, yet you weren't any of those things. You were furious and heartbroken, already composing the exact expression you'd wear when Michael saw you for the first time tonight, the one that would say I'm fine, I'm better than fine and you’re going to regret not bringing me.
Prince was waiting by the curb when you stepped outside, leaning against the open door of a black town car with his arms folded loosely, looking like he'd been cut out of a magazine and pasted into your driveway. A dark suit, fitted close to his frame, with a ruffled shirt underneath that should have looked ridiculous on anyone else but on him looked like the only possible choice. His hair was slicked back, the faintest curl escaping near his temple and he was watching you with that expression he always wore, amused, appraising, like he was solving a puzzle he already had the answer to.
Behind the wheel, a driver you didn't recognise sat motionless, eyes forward, the kind of professional who knew how to be invisible.
"Well…" Prince breathed, eyes tracking down the length of you and back up again, slow and unhurried. "Someone's trying to cause a scene."
"You're early." You ignored the comment, pulling your front door shut behind you, checking the lock twice because you always checked it twice.
"You're stunning." He said it easily, the way he said most things, like compliments were just facts he was generous enough to share out loud. He uncrossed his arms and reached behind him into the back seat, pulling something out. A white rose, long stemmed, the petals tight and perfect, still damp with a thin sheen of water. He held it out to you without ceremony, like it was nothing, like he hadn't thought about it at all.
You took it, the stem cool between your fingers. "What's this for?" You asked.
"Every queen needs a scepter." He offered and gestured toward the open door. "After you ma’am."
You slid into the back seat, tucking the rose carefully against your clutch so the petals wouldn't crush. The leather was warm, butter soft and the interior smelled like cologne, something faintly sweet and unmistakably expensive. Prince climbed in behind you, closing the door with a solid, satisfying click and the car pulled away from the curb, smooth and silent, like it was gliding.
The silence between you wasn't uncomfortable. Prince had a particular talent for being quiet without making it feel empty. He let you have your space, let you stare out the window as the streetlights streaked by, let you smooth the fabric of your red dress across your thighs for the third time because your hands needed something to do.
"You don't have to be nervous." He eventually spoke, his voice low and one arm draped across the back of the seat behind you, not touching, just there.
"I'm not nervous." You responded hastily, lying through your teeth.
"You're folding your clutch strap into a smaller and smaller loop, baby. You're going to snap it off."
You looked down and he was right. You set the clutch in your lap and pressed your palms flat against the leather seat instead.
"You wrote on that album." He continued, his voice a little quieter now. "Whatever happens tonight, you should be proud of that. They can't take that away from you."
"I know." You murmured, a slight exasperation evidenced in your tone.
You glanced at him. He was watching you now, jaw set, eyes sharp and serious beneath the passing lights. It was the most serious he'd been all evening and something about it, the steadiness of him, the way he said it like it was obvious, like of course you should be proud, made something behind your ribs unclench just slightly.
"Yeah." You said. "I do."
He nodded once, satisfied and then the corner of his mouth twitched. "Good. Now fix your lipstick, it's smudged."
"My lipstick is not smudged!"
"Left side, just a little."
You pulled down the visor mirror and checked. It was perfect. You snapped the mirror shut and glared at him, but he was grinning.
"Asshole." You murmured, but you were smiling and that was the point. He'd gotten you to smile, Prince was annoyingly good at that.
The Auditorium was a circus.
That was the only word for it. Flashbulbs popping like a string of firecrackers, voices layered on top of voices, the air thick with perfume and hairspray along with the particular electric hum that only lived in places where famous people were crammed into the same room. You'd been to events before, you weren't naive, but there was something about the Grammys that felt different, more frantic, like the stakes were higher even though they were exactly the same.
The driver pulled up to the entrance and came around to open Prince's door. Prince stepped out first, straightening his jacket and then turned to offer you his hand. You took it, the white rose still tucked against your clutch in your other hand and as you rose from the back seat you felt it, the shift, the way the air changed the second you were both standing upright on the carpet. Cameras turned and lenses swung.
You were gripping the rose so tightly that the stem was bending and Prince noticed, of course he noticed.
"Hey." His hand found your waist, not inappropriate, just there, firm and warm through the fabric of your dress, steadying you the way you'd brace a door against a storm. He dipped his head slightly so his mouth was close to your ear. "Walk slowly, right next to me. Don't rush, you have nowhere to be except exactly where you are."
You shuddered slightly, the warmth of his breath grazing the delicate flesh of your neck.
"I mean it." He breathed, pulling back just enough to look at you. "Walk like you own the building. Can you do that for me?"
"Good." He straightened his posture before adjusting his cuffs and offered you his arm. "Then let's give them something to talk about."
You took his arm and stepped into the flood of lights together.
The flashbulbs got brighter. You felt it immediately, the way strangers eyes slid over you and lingered, not because they knew who you were but because you were on the arm of someone they recognised. You kept your chin up and your steps slow. You'd learned that from Michael, actually, the art of walking through a room like you belonged there even when every cell in your body was screaming that you didn't. But tonight, Prince was the one holding your waist and setting the pace, and his grip didn't falter, not once, not even when the flashbulbs got brighter and the crowd pressed closer and someone shouted his name from behind a barricade.
