pairing : michael jackson x maid's daughter!reader
wc : 6.2k
rating : fluff
era : 1970s (j5 through otw)
summary : you were never supposed to leave your portion of the house. the rules were simple: stay in your wing, don't wander, don't forget who you are and who they are. but seven years later you're on a balcony in the rain and michael is finally telling you what you've both known for years, like it's been eating him alive.
warnings : none really, slow burn, time skips, slight class difference & power imbalance, i introduced a pet rat named ben lol, mutual pining & jealousy, mild angst, emotional tension, angry rain confession, no use of y/n
playlist :
: ̗̀➛ the things we did last summer - jo stafford
: ̗̀➛ i’ve got a crush on you - ella fitzgerald
: ̗̀➛ tonight may have to last me all my life - nancy wilson
: ̗̀➛ be my baby - the ronettes
: ̗̀➛ i’ll be there - jackson 5
: ̗̀➛ just the way you are - billy joel
a/n: based on this request. i enjoyed writing this! i hope u like it :c
Encino, California — May 1971
The house smelled like fresh paint and somebody else's life. Like someone had just finished making a house into a home and you were arriving right at the tail end of it. That was the first thing you noticed when your mother led you through the side entrance of the Jacksons' new Encino home.
Your mother was not a small woman in any way that mattered, but she looked small that day, wearing her “good” blouse that she saved for job interviews and church, clutching the strap of her pocketbook with both hands. She had taken the housekeeping position three weeks earlier, after two other arrangements had fallen through and the landlord had made it clear the apartment on Crenshaw was no longer a possibility. Katherine Jackson had offered the live-in arrangement as part of the compensation—a comfortable suite right across the wing from the kitchen.
Your mother had cried a little, signing the papers. Not from sadness, but relief. You had been in the car and couldn't see her face, but you knew from the way she drove that something had been decided. We'll be fine here, she'd told you that night, while you sat on the edge of the motel bed and watched her pack. The Jacksons are a good family.
The suite was comfortable—there was a queen size bed, a dresser, a window that looked out on the backyard. You counted eight Jackson kids in the front hall, the onetime you'd been near enough to look. There was an oldest one, Rebbie, who was already married at the time and moved in with her husband. Now, the oldest one was a boy who was a grown adult, and the youngest still small enough to be carried. You had never in your life seen a family with so many members living under the same roof. Your mother said, "Stay in our part of the house, baby. We're here to work, not play. Don't mingle too much."
The first week you did not leave the kitchen wing except to use the bathroom down the hall. Before the move, you had checked six books out of the Inglewood library and arranged them on the windowsill in the order you planned to read them. You read A Wrinkle in Time in two sittings and started it again from the beginning, because the due dates were still three weeks away and there was literally nothing else to do. This was something your mother had always been adamant about. You would be educated, you would read. It was not a conversation.
Sometimes you could hear the house through the walls, it was rarely quiet. Even at two in the morning you would sometimes wake to the sound of a voice somewhere far above you and would lie still, listening to it until it stopped. That was the thing about that house, you heard music and vocals constantly. The way music happened in other houses, was either on the radio or from a record player at a respectable volume, but that was not the case at Hayvenhurst.
On your ninth day, Katherine put a stop to the kitchen-wing arrangement.
You were eating breakfast alone at the small table where the rest of the staff took their meals. Your book propped against a glass of orange juice and a bowl of oatmeal next to it. Katherine appeared in the doorway in her housecoat and looked at you which made you sit up straight.
"How old are you?" she asked, caressing the back of your head gently.
"Thirteen, ma'am."
"Come eat with the family," she said. It was not phrased as an invitation. "From now on, at the long table. You sit near Michael and Randy, they're close enough to your age."
"My mother said—"
"I know what your mother said," Katherine said, and she wasn't unkind about it. "Come on now, bring your bowl."
So you reluctantly did.
The long table was exactly that—long, dark wood, with a bench on one side and mismatched chairs on the other, and it sat more people than you had ever eaten a meal with in your life. You learned their names by sitting there. Jackie who was the oldest, barely looked up from his plate. Tito was the quiet one, you could tell even on the first day. Jermaine made you nervous in a way you couldn't explain to yourself. Marlon was the one who asked your name first. La Toya smiled at you once and Randy talked the entire meal about something to do with a bicycle but nobody really listened. At the head of the table sat a man you understood immediately to be the father and you did not look at him for long. Janet was next to Katherine on the bench, still being fed, spoonfuls of something you couldn't see.
Michael was harder to place. He came to the table sometimes and sometimes didn't. He had big, dark eyes and a face that was still soft with from his young age. He had a way of saying please that sounded like he meant it, which distinguished him from most people you'd met. You exchanged, in that first month, perhaps only a dozen words.
Pass the rolls, please.
Thank you.
The butter, if you don't mind.
A few weeks later, you heard about it before you saw it: Michael brought in a rat. He had found it or been given it or in some other way acquired it, and had named it Ben. He had brought it into the house in the pocket of his jacket, and when the fact of the rat became known there was a response of significant volume from his brothers and considerably more volume from the sisters. The upshot was that Ben should be confined to Michael's room only.
You knew all of this because you were sitting in the kitchen doing homework when Marlon walked through saying there is a rat in this house, I'm telling you right now, there is a living rat in this house and went out the back door to cool off. That made you giggle but now you were curious about the rat.
You had never had a pet of any kind. Your mother did not believe in pets, which was a belief rooted in the conviction that anything you loved too much would eventually require either money you didn't have or grief you couldn't afford. But you had also read enough to know that small animals were frequently more interesting than their size suggested, and that people who loved animals were often more interesting than people who didn't. That made you curious about Michael as well.
