⋮ ♯; ⤷ TWO DAYS TOO LONG .ᐟ
pairing: michael jackson x fem!reader wc: 4.7k (i got carried away a lil) summary: two days apart shouldn’t feel like forever but try telling that to your husband. based on this request by @miss-kuki-nz (thank you! i enjoyed writing this) warnings: none, just pure fluff <3 also, the kids remain unnamed. i wasn’t sure what to do w that so they’re just referred to as “your son” and “your daughter” lol
November 7th, 2001
The crisp November air nipped at your cheeks as you stepped out of the car onto the bustling sidewalks of Manhattan at West 45th. Giant billboards flashed advertisements for Michael’s new album, Invincible, and massive screens on the buildings displayed the different covers in rotation. Your heart raced with a mix of excitement and nerves. You adjusted the strap of the diaper bag slung over your shoulder, glancing down at your two little ones. Your son, four years old with his father’s curious eyes and a mop of curls peeking from under a wool beanie, clutched your hand tightly. Your daughter, three and full of energy wrapped in a tiny pink coat, held onto your other hand, her small fingers warm despite the chill.
They’d been asking for their Daddy nonstop for the past two days.
“When is he coming home?” your son had whispered all morning on the plane, his voice small but hopeful.
“Soon, darling,” you’d promised. And now, that soon was here.
Michael had flown out to New York a couple of days earlier for this special signing event at the Virgin Megastore—his first-ever in-store appearance to celebrate Invincible. The album had dropped just over a week ago, and the world was buzzing. But being apart, even for a short time, felt like an eternity. The kids missed their father terribly; bedtime stories without his gentle voice reading them felt incomplete. And you missed your husband.
“Surprise time,” you murmured to the children, kneeling briefly to fix your daughter’s scarf. “We’re going to make Daddy so happy.”
Your son nodded solemnly. “We stay in line and wait for our turn?”
“Exactly,” you confirmed with a smile.
You’d secured the album and special passes through a discreet call to Michael’s team who were in on the secret and coordinated everything so you could blend into the line without drawing attention. Security was tight, but a few trusted people had helped make the surprise possible.
New York was still tender. You’d felt it the moment you landed. Something slower in people’s movements, this kind of gentleness that hadn’t been there before September. And yet here they were, hundreds of fans, standing in the cold to be near something that felt good.
The line stretched further than you’d anticipated. It wound from the entrance of the Virgin Megastore, down the block, and curved around 6th Avenue where a cluster of fans had been gathering since before sunrise, you were told. Hundreds of people, maybe more, bundled in coats and scarves and clutching their copies of Invincible to their chests like something precious.
You found your place in the queue and settled in.
“There are so many people here, mama,” your daughter observed, craning her neck to peer at the line ahead of you. Her breath made small clouds in the cold air.
“There are,” you agreed, shifting the diaper bag higher on your shoulder. “Daddy has a lot of fans. They are here because they love him.”
“More than us?”
You looked down at her upturned face, so earnest you felt your chest squeeze with something warm. “Nobody loves Daddy more than us, sweetheart.”
She seemed to accept this with great satisfaction, hugging her stuffed elephant tighter.
Your son was quieter, like he was thinking hard about something. He stood close to your side, his small hand still wrapped around yours, and watched the crowd with his father’s eyes—the same expression full of wonder, curiosity and attention that Michael had.
“Is he already inside?” he asked.
“He should be getting ready to come out soon, yes.”
“And he doesn’t know we’re here?”
“Not yet.”
A slow smile spread across his face. He liked surprises. He’d gotten that from his father too.
The wait was long, and you’d come prepared.
You’d packed juice boxes and little foil-wrapped crackers, a small activity book that your son quickly lost interest in, and a travel-sized container of animal crackers that your daughter rationed with the seriousness of a tiny accountant, counting each one before eating it. You’d brought an extra pair of mittens for each of them, which proved necessary when your son declared his hands were frozen approximately forty minutes into the wait.