Prince navigated the crowd the way he navigated everything, effortlessly, with the quiet confidence of someone who knew exactly how much space he was allowed to take up and decided to take up a little more. He introduced you to people as you moved through the lobby, a producer here, an executive there, always the same way. She's a songwriter, co-wrote a track on Thriller. Every single time. No shorthand, no glossing over it. He said it like it was the most important thing in the room.
You loved him for it. Not romantically, not like that, but there was a particular kind of loyalty in the way Prince acknowledged your work, loudly and publicly, to people who needed to hear it and you would never forget that.
The crowd thickened near the entrance to the main hall and Prince pressed his hand firmer against the small of your back to guide you through a gap between a cluster of industry men and a woman in a sequined gown who was blocking the doorway while she searched her purse for something.
And then you saw him. Michael.
He was halfway across the lobby, standing in a loose circle of people you half-recognised. A publicist, someone from CBS, maybe Quincy's assistant and he had his arm around Brooke Shields.
She was beautiful, of course she was beautiful. Tall, brunette, luminous in a way that looked effortless even though nothing about a red carpet was effortless. She was laughing at something someone in the circle had said, her head tilted slightly and Michael was smiling beside her, aviators on even though they were indoors, his sequined glove catching the light every time he moved his hand.
You knew him well enough to see it. The way he held himself, the angle of his shoulders, the specific cadence of his laugh. He was performing. He was Michael Jackson right now and this was the version the world got. Polished, untouchable, perfect.
Your stomach tightened. Not in the dramatic, cinematic way, not like the movies where everything slows down and the soundtrack swells. It was quieter than that, a slow, creeping ache, like pressing on a sore bruise.
"You alright?" Prince murmured, close to your ear, his voice low enough that only you could hear. All you could do was nod in agreement and force a smile upon your lips.
"Hm." He didn't believe you but he didn't push it either. He just adjusted his hand at your waist, a fraction firmer and steered you toward the entrance of the main hall.
You didn't look back at Michael. You wanted to. God, you wanted to turn your head and see if he was watching, if he'd clocked the red dress, if his jaw had tightened the way it always did when something got under his skin, but you didn't give him that. You kept your eyes forward, your steps slow the way Prince had told you, your expression exactly the way Michael had taught you to wear it and you walked into the Grammys on someone else's arm.
The Shrine Auditorium was bigger from the inside.
You'd expected it to be impressive, you weren't naive, but there was something about sitting in a velvet seat in the fourth row of the Grammys with a white rose resting across your lap and a man who was not your boyfriend beside you that made the whole thing feel slightly surreal, like you'd wandered into someone else's life and they hadn't noticed yet.
Prince sat with his legs crossed, one arm resting on the armrest between you, relaxed in a way you envied. He was scanning the room the way he scanned every room, cataloguing, calculating, filing people away. You, on the other hand, were gripping the program so hard your knuckles had gone pale and the show hadn't even started yet.
Michael was three rows ahead of you to the left.
You could see the back of his head, just the back of it. The curls, dark and glossy, catching the overhead stage lights. He was leaning slightly toward Brooke, murmuring something and she was nodding, smiling, her brown curls falling over one shoulder in a way that looked effortless and intentional at the same time.
Your stomach turned. Not violently, just a slow, sick roll, like the floor had tilted a fraction of a degree and everything had shifted with it. Nausea, that was the word for it. A low, creeping nausea that had nothing to do with what you'd eaten and everything to do with the fact that the man three rows ahead of you was supposed to be yours and was currently leaning into someone else's shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Stop staring." Prince murmured beside you, not unkindly.
"You've been looking at the back of his head for two full minutes, I counted."
You forced yourself to look at the stage. The lights were shifting and a voice you recognised from somewhere was doing the opening monologue. You didn't hear a word of it because your ears were ringing with something that wasn't sound, just the low hum of adrenaline, dread and the particular frequency of jealousy that made everything feel slightly too bright. And then the first category was announced, Michael's name was called, causing the room to erupt.
He stood up slowly, the way he did everything when people were watching. Brooke touched his arm as he rose, a small, proprietary gesture that you hated yourself for clocking and he adjusted his jacket, smoothed the front of it and walked toward the stage with that walk, you knew that walk. The glide, the controlled grace, the way his whole body moved like it was connected to some invisible wire that pulled him forward. He was beautiful. Fuck, he was beautiful. The curls bouncing slightly with each step, the military jacket structured across his shoulders, the sequined glove catching the light, the aviators hiding everything behind a dark, mirrored wall.
He looked like he'd been carved out of something more permanent than skin.
He eventually reached the podium. The applause was enormous, rolling through the arena like a wave and he stood there for a moment, letting it wash over him, head slightly bowed, one hand resting on the award someone had just placed in his gloved hand. Humble. He was performing humble and he was doing it so well you almost believed it, except you knew him, you knew the boy who rehearsed his acceptance speeches in the mirror and still got nervous. Somewhere underneath all that polish was someone who wanted this so badly it terrified him.
"Thank you." He breathed into the microphone, his voice quiet, almost fragile. "Thank you so much. I, uh... I don't even know what to say."
He laughed, a small, breathy sound and the audience loved it. They loved him. You could feel it in the air, the way the whole room leaned toward him like flowers toward light.
"I want to thank Quincy." He continued, gaining momentum as his voice steadied. "Quincy Jones, for believing in this album when nobody else would have taken the chance. I want to thank my family. My mother, my father, my brothers and sisters. I want to thank Diana..."