So at dinner, you started to notice Michael more carefully. Waiting for him to mention something, anything about Ben at all. Nobody brought it up, which suggested it had been established as a territory no one wanted to enter. But every so often, in a lull between one conversation and the next, you would see something cross his face. His eyes wandering off as he picked at the food in his plate and a smile threatening to tug at his lips but it was gone before anyone else noticed it. That was the expression of someone trying not to look like they were thinking about something that made them happy. You did the same thing sometimes when thinking about your favorite book, or the afternoons in the park near your old apartment.
You saw Ben for the first time on a Saturday in November.
Your mother was cleaning the upstairs. Stripping linens, wiping down baseboards, the weekly deep-cleaning that was her specialty, and you had been asked to bring fresh towels to the rooms as she finished them. You knocked on doors that were closed, left towels on hooks and handles of rooms that were empty.
Michael's door was the last one on the right.
You knocked.
"Come in," he said.
You pushed the door open and immediately registered two things: Michael sitting cross-legged on his bed with a book open in his lap, which you had expected, and a small rat asleep on his shoulder, which you had not.
"I have towels," you said, because you needed to say something.
"You can put them on the dresser," he said.
You put them on the dresser. Then, because you could not come up with anything else: "What's his name?"
"Ben," he said.
"From the movie?"
He was curious now. "You watched it?"
"I read about it." You turned around. The rat had woken up, you realized, and was now regarding you with small bright eyes. "I didn't get to see it. We were—we moved a lot. I missed some things." You crossed the room and looked at Ben at closer range. He was smaller than you'd expected.
"He likes you," Michael said.
"How can you tell?"
"He usually hides when he doesn't like someone."
You stood there with a rat investigating your finger and thought about the fact that you had just exchanged more words with Michael than in the entire previous five months.
"Your brothers don't like him," you said.
"No."
"That doesn't bother you?"
He thought about that for a moment, like he was trying to come up with a good answer. "No," he said. "They don't have to like him. He's not their friend."
That made complete sense to you. "I think he's fascinating," you said.
Michael smiled and it changed his face completely, he looked at you again with a twinkle in his eyes. "Most people think he's gross and they get scared."
"They don’t know him,” you said. You put the towels on the dresser and left. But you thought about that smile of his for the rest of the day.
1973
By the end of the second year you could navigate the house in the dark by feel alone. You knew the creak on the third step of the main stairs and learned to step wide of it. You knew which bathroom on the second floor had a door that stuck in humid weather. You had, by this point, read every book in the house's half-organized library—Katherine had said you were welcome to it early on. The shelves were more decorative than anything, books arranged by size in some places and by nothing at all in others, spines uncracked on most of them. Nobody in that house was much of a reader except Michael, but Michael kept his books in his room. He had his own small shelf that you had never been invited to and would not presume to ask about. So you worked through what was available.
The boredom was physical. It lived in your shoulders, in your hands, in the agitation of feet that want to be somewhere else. You were fifteen, and the world outside the house was enormous and inaccessible to you, and the world inside was fascinating and absolutely not yours.
You couldn't sit still. Your skin felt too tight. You had read every book in the house twice over, finished your summer assignments in the first two weeks of June, and spent the remaining weeks of July and August in a state of persistent desire to walk through doors you weren't supposed to open. You wanted to go somewhere. But there was nowhere to go.
One night in August, at approximately half past midnight, you got out of bed. You told yourself it was because you couldn't fall asleep, but it was more than that. You wrapped yourself in a cardigan and left the kitchen wing.
The service corridor led to the main hallway, and the main hallway stretched both ways—toward the front of the house with its formal rooms and its dark windows facing the street, or toward the back and the stairs and the ascending strangeness of rooms you had walked past or entered only for work. You went up the stairs slowly, lifting your feet carefully, placing your weight on the outside of each step where the wood was least likely to complain.
The second floor hallway was dark except for one exception. A thin gold line under a door at the far end, light from a room that was supposed to be dark at this time. You knew whose room it was. You did the reasonable thing, which was to stop at the top of the stairs and intend to turn around. You thought it was the most reasonable thing to do because what if someone opened the door and—
Then the door opened.
He was in an undershirt and pajama pants, barefoot, his hair a little messy from whatever it had been in during the day. He had a book in one hand—his finger still between the pages, holding his place—and the expression on his face was not startled exactly, but genuinely puzzled.
You were frozen solid. Your hands were at your sides, your feet were not moving and you were aware with great clarity, that you had no reasonable explanation for standing in this hallway at half past midnight.
"You good?" he asked.
"I was looking for the bathroom."
He looked at you and then down the hallway, which contained at its other end, a very visible bathroom. He looked back at you.
Then he laughed the way he usually does, covering his mouth.
You felt your face go hot and your own mouth curve upward against your will, the helpless response of embarrassment curdling into something else.
"The bathroom," he said between giggles, "is the other way."
"I know, I was going there." you said.
"I figured."
Now, you were waiting for him to stop laughing. It was becoming humiliating at this point.
"I couldn't sleep," you said finally.
He nodded, like this answered something more than the original question. "Me either. Happens a lot."
"Yeah," you said. "I hear you sing sometimes at night."
He was quiet for a second. "Does it bother you?"
"Not at all, I think you should pursue it professionally." you said jokingly.
"You think so?" he said, like he was genuinely weighing it. "I wasn't sure."
You were glad he was playing along with your horrible joke. Then he pursed his lips to keep himself from bursting into laughter again and stepped back from the door, opening it wider.
"You can come in," he said. "If you want. I'm just reading."
You stood in the hallway for one full second, internally negotiating between your two personas. The person who followed the rules and the person who had gotten out of bed at midnight to walk around a house that wasn't hers. The fifteen-year-old rebellious you decided to go with the latter.
You sat on the floor with your back against the bed because that's where the lamp was and it seemed less strange than the desk chair. Michael sat cross-legged opposite you with his book balanced on his knee, and for a few minutes neither of you said anything and this was somehow not uncomfortable.