Around you, fans speculated about what he might be wearing, whether he’d speak much, whether he’d sing anything. A group of teenagers near you had been practicing what they wanted to say to him, coaching each other, dissolving into nervous giggles every few minutes. You listened to them with quiet fondness. You understood that feeling. Even now, after everything, Michael still gave you that flutter. Maybe more so, because now you knew him. The whole of him, not just the image and somehow that made it more, not less.
Your daughter tugged your sleeve. “Mama. I’m cold.”
You crouched down and pulled her close, rubbing her arms briskly through her coat. “Better?”
She leaned into you, resting her chin on your shoulder, and sighed the contented sigh of a child who had decided warmth was satisfactory. “Can Daddy come home after this?”
“That’s the plan, sweetheart.”
“Good.” She patted your cheek once with her mittened hand. “I miss him, mama.”
“I know, baby. He misses you too.”
You thought of the phone call from last night, after the kids were asleep. Michael’s voice low and a little tired, the way it got when he’d been performing or working for too long and needed to just be himself for a minute. I miss you. I miss the kids. Tell me something normal. Tell me what you had for dinner. And you’d laughed and told him about the pasta your son had refused to eat and the way your daughter had spilled orange juice on the dog, and he’d laughed too, and for a little while it had been like he was right there.
“He said he couldn’t wait to see you,” you told her.
She smiled and tucked her face against your neck.
A ripple moved through the line—a surge of murmuring and you straightened up, your pulse jumping. Through the glass front of the store you could see movement, figures in dark clothing, the deliberate organized energy of a security detail coordinating itself.
“Mama,” your son said quietly, moving closer to you. “Is it time?”
“Almost,” you said. Your voice came out steadier than you felt.
You watched through the glass, trying to catch a glimpse. The staff inside were moving with more purpose now. Someone adjusted a display. A woman with a headset spoke into it with focused urgency. And then;
There he was.
Even from this distance, even through the glass and the crowd and the slight distortion of the window, you knew him instantly. He emerged from a back area wearing a royal blue silk shirt with matching pants, his dark hair falling past his jaw. He was speaking to someone beside him, nodding, and even from here you could see the quiet tension in his shoulders that meant he was preparing himself for the scale of it all.
Your son made a small sound which was not quite a word and you felt his grip tighten on your hand.
“Not yet,” you murmured. “We wait for our turn. Remember?”
He nodded, pressing his lips together, practically vibrating with eagerness.
The line began to move in earnest. Groups of fans filtered through the entrance, spent their moment at the table, emerged back through a side door with teary eyes and trembling hands. You heard various noises from inside; applause, squeals, the sustained low roar of excitement. Every few minutes the queue shuffled forward.
You were maybe thirty people back when your daughter started flagging.
She’d been a trooper, genuinely, more patient than you had any right to expect from a three-year-old in the cold for over an hour. But the warmth you’d maintained with crackers and cuddles along with the distraction of the glittery star stickers was wearing thin, and she was beginning to list against your leg with the boneless weight of a child approaching the edge of her reserves.
“Up?” she asked, lifting her arms.
You settled her on your hip and felt her immediately go limp with relief, her head dropping to your shoulder. It was going to be difficult for you to carry her comfortably for long, but you decided to go for as long as you could. Your son pressed close to your other side, alert again now that the end was visible, his earlier quiet replaced by a barely-contained energy.
Twenty people. Then fifteen.
You could hear Michael’s voice now, just barely, filtering through the sounds of the crowd, brief exchanges, warm and low. You couldn’t make out words, only tone. You knew that tone.
Ten people. Eight.
Your daughter had fallen into a light doze against your shoulder, which you took as both a mercy and a complication. You pressed a kiss to her temple and kept her steady.
Five people.
Your son looked up at you. His eyes were bright, serious, his father’s eyes in his father’s expression with the look of concentrated emotion, too big to fully contain, being held carefully.
“Mama,” he whispered.