Diana. Of course. Diana Ross, who had been there from the beginning, who had held his hand when he was small and terrified, too young for the world he was about to enter. The list kept going. Engineers, producers, executives, people he'd mentioned in every interview, people whose names filled the air like confetti and yours wasn't among them.
It was never going to be, you knew that. You weren't stupid, you understood the politics of public gratitude, but knowing it didn't stop the way it felt. It didn't stop the quiet, devastating weight of sitting three rows behind him while he thanked the entire world and didn't even turn his head as he walked off stage. The applause followed him like a shadow yet he didn't look at you, not once.
The second time his name was called, you thought it would be easier. It wasn't.
He stood up again with that same walk, same bow, same breathy humility at the podium. You watched the curls, the way they brushed the collar of his jacket, how his lips moved around words you couldn't hear anymore because the ringing was back, that awful, high-pitched ringing that had no correlation with the volume of the applause but everything to do with the fact that your body was staging a rebellion against your brain.
The nausea was worse this time. Not sharp, just deep, spreading outward from your stomach like ink in water and you pressed your palm flat against your thigh under the program to keep your hands from shaking.
On the big screen overhead, the camera cut to the audience, to Brooke Shields.
She was smiling, applauding, her face lit up with genuine delight and she looked like she belonged there in that seat, in his life. The camera lingered on her for a moment too long and you felt it like a physical thing, a fist closing slowly around something soft inside your chest, forcing you to look away. Instead you glanced at your hands, at the white rose in your lap, at the program, the words blurring slightly because your eyes were doing something you refused to let them finish doing.
"You alright?" Prince asked, a hint of concern tethered to his words.
"Fine." You managed, despite your voice sounding strange to your own ears.
He didn't say anything for a moment but his hand found yours under the armrest and squeezed once, firm, brief and let go. He didn't look at you, instead he kept his eyes on the stage. It was the kindest thing anyone had done for you and you hated how much it made you want to crumble.
The third time. The fourth time. The fifth.
You stopped counting the categories. Best Pop Vocal. Best Engineered Album. Best Producer. The names and speeches blurred together along with the constant eruption of applause and every single time, the same thing happened. Michael's name, his walk, those stupid curls, yet worst of all, the list of thanks that never, ever included you.
On the sixth win, the camera found Brooke again and something inside you shifted. Not broke, not yet, but shifted and the nausea surged so suddenly you had to swallow hard and press your tongue against the roof of your mouth to keep everything down.
She was mouthing I'm so proud of you toward the stage. You could read her lips and you hated her for it, hated her with a ferocity that surprised you even though it wasn't her fault. She didn't know, she was just a girl sitting in a seat that had been offered to her by a man who was incapable of being honest about the things that mattered.
On the seventh win, Michael thanked God. He thanked Berry Gordy. He thanked the fans, and the arena screamed so loud the walls vibrated, but he still didn't look at you, not even a glance in your direction. You might as well have been in another building.
The eighth time his name was called, the arena was on its feet before he even stood up.
Eight. Eight Grammys. A record, a historic, staggering, once in a lifetime record and the whole room knew it, vibrating with it, the applause building on itself like something with its own heartbeat.
Michael stood up, slower this time. You could see it, even from behind, the slight hesitation, the way his hand pressed briefly against his thigh before he smoothed his jacket. He was overwhelmed. Underneath the aviators and the performance, he was overwhelmed and your chest ached with the recognition of it because you knew that man, you knew what this meant to him and you wanted to be the person he turned to right now more than you had ever wanted anything.
He walked to the stage and he was a vision, a monument, a walking piece of history and he was so beautiful it made you sick, genuinely, physically sick, the nausea climbing up your throat like something alive.
He reached the podium but the applause didn't stop. It just kept going relentlessly and he stood there with his head bowed, one hand on the podium, the other holding the award and he let it happen. He let them love him.
"Thank you." He whispered, the mic barely catching his voice. "Thank you."
The room quieted ever so slightly.
"I don't... I don't have the words for this." He breathed and his voice cracked a fraction, the audience gasping softly, collectively, the way a crowd does when something real breaks through the performance. "This album... this album almost didn't happen. There were so many times I thought... I thought maybe it wasn't good enough, maybe I wasn't good enough."
He paused and adjusted his aviators. You could see his jaw tighten behind them, it was undeniable.
"I want to thank Quincy, again, for the hundredth time. He's probably sick of hearing it." He chuckled dryly, siphoning a quiet laugh from the audience. "I also want to thank my family again… My mother, my father, my brothers and of course Diana, for always believing in me when I didn't believe in myself."
"I want to thank the fans. You guys... you guys are everything. Everything." He spoke as he lifted the award slightly, a gesture of offering and the arena screamed.
He never spoke your name, nor did he pass a single glance in your direction.
Michael walked off the stage for the eighth time and you sat there with the white rose in your lap, your nails digging into your own palm so hard you could feel the crescent marks forming. Prince shifted beside you and you could feel his gaze burning a hole into your skin, but you kept your eyes forward, jaw locked, because if you opened your mouth right now you would either scream or cry and neither of those was an option. "You ready?" He asked. You didn't know what he meant. Ready for what?
Prince won for Best Rock Vocal Performance, which surprised no one and everyone at the same time, because Prince existed in a space where surprise and inevitability were the same thing.
He stood, adjusting his cuffs, one at a time, unhurried, like time itself would wait for him if he asked it to. He smoothed the front of his jacket, rolled his shoulders once and leaned down to you, his mouth close enough to your ear that you could feel the warmth of his breath against your skin. "Save my seat." He murmured and then he was gone.
