clingy!michael who can’t go five minutes without touching you somehow. his hands need to feel your hair that he twirls between his fingers, your hands that are so unbelievably soft to him, and your legs that he kneads and squeezes.
clingy!michael who cuddles you everywhere and doesn’t care who’s looking. he’ll be messing around with the knobs on the soundboard, reaching past you while you sit on his lap. he tells you everything about what each button does, looking over to you every now and then to see if you’re still listening.
clingy!michael who pouts and becomes grumpy when you leave for work. “just stay for 5 more minutes? c’mon love, just cuddle for a little longer?”
clingy!michael who stays up till you get back late at night. his eyelids are becoming heavier with every passing minute. by the time you get home, he’s smiling from ear to ear, walking up you with quick steps with your blanket that smells of you wrapped around him, “gosh baby, i missed you.. i’d love to hear about your night.” he says through a big yawn.
clingy!michael who takes pictures of you anytime he can. you don’t even have to be posing for him. you could be writing poetry at your desk, or in the garden cloud-gazing with all his exotic animals lying around you. he wants to treasure you forever.
clingy!michael who wants to do date nights at home every night so you two won’t be surrounded by the loud environment of the city, worrying that fans and paparazzi will ruin your night. he’ll go to movie rental stores undercover and pick out a marathon of his and yours favourite movies, or write a detailed list for bill to pick up your favourite snacks and movies if he’s feeling too tired. he just wants you all to himself.
clingy!michael who still can’t believe he got so lucky with you. in the night with a full moon shining bright through the sheer curtains, he makes out each feature of your body like he’s memorised it. he traces his fingers against your hipbones, your shoulders, your inner thighs, and your perfect face. “it’s like you were sent from the heavens for me… i don’t know what i did to deserve this.” he whispers, mouth agape and eyes wide, “maybe it’s all the praying… my prayers were answered when i first laid eyes on you.”
yaaay i love U clingy michael GOD fuck he needs to come back.
synopsis: michael’s shaking with arousal at the mere small of your touch, bringing him close to tears at how much he needs you. he wanted your first time together to be special — but by god, he’s so horny he can’t wait to fuck you. all just from your touch.
warnings: sexual themes, smut, 18+, sub!mike
multiple anon requests! & inspo from this fic by @moonlitjane
A touch — that’s all it took.
A touch to have Michael suppressing a tremble that threatened to break from deep in his soul to travel through his tense body.
A touch that the receiver didn’t even notice they were giving.
Michael swallowed thickly — saliva trickling down his throat so slowly he worried he’d choke. But, anything to save him from the tantalising restraint he was forcing himself upon in this moment.
His eyes flickered over to your relaxed frame — a soft smile evident on your lips as your gaze remained on the TV in front of the pair of you, popcorn being nestled into your mouth.
To a passer-by, the scene was innocent — a young couple, going steady, spending the evening together with a warm, salty snack and their favourite late-night Television show.
What they wouldn’t notice is your leg — your oh so taunting leg that suddenly came up to rest against his own, pressing together so tightly there was no space left between.
Again, to a passer-by, this would be seen as fairly straightforward act from girlfriend to boyfriend — a leg pushed up against one another’s as they practiced close proximity.
But, to Michael, it was an enticing gesture that threatened to break any vices he had.
All because of one touch.
Your warm laughter at a particular humorous scene made Michael jump — something you still failed to notice. His mind, running away with itself at the simple push of one’s leg against his had him spiralling.
You and Michael had been seeing where things go, as they say, with your newly established relationship. You knew as he, being a global superstar and all, had slight experience with female companions in the past, but he’d assured you it was nothing too serious — nothing quite like what he felt for you.
Michael was a darling — something beyond a gentlemen, a gift sent from God himself. Generous, kind, gentle, tender and affectionate — Michael was your man. He treated you with the utmost respect, bowing down to his lady like his life depended on it, tending to any need you wanted, just because he wanted to see you smile.
You were desperately in love.
But, something.
Something was missing.
Something as little as a touch could fix.
You knew Michael was shy, especially so when it came to the topic of sexual activity.
You’d overheard conversations he’d had with his older brothers — Michael being teased for still not making love to his girl, and Michael’s shy, embarrassed response gave you every answer you needed as to why those acts had not occurred yet.