“I know, darling. We’re almost there,” you whispered back.
Three people. Two.
One.
And then it was your turn.
A staff member held back the small velvet divider and smiled at you knowingly. “Right this way, Mrs. Jackson.” He took the diaper bag off your shoulder and passed it on to another staff member, signaling them to place it somewhere safe.
You took a breath and walked forward.
The table was set up near the center of the floor, with displays of the album on all with all five covers. The overhead lights were bright, and there was a backdrop behind the table, and there were cameras, staff members positioned at intervals, and a whole organized infrastructure of the thing. You took it all in in a peripheral, secondary way because the primary thing was him.
Michael sat at the table with a Sharpie in his hand and his attention on the album being placed in front of him, saying something to the previous person that was wrapping up.
He hadn’t looked up yet.
The previous fan moved away and a staff member reached for your album to place it on the table, and you shifted your sleeping daughter on your hip, and took the last step forward, and Michael looked up—
And stopped.
The Sharpie hovering above the album cover, his eyes landing on you and then widening like something cracked open in his face, all the careful measured grace of the public version of him dissolving instantly and completely.
He stared at you for one second, two—
“Surprise!” you said softly.
Your son, who had been managing himself with admirable restraint for nearly two hours, completely abandoned any further effort at restraint. “Daddy!”
And Michael was already moving.
He was on his feet before the word had fully left your son’s mouth, already coming around the table, the Sharpie forgotten, the album forgotten, everything forgotten except the small boy who had broken into a run toward him. He dropped to his knees right there on the floor of the Virgin Megastore and caught him, and your son hit him with the full momentum of several days of missing his father, both small arms wrapping around Michael’s neck, and Michael wrapped around him just as completely, one hand cradling the back of his head.
There was a murmur through the crowd of staff and waiting onlookers.
Michael’s eyes were closed. His jaw worked. He held your son like he was checking something, making sure something was still true, and then he pressed his face into your son’s hair and you heard him exhale, a slow, shuddering breath.
“Hey, buddy,” he managed. His voice was rough. “Hey. I got you.”
The four-year old said something muffled into Michael’s shoulder. You couldn’t hear it. After a long moment, he finally lifted his head and looked at you.
In all the years you’d known him, in all the ways you’d seen him look at you with love, with gratitude, with the tender warmth he reserved for you alone, you weren’t sure you’d ever seen him look at you quite like this. Like you’d done something he hadn’t known how to ask for.
His eyes were wet.
“Hey,” you said.
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Hi.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “What are you—how did you—“
“We took a plane, daddy!” your son informed him, pulling back to look at his father’s face.
Michael laughed as he pressed his forehead to your son’s briefly before standing, keeping one arm around him and turning to you.
He reached out and touched your face with his free hand—fingertips only, brushing your cheekbone gently.
“You brought them all the way here,” he said.
“They were going crazy without their daddy. I was going crazy without you.”
“You could have called. I would have set everything up—”
“Absolutely not.” You shifted your daughter on your hip, and she stirred faintly at the movement, grumbling without waking. “We stood in line like respectable fans. We wanted the element of surprise.”
“You stood in line?”
“Yes.”
His expression was something close to disbelief. “Baby. It’s so cold outside, I don’t want you guys getting sick.”
“We had crackers while we waited,” your son offered helpfully. “And she got glittery star stickers.”
Michael looked at the star sticker on his daughter’s coat, now slightly crumpled from being carried. He reached out carefully and touched the sticker, then looked up at you.
“How long has she been knocked out for?”
“She almost made it the whole way from departure but crashed right before the event started.”
He was already reaching for her, his hands going to her with the practiced ease of a father who had spent countless hours with his baby draped over him. You transferred her carefully, and she shifted in the transition—made a small complaining sound and then her head found Michael’s shoulder and she settled immediately. Her tiny head fit perfectly in the space between Michael’s shoulder and neck.
He tucked her close and looked at you over her head.
“You must be so tired, baby,” he said.