He walked up the aisle toward the stage and the whole room turned to watch him, because that was what Prince did, he moved through space like he owned every square inch of it, like the air rearranged itself to make room for him. He didn't rush and he sure as hell didn't acknowledge the cameras tracking him from every angle. He just walked with deliberation, the heels of his boots clicking against the arena floor in a rhythm that sounded almost choreographed and by the time he reached the stairs the applause had already started, a low, rolling thing that built as he climbed, as he reached the top of the steps, as he crossed the stage toward the podium with the kind of walk that made you understand why people compared him to Hendrix and every other pretty, dangerous thing that ever made a room hold its breath.
He reached the microphone. It was slightly too tall for him but somehow that made it better, because Prince could make anything look intentional. He rested one hand on the edge of the podium, allowing his gaze to sweep the crowd and waited. He let the applause roll over him like a wave he was choosing not to surf.
"Thank you." He began, his voice smooth and unhurried, like he was starting a conversation rather than accepting an award. "This is... this is nice. I appreciate it." He spoke, drawing a small laugh from the audience. "But I'm not gonna take all the credit tonight. I don't think that's fair."
He shifted his weight and something in his expression sharpened.
"See, there's someone in this room right now who helped build one of the biggest songs on one of the biggest albums ever made. A songwriter, a real one. The kind that doesn't get called up to stages like this, the kind that just... watches from the crowd while other people collect trophies for work she helped create."
The room shifted. You could feel it, the way the air tightened, the way thousands of people leaned forward a fraction of an inch. Prince let the silence sit and he was good at that because he let it do the work.
"I think she deserves to be up here more than I do tonight." He continued, his voice dropping just slightly, not quieter but more intimate, like he'd drawn the room closer without moving. "So if she'll allow me..." He turned, scanning the crowd and his eyes found you instantly, like he'd known exactly where you were the whole time, like he hadn't needed to look. "This beautiful lady right here. Baby, why don't you come up here?"
Your entire body seized up. Not dramatically, but long enough that the people around you turned their heads, that the silence became a living thing, pressing against you from all sides. Your body wouldn't move. Your legs had stopped working and your brain was sending signals that were getting lost somewhere between intention and action. For one terrible, suspended moment you were just a girl sitting in a velvet seat in the fourth row of the Grammys with ten thousand people staring at her.
Prince was watching you from the stage with a practiced patience. He didn't wave nor repeat himself, he simply stood there, one hand resting on the podium and waited with a quiet confidence in his expression that registered as I know you can do this, so do it.
You came to a stance and your legs felt like jelly, disconnected, as if they belonged to someone else, but they held you and you took a step into the aisle. The walk to the stage was the longest walk of your life. The lights were blinding from this angle, cutting down from the rigging above and you could feel every pair of eyes in the building on you, cataloguing you, trying to figure out who you were and what you had to do with Prince, but most of all why he'd just called you baby on live television.
The stairs were worse. Your heel caught on the second one, just slightly, a tiny stumble that felt enormous and you gripped the railing, continuing because stopping was not an option anymore, not with the whole world watching, not with Prince extending his hand toward you from the top of the steps. You took it, his fingers intertwining with yours, warm and steady. He pulled you up beside him onto the stage and the lights hit you full in the face, the arena so bright you couldn't see the audience anymore, just a vast, dark sea of faces with the stage lights cutting between you and them like a wall.
Prince didn't let go of your hand right away. He squeezed once and then released you before he turned back to the microphone.
"This lady right here." He began, gesturing to you with an open palm, "Is a songwriter, one of the best living. She co-wrote Billie Jean."
The name landed like a stone in water. The audience murmured, rippled and you could hear it, recognition, the particular sound of a room putting a face to a song which they all knew had changed the shape of pop music. "Biggest song on the biggest album in the world." Prince continued, his voice calculated, letting each word land before he gave them the next. "And I just think... I think it's a shame when the people who build these things don't get credit where it’s due. I suppose some folks in this industry have a habit of forgetting who was in the room when the magic happened."
He didn't look at Michael when he said it because he didn't need to. The room knew, or at least they felt it, the way you feel a shift in air pressure before a storm and somewhere in the third row, Michael's jaw tightened behind his aviators. His fingers curled slowly around the armrest of his seat until the knuckles went white, the skin stretched taut over bone, the kind of grip that left marks and ached for hours after he finally let go.
"Baby, you helped build something that's never been done before tonight, don't let anyone make you feel small."
Michael heard it, the sound cutting through everything else like a blade through silk. Baby. His word. Not a word he used casually, not a word he tossed around in interviews or dropped into conversations with strangers. His word for you. The word he whispered into the curve of your neck in the dark, his breath hot against your skin with his hips pressed flush against yours and his body buried deep inside you while the sheets tangled around your legs, the only sound in the room being your name and that word, again and again, baby, baby, baby, murmured like a prayer against your collarbone, groaned against the hollow of your throat, gasped into your mouth when he was so close he couldn't think anymore. It was the only honest word he had left when his body was moving inside yours and the rest of the world had dissolved into nothing.
His word, in another man's mouth, on live television, in front of ten million people. Something in Michael's chest cracked and his knuckles remained white against the armrest.