"What are you reading?" you asked.
He turned the book so you could see the cover. The Little Prince.
"I've read that," you said.
"The fox?" he said, which was a question and also a test.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly—" you said.
"—What is essential is invisible to the eye." He smiled.
You settled more comfortably against the bed. "I like that it's a book for children that isn't actually for children."
"All the best ones are like that," he said.
"The Phantom Tollbooth."
"Yes. And Charlotte's Web."
"Stuart Little."
"Where The Red Fern Grows," he said. "Because of the ending."
"I cried reading that one," you admitted.
He looked at you with a different expression than he'd had at dinner tables and in hallways. Something more open. "I cried too," he said. "Don't tell anyone."
You laughed, quiet so as not to wake anyone. He laughed too, and the room felt different after that.
You went back to the kitchen wing at four that morning, moving fast and careful down the dark stairs, and you lay in your bed and looked at the ceiling and felt, for the first time in two years, not lonely.
After that, midnight became a country you governed together. It had laws, like countries do. The first law was that neither of you spoke about it in daylight. The second law was that you always came to him, because your room was the easier departure point. The third law, which was never stated but was understood by both parties, was that in his room you could say things that would not have made sense anywhere else.
You began to learn the shape of him. You expected the gravity of the stage and fame, expected him to be the serious boy who sang with everything he had, and he was that boy absolutely; but he was also someone who found things helplessly funny. Who would begin to explain something and start laughing in the middle of it, who would catch your eye across the dinner table when something absurd happened and then have to look away because he knew you were both going to lose it.
You also learnt that he was lonely. It was the first thing you recognized almost immediately because you were lonely too, but his loneliness was different from yours. He was lonely in the middle of crowds, in the middle of stages, in the middle of rooms full of people who loved him in an abstract way and had very little access to him. He had his family, and he loved them, and they loved him back, but it was not enough. You learnt that he got a lot of love, but love at a distance doesn't keep you warm. What he wanted was so simple it made your chest hurt a little to think about it. Someone to sit with him on the floor at midnight. Someone to let him talk about the things he loved without watching the clock. Someone who wanted to be in the same room as him for no reason that could be written down or explained or justified. Not for what he could do, what he had, or what his name meant to the rest of the world.
And without realizing, that’s exactly what you became to him.
The following spring, Michael gave you flowers. When you came to his room one night, there was a small bunch of things from the garden sitting in a glass of water on his nightstand—jasmine mostly, some lavender, a sprig of something yellow you didn't know the name of.
"I thought jasmine might be your favorite," he said.
"How did you know that?"
"You always stop at the fence and smell it before you go inside," he said.
You had not known he'd seen that. So he walked over to you and tucked a piece of jasmine in your hair. You could tell he was looking at it fondly; but you did not say anything about that because your cheeks were burning and you did not want to scare that boy away by saying something stupid.
Your mother noticed the jasmine the next morning and asked whether you'd been picking flowers from the garden.
"No," you said. "Someone gave it to me."
She looked at you for a moment longer than usual. "Be careful," she said, which could have meant many things, and you chose to understand it as the most harmless one.
"Mrs. Jackson spoke to me today," she said. “Something about you and Michael spending time together in his room.”
Your stomach dropped through the chair and the floor and the kitchen below it and somewhere into the earth. "Mother, I can explain—"
She used your full name, which meant this was serious. Then said, "She's not upset."
You stopped. "She's not?"
"She says Michael has been—" Your mother paused, choosing her next words. "Happy. Happier than she's seen him. She wanted me to know that she doesn't mind. She was kind about it, baby. She was very kind."
"I wasn't doing anything wrong," you said. "We just talked. We just—"
"I know." Your mother set down her tea. "But I want you to be careful," she said finally.
"Not because he's a bad boy, he seems like a good boy. But because you are my daughter and this is their house, and I need you to understand the difference between us and them."
"I do understand it, mother," you said looking down.
"Then understand it every day," she said. "Not just today."
You nodded. She reached across and took your hand and held it once, briefly, and let go.
After that the midnight arrangement was not a secret, it simply became known to everyone else in the house that you and Michael were now friends. To other family members, you were still you. Still just someone with a name. But it mattered less when you noticed the jasmine on your windowsill was always morning-fresh, which meant you were the first thing he thought of before the house was even awake. Every day. You were the first thing.
1976
By 1976, Hayvenhurst had stopped feeling like the Jackson house. You weren't sure exactly when it happened—there was no single morning you woke up and thought this is home now. The biggest surprise was your mother. She had come into this house five years ago with her back straight and her rules firm and a very clear map of what this arrangement was and was not permitted to become. She had drawn the lines early and communicated them without sentimentality because she loved you and because sentiment, in her experience, was something people in your position could not always afford. She stopped asking where you'd been when you came in late. She stopped reminding you to come straight back after dinner. When you mentioned Michael in conversation she no longer got that particular careful and worried look on her face.
After that her warnings changed. She had stopped saying don't spend too much time over there. Now she said don't stay up all night again. She had stopped saying remember whose house this is. Now she said take a sweater, the balcony gets cold, which meant she knew exactly where you were going. She had stopped saying remember who you are and who they are. She had not replaced that one with anything but had simply stopped saying it. Your mother had decided Michael was a good boy. She asked after him when he was traveling. When he was sick once, briefly, a bad throat from too many late rehearsals, she brought him tea with honey and lemon without anyone requesting it and when he thanked her she waved it off saying of course, what else would I do, and you had stood in the doorway watching this and had to leave before either of them saw your face.