“Not really, I am not the one signing albums.”
There was a brief disruption while the team figured out what to do with the four of you. Michael’s manager appeared at his elbow, murmuring something into his ear, he listened and nodded while keeping one arm around your son and holding your daughter with the other. He looked down at the boy while he listened and made a face—a silly face meant only for his son—which always earns him a laugh.
Some rearrangement happened. A small area was cleared slightly to the side of the main table. A staff member brought over a chair. The signing would continue—Michael had insisted on that but you and the kids would be nearby rather than shuffled off to a waiting room somewhere, and a couple of additional security team members were repositioned to keep the immediate area clear.
It was handled with the efficiency of people who were practiced at managing extraordinary circumstances, and within a few minutes it had simply become the new arrangement, absorbed into the event without further disruption.
You sat down with your daughter, who had finally surfaced into drowsy wakefulness and was now sitting in your lap looking around the store with an unbothered expression of someone still partially in a dream. Your son had stationed himself right beside Michael’s chair and was watching everything with wide, attentive eyes—the fans as they approached, the albums being signed, his father’s steady and gracious presence through it all.
“I wanna sign albums too, daddy!” he insisted.
“Oh, do you now?”
The little boy nodded enthusiastically.
“Here, let me see your autograph first.” Michael pulled a spare piece of paper toward him and handed him a Sharpie.
Scribbling an unintelligible mess, he handed the paper back to his father.
Michael examined the scribbles with exaggerated seriousness, turning it sideways as though he were evaluating a priceless work of art.
“This is actually much better than my autograph.”
“It is?”
“Oh, absolutely.” He tapped the paper. “Look at this confidence. Look at these bold artistic choices.”
The four-year old beamed. Michael leaned closer and lowered his voice conspiratorially.
“I think I’ll have to let you sign an album just for Daddy.”
“Really?!”
“Mm-hm.” Michael glanced toward the line of waiting fans. “The fans aren’t ready for this level of talent yet.”
A few people nearby burst out laughing.
The last fan came through and the staff began the gentle, organized process of winding down the event. Adjusting displays, speaking into headsets, beginning the conclusion of the event. Michael signed the final album, spoke the final kind words, and the person left with the same shining eyes as everyone before them.
Then the table was just a table.
Michael set down the Sharpie and turned, and for the first time in the past hour or so he wasn’t in the middle of something. He exhaled slowly and rolled his shoulders once, and you recognized that particular exhale—that he was really tired but still gave his all to the fans.
Your daughter held up her stuffed elephant. “Daddy. Look.”
He crossed the few steps between you and crouched down in front of her. “I’m looking.”
“His name is Peanut.”
“I remember Peanut,” Michael smiled.
“He came on the plane.”
“That was very brave of him. He’s as brave as my princess.”
She considered this, then held the elephant out toward him. Michael accepted it with appropriate gravity, examined it, and handed it back. She tucked it under her arm, satisfied, and then reached out and patted his cheek with one small hand, the same gesture she’d given you in the cold outside.
He gathered her up and stood, settling her on his hip, and turned to find your son already close, leaning against his side in that particular way kids had of simply annexing a parent’s space. Michael put a hand on the back of his head, ruffling his curls gently.
“You both waited in line,” Michael said. He was talking to both of them, but his eyes found yours over their heads. “I hope you did not trouble mama too much.”
“Mama said we had to be patient,” your son told him.
“She was correct.” His voice was dry but warm. “She always is.”
“I know,” the boy said, with an earnestness so complete it almost sounded like a medical fact.
You stood up and looked at Michael.
In his arms, your daughter was braiding a section of his hair with focused concentration. At his side, your son was speaking a mile a minute about the plane and the clouds and his unsuccessful mission to find their house from the sky. And Michael listened to all of it, and at the same time he was looking at you.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
You took a step closer. “For what?”