Prince turned to you as his hand located your waist steadily and he leaned in. His lips pressed against your cheek and he lingered there for a moment, just a moment longer than he needed to. You could feel the subtle scratch of his stubble against your skin amalgamated with the faint scent of his cologne and the arena erupted. The applause was enormous, rushing over you like a wave and somewhere in it you heard whistles, someone screaming, the particular sound of a crowd that had just been given a moment to remember.
Michael twitched, but it wasn’t his hand this time, it was his whole body. A single, sharp recoil, like he'd been touched with something hot, his shoulders jerking forward a fraction of an inch before he caught himself and went still again. It was the kind of movement that would be invisible to anyone who wasn't looking and nobody was looking because the whole arena was looking at you, at the woman in the red dress standing under the lights she deserved with another man's lips on her cheek.
Brooke touched his arm, yet he didn't react. She said his name, softly, a question but he didn't reply. He was watching you walk across that stage on someone else's arm and something inside him was breaking so quietly that no one around him would have noticed.
He was furious at Prince, annoyed at the hand on your waist, seething at the word baby still ringing in his ears like tinnitus, mad at the kiss that lingered, angry at the way Prince smiled at you like he had every right to smile at you like that. But underneath the jealousy that was eating him alive in a room full of cameras, there was something worse. You were standing in that light, in that dress, with your hair curled and your lips red with your chin lifted even though your hands were shaking and you were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life all while standing next to another man.
He'd done that. He'd brought Brooke, hidden you, stood up on that stage eight times and never said your name and now he was facing the consequences of his own actions. The taste in his mouth was something he didn't have a name for yet, but it tasted like losing.
Prince pulled back. He was smiling at you, not his public smile, but the real one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and he squeezed your waist once before guiding you back down the steps.
You didn't look at Michael, but he was definitely looking at you and he wasn't going to stop.
The hallway backstage was chaos, the particular organised chaos of a major awards show winding down, people moving in every direction with headsets and glasses of champagne, the energy shifting from formal to frantic as the night tilted toward its own conclusion. You slipped through it like a ghost, keeping close to the wall, your heels clicking against the concrete floor, the white rose still in your hand though half its petals had fallen somewhere between the stage steps and the fire exit.
You needed a minute. Just one minute to stand somewhere quiet and breathe, to let your hands stop shaking, let the adrenaline drain out of your body like water from a tub, to allow the reality of what just happened settle over you without ten thousand people watching. Prince had squeezed your waist at the bottom of the steps, murmured I'll find you and then disappeared into the current of industry people pulling him in six directions at once. You’d let yourself be swept the other way, ducking into a corridor that smelled like the faintest trace of someone's cigarette and you pressed your back against the wall, closing your eyes as you attempted to recall how lungs were supposed to work.
You heard Michael before you saw him.
Those footsteps, quick and sharp, like each one was an argument with the floor. You knew that walk. You knew it the way you knew your own heartbeat, the way you knew the sound of his breathing in the dark and the particular rhythm of his stride when he was upset.
You opened your eyes as Michael rounded the corner and for a moment he didn't see you, he just kept walking, his jaw set, his shoulders tight under the jacket, his gloved hand curled at his side. He was looking at the floor with the demeanour of someone who had just won eight Grammys and felt nothing, which was impossible. It was the most Michael thing you'd ever seen. Then he clocked you.
He stopped mid-stride, one foot still slightly ahead of the other and the distance between you was maybe ten feet, maybe less, but it felt enormous, like the kind of distance you couldn't cross without a passport and a really good reason.
He stared at you behind those aviators and you couldn't see his eyes, but you could see his mouth, the way his lips pressed together and his jaw working like he was chewing on words he hadn't been able to fathom yet. He stared you up and down involuntarily, his gaze dragging from your hair to your lips to the red dress to the rose in your hand and something flickered across his expression, gone before you could even name it.
"Hey." He greeted, almost monotone, the voice of someone holding something back with both hands.
"Hey." You responded flatly.
Neither of you moved. The hallway hummed with the distant sound of the auditorium emptying, of voices and footsteps. Between you the silence was so thick you could have drowned in it.
Michael reached up and removed his aviators.
You'd seen his face a thousand times, ten thousand times, in every light, in every mood, but you weren't ready for this. His eyes were red. Not crying, but close, the kind of red that came from holding something back too hard, from pressing your emotions down so far they had nowhere to go but up. He looked wrecked, like someone who had just broken a record and couldn't feel it, who had stood on a stage eight times and said thank you to everyone except the one person who mattered, who had watched another man call you baby on live television and had sat there with his knuckles white and his jaw clenched.
He looked like he hated himself yet the only way he could cope with that was by taking it out on you.
"You looked beautiful up there.” He spoke, a lump solidifying in his throat. The words came out clipped, almost mechanical, like he was reading them off a card. "On stage, with him."
You blinked, eyebrows raising in confusion. Of all the things you'd expected him to say, that wasn't it and the flatness of his voice made it impossible to tell if it was a compliment or an accusation, so you just stood there with your mouth slightly open and your heart hammering against your ribs.
"Thank you." You managed.
"Yeah." He slipped the aviators into his jacket pocket and his bare eyes found yours, the weight of them staggering, like looking into something that had no bottom. "Prince really knows how to make an entrance, doesn't he?"
"Eight times up on that stage," He faltered and his voice cracked on the number, a fracture he tried to cover by looking away, by running his tongue along his lower lip, by doing anything except standing still and letting you hear it. "Eight times and I couldn't even look at you. Do you get that? I physically could not look at you."