He was nervous.
Nervous beyond words.
Exactly how he felt right now.
You moved again, a subconscious shuffle, readjusting your self in your seat — harmless, right?
Not for Michael.
The way your jeans rubbed against his own, thigh on thigh, had his brain reeling with desire — his heart thumping so loud in his chest he was sure you could hear it. He felt utterly helpless as his body threatened to betray him right next to you.
"Popcorn?"
This time, when Michael physically jumped at your soft voice, you noticed — a playful giggle leaving your lips.
"Someone’s jumpy." You teased, "Everything okay?"
Michael swallowed again — forcing a smile onto his face to maintain his calm and collected persona as he met your sparkling eyes, a wave of infatuation cascading through him.
"A-All good." He forced out through pursed lips, feeling bashful under your gaze.
You hummed in response — clearly suspicious of his response, but choosing to brush past it, as you turned your attention back to the TV.
Michael let out a silent, shaky breath he didn’t know he was holding — his eyes fluttering shut momentarily as he composed himself. He was 20 years-old for Christ sake and was stuttering and blushing in front of his girl like he was a frigid adolescent.
"Knew something was up."
Michael jolted in his seat, eyes shooting open as they met your own, a knowing smirk on your face. But, what didn’t you didn’t realise and what he knew would make matters worse — was your manicured hand resting innocently on his clothed thigh.
Oh, Lord.
The one thing Michael was dreading in his passionate state of pining was the intimate feeling of your beautified nails on his strained leg. Your soft, perfect skin against him properly, no more denim on denim, his girl’s real-life hand, metaphorically burning a hole into his jeans.
Dreading it purely as he knew his traitorous cock would stiffen at the mere touch of your loving hands on his tensed leg.
And that it did.
"Hm?" He croaked out, voice breaking in his throat. Jesus, Michael, he thought.
"You’re tired, aren’t you?" You observed, incorrectly, "Shall we head up to bed?"
In your head, that translated to getting ready to fall into a slumber you assumed Michael needed. In Michael’s corrupted brain, he instantly went to the other activities couples get up to in bed.
With a bite of his bottom lip, his timid gaze flickered down to your hand, now rubbing comforting circles on his stiff leg. If there wasn’t a tent in his trousers before, there definitely was now.
You giggled softly at his shy demeanour, taking his warm hand in your own, missing the way his breath hitched, "Come on, I wanna get cosy."
Michael obeyed as you stood up, dragging him with you — your hand still encased in his, leading him towards the stairs. Humming as you flicked off the lights in each hallway, Michael gnawed his bottom lip continuously, anticipation radiating off him like heat.
Michael’s bedroom was relaxation encapsulated — dim, warm lighting, a record player waiting for his own beautiful voice to fill the room and a beautiful, large four-poster bed adorned with clean, cream linen sheets, almost begging to be used.
You sighed softly as Michael pressed the door closed, your hands disconnecting, a whine threatening to leave his lips at the sudden loss of connection, before you reached for the hem of your t-shirt. With your front turned to him, your nimble fingers began lifting your shirt over your head.
Michael gasped, turning his head the other way before his eager eyes came in contact with your bare skin. His heart drummed in his chest at the near vision of your breasts, the tent in his trousers throbbing at the thought.
You laughed lightly, "Michael?”
He huffed softly, words suddenly failing him as he still refused to look your way, "Y-You can’t just do that." He admitted, his voice laced with defeat.
You let your shirt fall from your fingers, back to its original placement around your middle, "What? Get changed?"
"Yes." Michael’s voice was one octave away from a whine.
"Why not? I’m your girlfriend, aren’t I?"
"Well, yes."
"And you’ve seen them before, haven’t you?"
Michael’s ears burnt at the thought, "Clothed but I suppose yes."
You chuckled at his frame — facing the window as still as statue, like he had committed a crime and was damned to never move again unless he wanted instant death. He looked utterly hopeless — his eyebrows furrowed nervously and his hands shaking at his hands at the mere idea you were threatening to get bare in front of him.
"Michael." You muttered, approaching him slowly, raising a hand to cup his red-hot cheek, burning with need, "I don’t mind you lookin’"
He shook his head rapidly, "I can’t."