Now that the both of you were eighteen, you had started noticing him differently sometime in the past year and hated yourself for it. His face had changed, it had been changing for a while. Sharpening into something that was no longer the face of the boy in the hallway but something older and more defined, the jaw and the cheekbones and the eyes that had always been large and dark but now caught light differently, and his voice had settled and his shoulders had gotten broader. He still had the shy smile, still covered his mouth when he laughed, still sat cross-legged on the floor with a book like a child, but strangers looked at him now in a way that was categorically different from how they had looked at him before and you were aware of this every single time it happened.
You were aware of it when girls waited outside the gates of Hayvenhurst whenever he left the house.
You were aware of it when female celebrities, sometimes twice his age, flirted with him endlessly on national television.
You were aware of it when the fan mail arrived, which it did constantly, in quantities that required sorting. A few years ago, the letters had been mostly harmless. Girls your age writing in round handwriting about how cute he was, how much they loved his voice, how they had kissed his poster goodnight. You had found this funny.
By the time he turned nineteen, it was not funny anymore.
The envelopes started arriving heavier, more perfumed, some of them sealed with lipstick kisses pressed directly onto the paper in shades of red and pink that struck you as obscene. Who are these girls? Why do they think it’s okay to send this? You thought to yourself. The handwriting changed—less round and careful, more deliberate, more adult. The return addresses were from women who were not girls your age. Some of them were not girls at all.
You were in the kitchen one afternoon when you heard Michael in the next room say, with complete genuine puzzlement, "Marlon, what does this mean? Why is there—what is—"
"What? Spit it out, Michael!" Marlon said in a frustrating tone. The two brothers were reading their fan mail that accumulated over the course of a week. All envelopes were of different sizes, some were even packaged boxes of something you didn’t even want to know.
"Looks like.. measurements of some sort? She says I'm five-foot six, thirty-six..twenty-four..thirty—"
Marlon's eyebrows shot up toward his hairline in amusement. "Oh brother, she got the tape measure out and everything. Let me see!" He lunged across the couch.
"Why is she sending me her measurements?!" Michael asked, hiding the letter behind his back to keep Marlon from taking it away.
"She wants you to know what she’s working with, basically."
"How did United States Postal Service even allow this to come through? She also has a phone number at the bottom.." Michael folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. Not interested in reading it any further.
"If you're throwing it away, pass it over." Marlon said, half jokingly.
You had made the mistake of hearing that conversation and didn't want to hear any further. You told yourself this was about respecting Michael's privacy and not about the fact that knowing what girls thought about him made you feel something cold and ugly deep inside. You knew you were lying. You were extremely jealous, had been for longer than you wanted to admit. What you didn't know was that he was feeling his own version of the same emotions.
It started with the neighbor's son who had come home from college for the summer. He was tall and handsome, looked like one of the college jocks who spent their summers outdoors partying and having fun. Randy, Marlon and him were going back and forth under the hoop while you had been reading, mostly, glancing up occasionally whenever there was movement nearby. You were sitting on the porch steps with a book, which was where you often ended up on warm afternoons. A shaded spot, close enough to the garden that you could smell the jasmine, far enough from the kitchen that no one could find you with a task.
Upstairs, Michael had wandered over to the front window without really meaning to. Bill found him there eventually, standing with one shoulder against the frame, watching the game below with far more concentration than the score seemed to warrant. He came to stand beside him, following Michael's gaze until he spotted exactly what had caught his attention.
"You know you're staring," Bill observed.
Michael didn't answer immediately. His eyes remained fixed on the driveway where the neighbor's son had just peeled his T-shirt off and thrown it over the porch railing before calling for the ball again.
"I just think," Michael said at last, "you don't have to be shirtless to play basketball."
Bill looked out the window again, then back at him.
"It's seventy-four degrees."
"It's not that warm."
"You're telling me you've never taken your shirt off to play?"
"Not in somebody else's front yard," Michael said. "And certainly not with the ladies of the house sitting right there. I don’t like boys like him, you don’t know what they’re after."
Bill let out a short laugh. "Michael, the boy's been here twenty minutes. So far he's only played basketball and nearly tripped over the garden hose. I'd hardly call that suspicious."
Michael frowned without taking his eyes off the yard. "You don't know what boys our age are like."
Bill turned to look at him. "...Michael. You are boys your age."
Michael finally looked away from the window, as though that technicality had never occurred to him. "I'm talking about the other ones. You know that."
Bill laughed so hard he had to step away from the window.
1978
What nobody told you about falling in love with your best friend was that it would happen in the most mundane possible moments. It started much earlier, but you refused to acknowledge it until Michael tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear because the wind was blowing it in your face while you were trying to read. When he realized he did it without thinking, he went absolutely still with his fingers still near your jaw, both of you frozen.
"Sorry," he said.
You couldn't look at him. "It’s okay."
"Okay," he said quietly.
You stared at the same paragraph until the words dissolved into nonsense. He stayed perfectly still beside you, like he was afraid any shift might break whatever fragile thing had just passed between you. Eventually you both pretended to return to what you’d been doing—him with his sketchbook and you with your book.
Your face stayed warm for the rest of the evening. At dinner you caught him looking at you twice, and both times he glanced away first, ears faintly pink. That night you sat on the edge of your bed in the dark, hands pressed to your flushed cheeks, and thought it clearly for the first time, I’m in love with him.
Michael was twenty years old and the world was starting to pull at him harder than ever. The brothers were still together, but the cracks were showing. He spent more and more time away from Hayvenhurst—in studios with Quincy Jones, listening to new sounds, pushing boundaries the rest of the family wasn’t ready for. Late nights turned into early mornings. You watched him leave for meetings in crisp shirts and come back buzzing with ideas he could barely contain, eyes bright, hands moving as he explained concepts you only half-understood.
You were happy for him but also terrified. The more the world wanted him, the less this house—and you—seemed to fit inside his future.
One October evening, it had been raining since dusk—a relentless California storm that turned the backyard into a dark blur. You told yourself you were just checking if the windows in the sunroom were closed, but your feet carried you toward the back staircase like they always had.