"Couldn't or wouldn't?" The words left your mouth before you could stop them, sharper than you intended and you watched them land, the way his face contorted, the hurt flashing behind his eyes before the anger covered it back up.
"That's not fair." He responded quietly, the kind of quiet that was worse than yelling.
"Fair?" You laughed and it came across bitter, the laugh of someone who was hurt and wanted to make sure everyone knew it. "You brought Brooke Shields, Michael. You walked that carpet with her on your arm like she was yours and I had to watch from the fourth row with another man because the man I actually wanted was too busy protecting his image."
"Brooke is a friend, you know that."
"A friend you've been photographed with a hundred times, a friend whose name the tabloids print next to yours while I get to be nobody."
"And Diana." You were on a roll now, the hurt turning into something uglier and petty, but you couldn't stop it even if you wanted to. "Three times in three separate speeches, you said her name as if she was the one who wrote you the album.”
His jaw tightened. "Diana is-"
"What am I to you?" The question came out smaller than you wanted and you hated the way your voice wavered, the way his face changed when he heard it, the anger softening for just a second before he pulled it back. "Because from where I was sitting, it looked like I was the girl who helps write your songs while you go to after parties with models"
Michael stared at you, his chest rising and falling too fast. His hands opened and closed at his sides, you could see the war behind his eyes, the anger, the guilt and the love all fighting for the same space.
"You want to know why I didn't look at you?" His voice was different now, completely stripped down. "Because if I had, I would have stood up and walked over to you and every camera in that building would have been on you, then the next morning every newspaper in the country would have your face and your name. They would eat you alive because that’s what they do to everyone I..."
He stopped and glanced away, his jaw was so tense, you could see the muscles vibrating beneath his skin.
"Everyone you what?" You pressed, still sharp, not prepared to let him off the hook.
"Everyone I love.” He finished and the word hit you like a freight train. "I was protecting you."
"You were protecting yourself."
He flinched, physically flinched, like you'd struck him across the face and for a moment the hallway was so quiet you could hear your own breathing as well as his.
"Maybe." He admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "Maybe I was."
The white rose in your hand lost another petal, falling slowly, drifting to the concrete floor like a tiny surrender. You sighed, the way a person sighs when they’re finished with a conversation because it was going nowhere. You both simply couldn’t agree because you were both hurt for your own reasons and you had no fight left in you. Not after the nausea, the adrenaline and everything that had consumed you whole within the last three hours.
“I need to go find my date." You spoke abruptly before turning as you trailed off back towards the party.
You managed to make three steps toward the door, your heels clicking against the concrete with a finality that sounded like punctuation, like the end of a sentence you'd been trying to finish for months. Your hand located the door handle, your fingers curling around the cold metal. You were already thinking about the hallway, about finding Prince, about getting into his car and driving somewhere quiet enough to cry in private when Michael's hand suddenly closed around your wrist.
Not gently, completely unlike the way he usually touched you, all softness and reverence, the kind of care that made you feel like porcelain. This was something else entirely. Desperate. His fingers wrapped around the delicate bones of your wrist and pulled, jerking you backwards off-balance so your hand slipped from the handle, your body pivoting toward his. Before you could protest or do anything except gasp, he was moving, walking you backwards into the opposite wall. Except it wasn't a wall, it was a door. He kicked it open with the flat of his shoe and it led to a storage closet, something small and dark. Your back was supposed to hit the wall, but it didn't. There was a table and the backs of your thighs hit the edge of it, forcing you down hard, the table groaning beneath you. Michael was between your knees before you could catch your breath, his hands on either side of your hips and his chest heaved. His bare eyes burned into yours with something that looked less like desire and more like hunger, the kind that had been starved and was going to take what it wanted regardless of the consequences.
"Michael." You breathed, his name coming out wrong, almost soft, like the beginning of something instead of the end.
He didn't answer because whatever words he'd had were gone, burned away by the sight of you sitting on that table in your red dress with your curls falling around your face and your chest rising and falling too fast. His hands found your waist, his thumbs pressing into the curve just above your hipbones where the fabric dipped. He pulled you forward, just enough that your body tilted toward his, then his mouth found its way onto your neck.
He didn’t kiss you, not at first. His lips parted against the curve of your throat, just below your jaw, inhaling slow and deep, the way a drowning man breathes air, the way a man who has been denied something fundamental finally gets his hands on it. The sound he made was low and wrecked, somewhere between a groan and a sob, vibrating against your skin, your head falling back before you could stop it. Your body betrayed you the way it always did, the way it always would because this was Michael, this was the mouth that had memorised every inch of you and no amount of anger could make your nerve endings forget.
He kissed your throat, open-mouthed and wet, dragging his lips down the column of your neck to the hollow at the base where your pulse was hammering so hard he could feel it against his tongue. He pressed his mouth there, tasting your heartbeat. His hands slid up your waist, grazing your ribs, his thumbs tracing the underside of your breasts through the fabric, not touching, just promising, letting you feel the weight of his hands and the barely there graze of his thumbs where you wanted them.