You gently manoeuvred his face to look you in the eye, the visible bob of his throat highlighted his anxiousness, "Baby." You chuckled breathily, "Why not?"
"Because if I do, then I’ll wanna do things to you I shouldn’t."
Now you were the one whose breath was hitching in their throat. Your eyes widening slightly in shock at your ever so timid boyfriend’s words — you had been taking this slow as you knew he was new to sensual acts, as were you, but the way he was speaking had your clit twitching at the possibility of him being ready to go all the way.
"Michael." Your voice was quiet, tender — anticipating his next words as the unpredictability of him increased.
Your hand slid down his cheek, to the back of his neck, your fingers lacing through his curls that tapered the nape — a whine of need slipped past his lips that sent shivers down your spine.
His forehead dropped to yours — his body twitching at the feeling of your slender fingers twirling his tiny ringlet curls around each digit, the relentless feeling of undeniable arousal spreading through him like a rash.
Now flush against his body, heat exuding from him like a scolding furnace perforating your own skin, your clothed cunt was deliciously pressed against the reason Michael was so tetchy. You leaned up — pressing your needy lips against his own, a whine of pure joy emitting from Michael’s throat as you connected. His hands pressed against the small of your back tentatively, pushing you closer to him, if that was at all possible, as he pushed his tongue into your mouth. You gasped into him at his boldness, the desperate side of him blossoming at the mere touch of your lips.
His ever-growing, throbbing cock pushed against your crotch so perfectly, if your clothes weren’t on, he’d have slotted between your slick folds like a puzzle piece. A quiet whimper ripped from your throat at the feeling of him — hard and thick, a statement of his lust.
You peered up at him once more, disconnecting your lips, as your heart skipped a beat at the sight — Michael’s bottom lip pulling down in a pout, cheeks flushed pink, paired with his beautiful eyes brimming with tears at the overwhelming desire his body was yearning for.
"Oh, baby." You whispered, your fingers instinctively curling against his skin, the longing to protect and please him growing in your chest at his teary-eyed expression.
"I’m sorry." Michael whimpered, pressing his clothed boner into your body, "Can’t help it. Just wanna feel you."
Your knees nearly buckled at the submission he was providing you — his whiny, needy persona had you buzzing, your mind running away with itself.
"Honey, it’s okay." You reassured, his puppy-dog eyes meeting your reassuring ones, "Let me make it better."
Michael nodded quickly, his furrowed eyebrows deepening as you fell to your knees in front of him — his mouth falling agape at the sight of you below him. The most you’d ever done was desperately hump one another, clothed, before mutual orgasming in your underwear — you’d never seen one another fully bare before, let alone have him in your mouth. Just as your eager reached for the buckle on his slacks, his hands grasped yours, swiftly but gently.
"Wait — I-I can’t make you strain yourself for me." He revealed, worriedly.
You smiled lovingly up at him, the reminder that no matter how aroused he was — he was still that perfect gentlemen underneath.
"Just for tonight — since it’s so uncomfortably hard for my baby."
Michael thought for a second — his brain fighting his gentlemanly instincts against his pleasure-hungry opponent, before nodding once more, giving you all the consent needed. Your hands worked quickly — the buckle of his smart trousers coming undone and being pushed down his legs, along with his boxers, before he could even register.
You gawked at the sight before you — Michael’s thick, heavy cock bobbing in your face, pre-cum drooling from the flushed tip keenly. Your lips fell open, subconsciously begging to have him slip inside your mouth, as you admired his manhood. Michael groaned above you in embarrassment — his hands coming up to cover his blushing face, the sight of you marvelling at his hard-on had him bashful.
With a shaky wrist and a glob of saliva, your hand wrapped delicately around his shaft — the noise that left Michael’s covered lips had you rubbing your thighs together. Your slick palm instrumentally pumping him, up and down, up and down, up and down, dangerously slow. He was a mess above you — arms around his head, buried into his inner elbow as he whined, pushing his lips into your enclosed fist, the sensation of his throbbing cock fucking your lubricated hand had his knees threatening to buckle.
Your lips encased around Michael’s tip without warning — sending the poor boy into shock. His hand flew to your head, entangling his long fingers in your hair as you slid him deeper into your warm, wet mouth.