You found him on the second-floor balcony off the family room, the one that overlooked the garden. He was soaked. Shirt clinging to his shoulders, curls heavy with rain, leaning on the railing like he was trying to decide whether to climb over it or not.
"Michael," you called softly.
He didn’t turn around at first. When he did, his eyes were fierce.
"You shouldn't be out here," he said.
"Neither should you."
Rain drummed against the roof, against the leaves, against the wooden railing.
"I'm leaving soon," he said finally. "For good. Not just for a tour. For…everything maybe. Quincy wants me to do my own thing. My own album. My own sound." He laughed, but there was no joy in it. "Joseph thinks I'm crazy for throwing everything away."
You stepped closer and rain immediately soaked through your shirt. "You're not crazy."
"I know that," he snapped. "But I don't know if I can do it without…" Michael turned fully toward you. Water ran down his face. His eyes—those huge, expressive eyes—were shining with something wild and angry and scared.
"Without you," he said, and it came out like an accusation.
You froze.
“I’ve tried,” he continued, voice rising over the rain. “God knows I’ve tried to keep it like it was. Just friends. But I can’t anymore. Every single time I leave this house, all I think about is getting back to you. I'll be sitting in the studio, Quincy will be talking, everybody's working, and somehow..." He clenched his fists in frustration. "...somehow I end up wondering if you're on the balcony. If you've eaten. If you're waiting up."
He looked away for a second, swallowing hard.
"I'll write something I love, and the first person I want to play it for is you. Something good happens..." He laughed again, "...I want to tell you before anybody else. Something goes wrong..." He shook his head. "I want you."
The rain had become heavier now, soaking through both of you.
"And I'm angry." His voice rose slightly. "I'm so angry because I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that." He took another step until there was barely any space left between you.
"I've got this chance—this one chance I've wanted my whole life—and every day it feels like it's pulling me farther away from the only person I've ever wanted to come home to."
"I hate leaving you here." His breathing had become uneven and his eyes were shining now, though whether from the rain or something else, neither of you could tell.
"And I hate..." His voice broke completely. "...I hate that after everything I've worked for... after everything I've dreamed about..." He shook his head helplessly. "None of it feels complete if you aren't in it."
The rain swallowed the silence. You couldn't speak.
You had imagined this moment a hundred times—always in secret, always right before sleep when your imagination was kinder than reality. In every version, it had been soft. Never with him standing in front of you like his heart had been torn open and left bleeding in the storm.
"You don't have to say anything," he whispered.
The anger had drained out of him, leaving only exhaustion. "I just…" He swallowed hard, shaking his head as his eyes dropped to the soaked floorboards between you. "I've spent so long pretending this wasn't happening that I don't know how to stop. I couldn't leave without you knowing."
Michael dragged a hand down his face. His voice was barely audible beneath the rain. "One day you were the girl who sat on my bedroom floor reading books with me and then somehow you became the first person I look for every morning. The last person I think about before I fall asleep."
He stepped closer, rain trembling on his lashes.
"I don't know when it happened. I only know it happened to me."
Your chest ached with the weight of every unsaid thing you’d carried for years. You decided to reach for his hand, fingers interlocking with his—warm despite the cold rain. He looked down at your hand like it had answered every prayer he’d ever been afraid to speak.
When his eyes lifted again, they were glassy.
"So I wasn't imagining it," he breathed.
You shook your head, tears mixing with the rain. "I've loved you for so long, Michael… that I don't remember what it felt like before."
He stared at you, stunned.
"I love you. I'm in love with you," you said again, clearer this time, voice breaking.
Something inside him finally shattered. Michael rested his forehead against yours with relief. Your noses brushed.
"I love you too," he whispered, the words raw and reverent against your lips. "God, I love you. I've loved you for years." He said it like the confession had been waiting his whole life to be set free.
"So many years…" he murmured.
"So many." You repeated.
His hand came up slowly, brushing rain-soaked strands of hair from your face exactly the way he had months ago on that same balcony. This time he didn’t apologize, his thumb lingered on your cheek.
"Is this okay?" he asked softly.
You leaned into his touch and that was all he needed.
He kissed you—first so gently it was barely a kiss at all, just the softest press of his lips to yours. Then deeper, surer, seven years of almosts melting away. His hand slid behind your neck, yours fisted in his soaked shirt, holding on like the storm might still try to tear you apart.
When you finally parted, foreheads still touching, neither of you opened your eyes. For the first time in years, coming home meant the same thing for both of you.
off the wall era michael jackson x girlfriend reader
summary: the bright and sunny morning after your sleepover with michael at his hayvenhurst home, you both try to make pancakes together and someone burns a whole stack and michael blames it on the stove. then after, he pushes you in for a surprise…!
contains!: shenanigans, playful teasing, humor, playful and soft michael, and soft kisses.
enjoy my baes!♡
the day began with a soft morning light, filling michaels room. yesterday he invited you over to his house for a sleepover. you truly think you had the best night of your whole entire life. you spent the whole day yesterday watching movies, playing all sorts of games, hugging, and making out. and during the movie you swore you wouldnt fall asleep but your eyes started to fight with yourself and you couldnt help it and you drifted off, your head resting on his chest. you dont know what happened next but all you know is you fell asleep on the coach and you woke up in his fluffy sheets on his huge bed and the sunlight sitting right on your silky brown hair making it warm. you roll over to look right next to you and there michael was. already looking at you and admiring you.
he mumbled “good morning darling.” while smiling slightly.
“good morning” you said while your cheeks were warming up and he obviously noticed and started smiling even more.
“you told me you wouldn’t fall asleep during the movie” he spoke quietly while he chuckled a little. god he looked so cute.
you laughed slightly, “i couldn’t help my self! we were watching a movie so boring i literally forgot what it was!”
he breathed out a smile and reached for your hands and cradled them in his own, and leaned in, the space between you two barely there.