“For doing this.” He shifted the girl slightly, freeing one hand, and reached out to touch your face again, fingertips at your cheekbone, like he was still checking. “For standing in the cold for I don’t even know how long. For bringing them. For—” He stopped. His jaw tightened briefly. “I needed this. I didn’t say so, but—”
“I know,” you said.
“You always know.” A faint, quiet smile. “That’s why I’m thanking you.”
You closed the remaining distance and leaned up to press a kiss to the corner of his jaw, brief and soft. He turned his head into it slightly, like a reflex.
“We’re in public,” you murmured.
“So?” he said, his voice low.
“So behave,”
“God forbid a husband missed his beautiful wife and wants to kiss her.”
“You’ll survive,” you laughed, and your daughter looked up at the sound of it with bright interested eyes. Your son stopped talking about the plane ride long enough to look at both of you with the mildly suspicious expression of a child who knew something was happening that was for grownups.
His staff had arranged cars. That was the other thing about Michael’s staff, the logistics that had an invisible coordination that moved things from one arrangement to another. You’d half expected some debate about hotels, about whether you’d all head to a restaurant first, about the details of the evening. Instead, there was simply a car waiting when you emerged from the side entrance of the store, and a small security presence around it, and a team member who smiled at your children and told them both they’d been very patient today.
Michael settled both kids in the car, buckling them securely.
“Hotel’s not far,” he looked at you.
“Good. Somebody’s going to be fully asleep in about eight minutes.”
He glanced at your daughter already leaning heavily against her brother. A small smile. His hand found the small of your back briefly.
“Come on,” he said.
She was asleep in six. Your son made it to the hotel lobby before his eyes started losing the fight, and by the time you’d gotten upstairs and through the door of the suite and managed the brief logistics of pajamas, he was moving on autopilot, responding to instruction with the half-conscious compliance of a child running on fumes.
Michael took over without discussion and that was something you’d loved about him from early on. How fatherhood came to him naturally. You caught fragments from the bathroom where you were washing your face, removing the makeup of the day: the beginning of a bedtime story and the specific register he used only with them.
By the time you came back into the room, both children were in the hotel bed, and Michael was just rising from where he’d been sitting at the edge of it, his voice trailing off from wherever the story had left them.
He stood up and looked at them for a long moment.
“She’s got a new thing she does,” you said quietly. “With her hands when she’s falling asleep.”
Michael glanced back at your daughter.
“Braiding things. She was doing it to my hair earlier.” He said immediately. “She started about three weeks ago.”
Your gaze drifted to the little girl. Even now, her tiny fingers were absentmindedly twisting the edge of her blanket as sleep pulled her under.
You hadn't even realized when the habit had started but Michael did.
“And he’s taller.”
“What?” You snorted.
“I’m serious.”
“Michael, you’ve been gone two days. That’s not how growing works.”
“Time zones. California’s three hours behind New York. That’s three whole extra hours of growing.”
You pinched the bridge of your nose and shook your head, fighting a laugh. “Michael…”
He put his arm around you, and you leaned into him, as you both stood there for a moment in the soft dim hotel room. Your children sleeping, the city a distant murmur outside.
“I’m glad you came,” he said.
“I’m glad we came too.”
“The line, though.” He shook his head slightly. “You didn’t have to. The kids must be so tired and cold. And you had them all by yourself.”
“We wanted to. We wanted to be in the line with everybody else.” You tilted your head up to look at him. “I wanted to see your reaction when you didn’t know we were coming.”
A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth.
"You got me."
"I know."
"And they were very well behaved," you continued.
Michael's eyebrows rose.
“You should've called me."
"And said what?" You laughed. "'Michael, come rescue me from the line you're currently signing for’?”
"Yes. Would have dropped everything to be with my family.”
You turned toward him and he kissed you softly. His hand found your waist as he leaned in, pressing his lips briefly against yours before resting his forehead against yours for a moment.
When he pulled back you rested your head against his chest and listened to the steady, reliable sound of his heartbeat.
“Take me home tomorrow?” you murmured.
His arms tightened around you. “First flight.”