His mouth descended down. The neckline of your dress was low, deliberately low, the kind of neckline you'd chosen because you knew exactly what it would do, because you'd stood in front of your mirror that morning and seen the way it framed the swell of your breasts and thought good, let him suffer. Now he was suffering. His mouth traced the line where your skin met the fabric, his lips dragging along the edge of your cleavage, his tongue dipping into the cleft between your breasts. He could taste the warmth there and the faintest trace of perfume you'd dabbed hours ago that had since faded into something that was just you. He groaned again, deeper this time, his forehead pressing against your sternum, his hands gripping your hips so hard you'd have bruises tomorrow, purple indentations molded like his fingers. You'd look at them in the mirror the next morning and feel sick with how much you wanted them.
You should have stopped him, pushed him away, told him that this wasn't okay, that you couldn't keep doing this, falling into his hands every time he touched you, but your hands weren't pushing. Your hands were in his hair, your fingers threading through the dark curls, not pulling him away, pulling him closer. A sound escaped your throat, small and inadvertent, a whimper you hated yourself for, one that you attempted to swallow but came out anyway.
Michael heard it like he always heard it. Every sound you made was a language he'd studied, a dialect he'd memorised and that tiny, helpless sound, hit him like a drug. His mouth opened wider against the curve of your breast, his tongue tracing the line of your cleavage like a man in worship.
His hands slid from your hips to your thighs, his palms warm against your bare skin where the hemline had ridden up, his thumbs pressing into the soft inner flesh. You let him. God, you let him as your legs parted slightly without your permission, your body opening for him the way it always did, the way it was designed to.
For a moment, you let yourself have it. You allowed yourself to feel the heat of his mouth, the weight of his hands, the desperate, consuming way he touched you, like you were the only real thing in a world full of illusions. Your eyes closed and your breath came in shallow, stuttering gasps. You could feel him, the hardness of his body against the inside of your thigh, how much he wanted you, how much he'd been holding back all night. All those speeches, all those times he'd trailed past your seat without looking, all that restraint pouring out of him now in the dark of a closet while the rest of the world moved on without you.
He pulled back, just enough to look at you with his lips swollen and wet, his eyes dragging over your face. Something shifted in his expression, a jagged darkness. His jaw tightened and his voice, when it came, was laced with something dangerously close to rage.
"He called you baby." Michael grunted.
Your eyes opened. His face was inches from yours and the look in his eyes was no longer worship, it was the look of a man who had heard another man say his word. The word he whispered into the curve of your neck at three in the morning, the word he groaned against your mouth when he was deep inside you and the world had narrowed to nothing but heat and friction with the slick, desperate rhythm of your bodies moving together.
"On that stage." Michael continued, his voice barely above a whisper, his thumbs pressing harder into your thighs like a possessive branding. "In front of the whole world, he called you baby, like he had the right." His tongue traced along his lower lip, a nervous gesture. "Like you're his."
"You're not his." He murmured, his voice clear and purposeful, despite sounding as though he was trying to convince himself to believe it.
His hands moved before you could respond. They slid from your thighs to the backs of your knees, gripping, lifting and forcing your legs up onto the table so you were perched fully on it, your back against the wall with bent knees as your heels clunked against the table. His hands found your inner thighs, dividing them apart, spreading you and inhabiting the space he'd made between your legs with a kind of authority that made your stomach drop. The hemline of your dress rode up to the tops of your thighs, barely covering anything. The cool air hit your skin and you shivered, your nipples hardening as a result. Michael's eyes dropped, falling down your body, taking in the red fabric abundant around your hips and the obvious, undeniable fact that your body was responding to him even as your mind screamed something different.
"He doesn't get to call you that." Michael murmured, his voice thick, his hands sliding up the outside of your thighs, gathering the fabric higher, bunching it around your waist before he dropped to his knees.
The movement was sudden, graceful, his body folding down like something reflexive. Before you could process what was happening, his hands were hooked behind your knees, pulling you forward on the table until your hips balanced on the edge, until your thighs draped over his shoulders. His face was level with your stomach, his breath hot and fast against the thin lace of your underwear. The sound he made, guttural, vibrating against your inner thigh, was the sound of a starved man that had finally been given a plate.
"You smell like him." Michael breathed, his nose dragging along the crease where your thigh met your hip, inhaling. The jealousy in his voice was liquid molten, the kind of emotion that burned everything it touched. "His cologne on you. I can smell him on you."
His fingers hooked into the waistband of your underwear and he retracted. The lace crawled down your thighs, over your knees and fell somewhere on the floor of the closet. The air hit you, all of you, your hips jerking involuntarily. Michael's hands pressed down, holding you still as he pinned your thighs to the table with a firmness that was almost bruising.
"Michael." You whispered, not knowing if it was a protest or a plea. Your hands gripped the edge of the table behind you, knuckles turning white as your body caught between the part of you that wanted this, that had been aching for it since he'd walked past your seat without looking and the part of you that knew this was the same cycle, the same desperate avoidance wrapped in the language of desire.
His mouth pressed against your inner thigh, his tongue tracing a slow, deliberate path upward. Your breath caught and stuttered in your chest like a word you couldn’t fathom. Your hips lifted off the table, pressing toward his mouth with instinct. The whimper that escaped you this time was louder and completely unrestrained. Michael's hands tightened on your thighs, spreading you wider, his thumbs tracing the creases where your legs met your body and his lips were so close to where you needed them. Your head fell back against the wall, your eyes closed and for one suspended, breathless moment, the entire world was reduced to the heat of his mouth and the excruciating anticipation of his tongue.