“oh my god michael! you better not! i havent brushed my teeth yet!” you cover your lips with your hands and his lips curved into a smile.
“Y/N, i seriously do not care.” and moved your soft hands and leaned in like he couldn’t help himself and kissed you. as he pulled away, you felt your expression pull into a smile.
“now lets go brush our teeth?” you teased.
he started to ease himself out of bed. and so did you and after you both brushed your teeth, you both slowly made your way down the grand staircase. and he reminded you “ohh!, remember when we both wanted to make pancakes”
you smiled and replied, “oh yeah! lets make them today” you saw his cheeks flush and he quickly turned away after that pretending to be admired by the chandelier sparkling in the california sun.
you entered the beautiful kitchen that was glowing under the sunlight, you made the batter and yes, you. you. made the batter while michael was laying down on the counter right next to you trying to think of a song name.
he obviously starts to get overwhelmed and starts talking faster and faster, “ugh i just cant get it! its in my head bu-”
you cut him off putting the whisk down, looking into his eyes and you quip, “michael you think of it later! now im done with the batter” you lift the bowl and tilt it to show him “come help me cook these.” he stands up grabs a spatula and starts to flip pancakes with you. your pancakes seem perfect and your focus is on your own pan but it breaks when he says “genuinely, how are you doing that?” you look over at his pan and his pancakes are burnt to a crisp. you look up at his face and hes already looking at you with that upside down smile, he always does when he trying not to burst out laughing. you start to look at him with that same exact smile and suddenly the kitchen howled with laughter it was so loud you think you heard tito let out a huge groan with frustration blended into it. you immediately stop and look over at michael and finally say “look lemme show you how to not burn your pancakes”
“i swear its not me its the stove!” he laughed in defeat
you giggled as you playfully pushed him to the side, “right right”
you demonstrate how to do it and whispered under your breath “here” you give off a light smile and hand him the spatula.
about 3 minutes later
you peek over at his hands doing it all correctly
you gave a teasing smile “ohh so it was the stove that burnt those right?” and then you look at his pretty face with the curls softly bouncing and laying against his forehead, and you make striking eye contact with him.
he grinned, “okay! lets go eat breakfast?”
you both go to the table and eat breakfast. when your done you make sure you leave a lot of pancakes for the rest of the family for when they wake up, leaving the whole house smelling like pancakes and maple syrup.
“lets so get some fresh air?” you asked
“oh yeah great idea” he answered
you opened the back door leading into the huge backyard with the pool and a vivid green lawn michael behind you following.
you say gently “god its so beautiful outside”
he catches up to you and grabs your hand, but not aggressively, gently like he’s afraid to hurt you. and laced his fingers with yours. you lean down against his arm as you guys walk near the pool. as you walk up to touch the pool water to see if its hot or cold and without a warning you feel his hand leaving yours and then suddenly you feel two hands on your back knocking you into the pool.
you scream. loudly. mad but also laughing, “MICHAEL! WHAT THE HELL?”
he stands there and laughs, before you knew it hes running towards you and jumps into the pool with you, he rises up from the water and lunges towards you into a hug you are both out of breath and laughing without stopping, he pulls away from the hug and he leans in and kisses you, like hes been holding it back. his taste still with a hint of maple syrup.the aura around you two smells like a mix of chlorine, a vibrant mix of spices and even a delicate trace of fresh lemon with musk. mixing with even more chlorine and vanilla and with a whisper of pear and spun sugar from you. the moment felt magical, almost unreal. wait no, not almost it felt unreal
he stares into your soul and affectionately lets out a voice barely above a whisper “i love you Y/N, i love you so so much.”
the pool water still circling around you two. its cold, but with michael it feels warm.
you look down slightly and say with a light touch in your voice “and theres no words to describe how much i love you michael.” you look up again
he closes the distance between you two and places his lips with quiet intensity.
Summary- A quiet night at Hayvenhurst leads to a conversation about love, devotion, and the kind of relationship that feels like it could last forever. Michael listens a little too closely. (1.6k words)
this req answered
Author’s note- Today is the day of his passing, so I will be posting a lot. I wanted it to feel like one of those moments where nothing big happens on the outside but everything changes internally.
The first time Michael noticed you, you were fourteen years old, sitting cross legged on the carpet of the Jackson family living room with a bowl of popcorn balanced carefully in your lap. The house was loud in the way it always was when everyone gathered at once. Voices overlapped, someone laughed too loudly, a chair scraped across the floor, and yet you stayed focused on the old black and white movie playing on the television like nothing else in the room existed.
That was what made him look at you first.
Not because you were trying to stand out. Not because you were trying to be seen. But because you weren’t.
A soft laugh slipped out of you at something on the screen, small and genuine, like it belonged only to you and the moment that caused it. Michael’s voice faded mid sentence while he was talking to his brothers. He didn’t even realize he had stopped speaking until he noticed he was no longer listening to himself.
He was listening to you instead.
After that, he started noticing things he didn’t expect to notice.
Not in a way that felt strange or overwhelming. It felt more like paying attention without meaning to, like his mind had quietly decided you were worth keeping track of.
The way you always went for the marshmallows in Lucky Charms before anything else.
The way your fingers moved absentmindedly against the cold glass of your drink when you were thinking, tracing little shapes only you could see.
The way you seemed drawn to older things, old music, old films, old stories that most people your age dismissed without a second thought. Stories about love that felt too big or too patient or too devoted to be real.
But you never called them unrealistic.
You looked at them like they were something to hope for.
Michael remembered all of it without trying to.
Years passed the way they always do, quietly and without asking permission. Now you were older, and the world outside the Jackson home had changed, but somehow this moment felt familiar in a way neither of you talked about.