He moved closer and his tongue graced you with one long, slow lick, flat and deliberate, from bottom to top. Your whole body arched off the table, your back bowing and your hands flew from the edge to his hair, fingers intertwining with his curls. The sound you made was something you didn't recognise, something desperate and completely beyond your control. Michael groaned against you, the vibration rolling through your core like a wave, his hands sliding under your hips, gripping your ass and pulling you closer to his mouth. He did it again, slower this time, more deliberate, the tip of his tongue circling and finding the exact spot that made your fingers twist in his hair so hard it had to hurt.
His lips were wet and glistening, his eyes focused on yours, completely undone. He breathed shallowly. "Say my name."
You couldn't because your brain had stopped working. Everything had stopped working except the parts of your body that were screaming for his mouth to come back. You simply looked at him, chest heaving and thighs shaking, your dress bunched up around your waist, underwear strewn across the floor, unable to form a single word.
Michael leaned in, his mouth hovering, lips barely touching and you could feel him, feel the ghost of his tongue. Your hips bucked forward, chasing the pleasure but he pulled back, just out of reach and the whine that left your throat was humiliating.
"Say it." He breathed. "Tell me who you belong to."
Then something within you clicked. Your hand found the back of his head and pushed him. Not gently, you shoved his head away from your body and the suddenness of it startled him, made him rock back on his heels, his hands releasing your thighs. You squeezed your legs together before adjusting your dress and sliding off the back of the table onto legs that could’ve buckled any moment. The floor felt wrong, unstable, like the ground itself was shifting beneath you.
He was still on his knees in front of you and the confusion on his face was almost enough to break you, almost enough to make you grab his hair and pull his face back between your legs, to forget everything except the way his tongue felt.
"Stop." You added flatly, your voice cracking on the word, but you held it, held it with everything you had. "Michael, get up. Stop."
He rose slowly, his hand finding his mouth as he dragged the back across his lips, wiping you away. The look on his face shifted from confusion to something worse, something that looked like the ground might open up beneath him. He reached for you, his hand extending, fingers reaching.
"Baby, just listen to me-"
"No, you listen." Your voice was shaking, but you held it together, because if you didn't say this now you were never going to say it. "This is what you do, every time. We fight, you grab me, you kiss me and you think that fixes it. Then you hold me and say you'll make it up to me and I really believe you, but we never actually talk about it. Nothing changes, you just..."
You trailed off because the fight was leaving you, draining out of you like something with its own weight. Suddenly you were just tired, tired of the cycle and loving someone who thought physical closeness was the same as emotional honesty.
"You think if you touch me enough it'll go away." You said, quieter now, almost gentle. "It doesn't go away, Michael."
The closet was too small and the walls were too close, claustrophobic even. The smell of bleach, his cologne and sex was making your eyes water or perhaps that was something else, something you weren't going to acknowledge, not while your underwear was on the floor and your thighs were still wet with his saliva.
You found your underwear and stepped into it, pulling it up until the elastic snapped against your hips. You smoothed your dress down with hands that wouldn't stop trembling.
"I need to go find my date." You finished, oblivious to how he may have perceived you calling Prince your date.
You didn't wait for him to respond. You swivelled, opening the door before taking a step into the hallway. The fluorescent lights hit you like a slap, too bright after the dark intensity of the closet.
"Wait, just wait, please-"
The voice came from the end of the hallway and you both froze. Quincy rounded the corner, his glasses catching the light and he took in the scene in a single glance. The two of you standing too close, Michael's aviators off, your lipstick smudged, the tension between you so thick you could cut it with a knife. To his credit he didn't react.
"There you are." Quincy uttered. "Michael, they need you. The press are waiting."
Michael didn't move. He was looking at you, bare eyes locked on yours and the expression on his face was the same one he'd had on stage, completely overwhelmed, except this time it wasn't the Grammys, it was you. It was the space between you that kept growing no matter how hard he tried to close it.
"Michael." Quincy repeated himself, firmer this time. "Now."
Something in Michael's face shuttered. The vulnerability disappeared behind the polished surface, the wall rebuilding itself brick by brick. He straightened his jacket and rolled his shoulders.
"Coming.” He responded with a sudden composure, a stark contrast to the desperate man he’d just presented to you a few minutes earlier. He walked past you without touching you, without looking at you, without another word. Quincy put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him down the hallway toward the lights and the cameras.
You stood there in the empty hallway. The closet door was still open behind you and you could smell him on your skin, on your thighs, could still feel the press of his mouth against the most intimate part of you, still hear the wrecked, hungry sound he'd made with his tongue buried inside you.
You fixed your lipstick up with your thumb and adjusted your dress back into its original state before strolling off with a slight crumple in your step.
Prince was leaning against a wall at the end of a corridor, one ankle crossed over the other, his arms folded. He noticed you coming, watching you approach with those dark, knowing eyes that saw everything and said very little.
You stopped in front of him. He studied your face, spotting that smudged lipstick and the way your hands were shaking. He didn't ask, he just unfolded his arms and straightened up his posture before extending his elbow, the gesture formal and old-fashioned yet somehow exactly what you needed.
"Ready to go?" He asked, like it was the simplest question in the world.
Behind you, somewhere in the maze of hallways and holding rooms, Michael was answering questions about his record breaking night, smiling for cameras, shaking hands and saying thank you to strangers. Maybe he was fine, perhaps the performance was holding.
You walked out with Prince into the night, into the waiting car, into whatever came next. You didn't look back but you wanted to, you so badly wanted to.