Rain pressed softly against the windows of Hayvenhurst, steady and calming, turning the outside world into a blurred painting of gray and silver. You were curled into the corner of the couch with your feet tucked underneath you, flipping through television channels with slow, lazy movements like you weren’t in any rush to find anything in particular.
Michael sat nearby, not too close, not too far, his attention drifting more than it settled. His hands were occupied with the rings he always wore, turning them gently without really thinking about it.
Then the screen caught your attention.
An old movie appeared, black and white, slightly grainy, and your expression changed immediately. It was subtle, but Michael noticed anyway.
“I love this movie,” you said, like it was something you had been waiting to find.
Michael’s eyes lifted at your voice, and for a moment the rest of the room disappeared. He had not been paying attention to the television at all. He rarely did when you were around. It was always easier to pay attention to you instead.
“You do?” he asked quietly.
There was something about the way he asked questions when you spoke about things you cared for. It never felt like interrogation. It felt like interest that had nowhere else to go.
You nodded faintly, still watching the screen. “Yeah. I think it’s far out.”
He let that sit for a second, not because he didn’t understand you, but because he liked the way you said things. The way your thoughts sounded when they left your mouth.
“What is it called again?” he asked, even though he had the feeling you had told him before.
You glanced at him with a small, knowing look. “You forgot?”
A soft, slightly embarrassed smile appeared on his face.
“Maybe.”
You laughed under your breath, not unkindly, and turned back toward the television.
“It’s The Addams Family.”
On screen, Gomez Addams lifted Morticia’s hand and kissed it like it was the most natural thing in the world to treat someone with that kind of devotion.
Michael noticed the way you watched that moment like it meant something more than just a scene.
“Why do you like it so much?” he asked.
You paused, your chin resting lightly on your knee as you thought about it. The question didn’t feel strange to you. It never did when it came from him. Michael had always been curious in a way that made you feel like your answers mattered.
Still, tonight something about his attention felt different. Not louder. Just closer.
“The characters feel real to me,” you said after a moment.
He tilted his head slightly, listening without interruption.
You gestured faintly toward the screen. “Take Gomez. What other man talks about his wife like that? He acts like he adores her every second of the day.” A soft, almost dreamy smile touched your lips. “And Morticia is the same way with him. They don’t act like they’re tired of each other or bored or anything like that. They just choose each other. Over and over again.”
Michael stayed quiet, but he didn’t look away.
“I think that’s what love is supposed to be,” you continued more softly. “Not something you hide or tone down or get embarrassed about. Just… devoted.”
The word settled in the room like it belonged there.
Outside, the rain kept falling in a steady rhythm against the glass.
On the television, Gomez once again reached for Morticia’s hand like he had done it a thousand times and would do it a thousand more.
You watched it with a faint smile, almost lost in your own thoughts.
“I want something like that someday,” you said, simple and honest, like you were stating a fact about the weather.
Something in Michael shifted at that. Not visibly. Not in a way anyone else would notice. But inside, it felt like something warm and quiet tightening in his chest.
Because he understood you in a way you did not fully see yet.
He understood how deeply you meant things when you spoke like that. He understood how you didn’t say things for attention. You said them because they were real to you.
And because of that, every word mattered.
He looked down for a moment, focusing on the rings on his fingers so he wouldn’t stare too openly. His thumb moved slowly against one of them, a small grounding habit he had when his thoughts became too full.
Devoted.
The word stayed with him.
The room felt warmer than it had a moment ago, or maybe it was just that he was noticing it differently now. The storm outside made the windows flicker occasionally with pale light, and each flash seemed to briefly highlight the way you sat there completely unaware of the effect you had on him.
“You think it’s silly, don’t you?” you asked suddenly.
His head lifted immediately.
“What?”
“The whole Gomez and Morticia thing,” you said, adjusting slightly against the cushion. “People always think it’s dramatic or unrealistic.”
Michael’s expression shifted right away, almost protective in a quiet way.
“I don’t think it’s silly,” he said.
You turned to look at him fully now.
He didn’t rush his words. He rarely did when it mattered.
“I think people just get embarrassed about loving someone like that,” he continued. “About caring that much.”
That made you quiet for a moment.
The television continued playing, but neither of you were really watching it anymore.
Michael leaned back slightly against the couch, but his attention stayed completely on you. “If you really love somebody,” he said carefully, choosing each word as if it had weight, “you should show it. All the time. Not just sometimes.”
Your chest tightened slightly at the simplicity of it.
“Even after a long time?” you asked.
He nodded once.
“Especially then.”
There was no hesitation in his voice. No doubt.
His eyes flicked briefly toward the screen before returning to you again.
“Gomez still looks at Morticia like he can’t believe she’s real,” he said softly.
A small smile formed on your face. “Exactly.”
“And she looks at him the same way.”
That made you smile wider, something warm and easy settling into your expression.
Only then did you notice it more clearly. The way Michael listened when you spoke. The way he remembered things you had said long before. The way he looked at you like your thoughts were something worth holding onto.
Your voice softened a little.
“You’ve thought about this before,” you said.
A quiet, shy laugh left him.
“Maybe a little.”
Outside, the rain continued, steady and patient, as the movie carried on without either of you really paying attention anymore.
You shifted slightly, hugging your knees closer. “You know what I think?”
Michael looked at you.
“What?”
You hesitated just long enough for it to feel thoughtful rather than uncertain.
“I think you’d love someone like that too,” you said gently.
The words landed quietly between you.
Michael’s breath caught, subtle but real.
Because you had no idea.
No idea how carefully he remembered you.
No idea how often he noticed the smallest things about you that nobody else seemed to see.
No idea how easily his mood changed just from hearing your voice.
No idea that everything you were describing, every soft idea about devotion and love, already lived in the way he felt about you in a way he never said out loud.
He looked down again, almost reflexively, as if that could hide anything.
And then, barely more than a breath, almost lost beneath the sound of the rain outside, he said it.
authors note — I have not written in such a long time but michael bought me out of hiding :) hope you enjoy (not proofread)
warning themes: smut smut smut smut smut smuttt
1984 — thriller era
You and Michael had been bestfriends ever since you could walk— there wasn’t a time that you could remember where he wasn’t somehow apart of your life.
Although you both shared similar careers, both growing up in the industry and having to navigate the pressure of being the ‘best’ those times seemed a little easier when they knew they had eachother.
But under the title of ‘friendship’ there were underlying looks that presented the idea that the feelings you too had for eachother were… more.
When the lights are low and it’s just you two, you can’t deny the tension that lies there. The eye contact that ignites a fire that you never thought you could have, the pit in your stomach when his hands lie on the small of your back a bit too long…. or when he hugs you and all you can feel is him, pressed up against you in such a non intimate way yet it felt so.. so good.
or when your in your bed late at night and all you can think about is how big his hands are— and how big he is compared to you and how all you want is to feel his hands on you in a dirty disgusting way. Very dirty. Just friends, right?
Michael on the other hand had always have a crush on you. Had always looked at you with pleading eyes, as if he was begging you to touch him.
What you didn’t notice was how his pants tightened when you’d bend down to pick something up and all he desired was to bend you over and fuck you
Or when you hugged him and he purposely held on longer so he could feel your tits pressed up against his chest… how he groaned at the thought of your pretty hands wrapped around his cock.
Just friends.
The room glows softly as you look up at your best-friend michael finally breaking from the filthy thoughts you were having.
“What were ya thinkin’ about?” You break your eye contact with the floor and look up at him with a soft smile “Oh nothin’… was just thinkin’ about how much you suck at twister”
You both bust into contagious laughter as michael softly swats you away from him playfully “Oh, you got jokes huh?” He smiles, shaking his head.
Before you could tease him more he swiftly gets off of the bed. your eyes trace his body as he walks over to his closet where his favorite game twister lies. People saw the Michael Jackson that was fluent in dancing but he was also fluent in the way he moved. So smooth— even elegant.
“We’re gonna test your little joke out right now, ma’am” He says playfully pointing a finger at you, a smile on his face looking at you with those pleading eyes again.
“Nah C’mere let’s talk… we have all the time in the world to play our game” You say, deflecting, with a smile on your face, but you knew he’d beat you anyway.
Michael looks up at her with a frown before placing the game hidden away in his closet once again. You pat next to where you are sat on his bed, with a warm smile.
You two begin engaging in a conversation that captivates you both— talking about your new projects and how life in the spotlight has been so far.
Michael catches himself looking at your lips routinely as you talk. He soon realizes that the words that leave your mouth seem to be fading into a hum, they also seem to be secondary to the movement of your glazed lips…
“Mikey?” The sound of his name snaps him out of his trance he looks up, a smile now stretched out on his face, his very now blotchy red face.
He was blushing.
“You okay? You seemed lost for a minute” you say your voice soft enough that only he and the walls of this room could hear.
“Y-yeah, im sorry— just got lost in my thoughts” He felt his pants tighten, his cock growing hard at the sound of her voice, and the look on her face.
God, he couldn’t believe he was gettin hard from a girls expression, let alone her voice.
“Uh— anyways. Keep talkin’ about your uh– album?” You roll your eyes playfully slapping him– and at the physical touch he literally whimpers. Whimpers!
You stare at him, your mouth agape in mute bewilderment. “Mikey… are you sure you’re okay, honey?”
He closes his eyes in mild embarrassment, scrunching his face. “Fuck.” He groans his head falling back “You have absolutely no idea, do you?”
The cuss word sounded abnormal falling from his lips. The same lips that prayed before eating dinner, or praised God in church.
“Michael, what the hell is wrong with you?” You say playfully, clearly confused at the comment.
Michael reaches over to you… slowly, slowly grabbing your hand, he looks at you waiting for a okay, his eyes begging. Begging for an inch… an inch so he could take a mile.
You nod, not necessarily knowing what you’re signing up for— Michael grabs your hand and slowly brings it to the bulge that sits in his trousers.
You can feel the warmth– the swell of his cock and the precum that clearly spilled out onto his pants.
“F-Fuck” He groans his head once again falling back in ecstasy, and you had barely even touched him.
“Michael, you’re leakin for me…” You couldn’t contain your laughter, it spills out of you. Michael looks up— his hand covering his eyes in embarrassment
“I just found it funny how hard you got from us simply just talking. It’s cute.” You say a smile on your face, your hand still hovering over his clothed cock.
You lift your leg up before slowly moving to straddle his thighs.
“You’ve been so patient for me, Mikey.” You whisper, wrapping your arms around his neck— “Such a good boy” A whimper falls out his pretty lips at those words, you swear you felt him get harder.
He gripped your waist, you could feel how painfully hard your boy was and you begin to slowly… torturingly slow grind upon his clothed cock.
You both let out a moan at the pleasure that the friction was providing “Fuck, Mikey..” the skirt you wear obviously ridden up as your now ruined panties begins to now ruin Michael’s pants.
“Fuck— all this for me?” He said looking down at the wetness pooling out onto your thighs. He looked at you as if he was hungry, dying for a snack.
“Yes baby, all for you, always been for you.” you grip his chin roughly producing another groan from his lips as you continue to grind down on his cock as if you’re a cat in heat.
He looks at you using his right hand to cover his eyes once again.
“Baby… show me what you look like when you cum.” You say ripping his arm from his face…
He lets out one final whimper before his hips are rippling into yours as he cums in his pants… “Jesus Christ” he says his body falling down onto the bed, taking you with him.
“We still friends right?” Michael says looking up an eyebrow raised.