The feeling that did send Michael’s knees buckling was when your eager tongue, cock still 5 inches deep in your throat, traced the pulsing vein underneath his shaft.
Michael crumbled to the bed, his bare backside hitting the mattress in a tumble — his mewls of burning desire failing to mimic his fall, but only increasing as you hummed in surprise around him, your hands grasping at his meaty thighs at the sudden flail.
In the chaos of his collapse, Michael’s pulsating dick forced itself perfectly at the back of your throat — all of his inches slithering into your willing mouth. You cried around him — tears now brimming the corners of your eyes as Michael yelped beneath you, succumbing to the feeling of his tip abusing your uvula. The rumble of your wail around him had Michael purring out whimpers of pure ecstasy, revelling at the feeling of you gagging around his cock.
Michael could sense the climb of his climax becoming increasingly clearer — his shaking hands coming up to slide your mouth off of him. With a huff of desperation, his antsy voice sounded in your ears.
"Please — wanna do it inside you."
Nodding restlessly, climbing up his seated frame — pushing his chest back against the bed to lay him down fully. Standing, you slithered out of your clothes — your bare body rendering Michael speechless as your glorious hips, tits and waist hit his vision. Finally, you climbed out of your undergarments — pulling your damp panties off your quivering legs, holding them in your hand as you crawled to slide either side of his hips.
"Open." Your commanding voice had Michael throbbing against his stomach — his cock achingly hard as he obeyed you willingly, sliding his mouth open.
As your enthused hand wrapped around his base, sliding his drooling tip between your folds — your hands crawled to his face, obsessing over the needy expression on his face.
"Be a good boy for me and stay quiet, okay? Gonna make my baby feel so much better."
Cramming your damp panties into his keen mouth, you stuffed your wavering cunt full of his cock — a predictable groan of his relief filling the material. Michael revelled at the taste of your arousal his tongue as he stretched your cunt to the sheer size of him — the sweet, tangy essence of you clouding his taste buds. His hands shook against your hips where he gripped you so tight you were certain bruises would be remain. You too let the tremor of pleasure possess your body as Michael stuffed you full to the brim, his tip dripping against your fertile cervix.
Your name fell from his lips like a prayer as you began to move, lifting yourself from his pelvis in a slow, teasing movement that had him whining beneath you in despair.
"Please, please — God, oh, baby, please." He cooed, spitting your panties from his mouth, saliva coating his lips and chin, chest heaving, "God—I love you, I love you so much—So good to me, sweet girl, fuck, oh—“
He was blabbering — like his mind had turned to mush at the pure stimulus of his dick, relishing as you bounced on him. Your tits jerking with every leap, a fucked-out expression on your face and the way your cunt clenched around him had his head pounding. You were literally fucking him dumb.
"God, Michael — cock’s so perfect." You cried, leaning down to press a kiss to his swollen lips, "Feels so good."
Michael whimpered on your mouth, "Thank you, God, baby, thank you, thank you." He chanted, his hand sliding around to grasp a handful of your ass, "N-Never felt anything like this in my life — you’re angelic."
His praise sent floods of adoration through your veins, your cheeks flushing as you admired the beautiful man beneath you — his own cheeks reddened, lips swollen and slick with his spit and your juices, and his eyes a needy, silent plea of arousal.
Michael grew curious — temptation taking over he slid a careful hand around your body, his agile fingers latching to the agonised nub that was begging for touch the most. You exclaimed in delight as Michael’s eager fingers rubbed tight, practised circles on your clit.
"Oh, Michael." You murmured, your hands sliding down his heaving chest, "Doing such a good job, baby."
"Yeah? Am I doing good, mama?"
"So good, darling — gonna make me fucking cum around your cock."
"Oh, Lord." Michael squeaked, his lips slipping under his teeth as a way to suppress his submissive noises.
You could tell he was close by the glint in his eyes — so eager, desperate, longing to fill your tight cunt up to the brim with his hot seed. But, you, unbeknownst to your betraying body, came in surprise. The orgasm hit you like a train at a thousand miles per hour — your legs shaking at his hips, your mouth wide open as noises of theatrical ecstasy slipped from deep within your chest. Michael whimpered at the mere sight of you cumming around him — the feeling of your clenching cunt, now forming a white, frothy ring of sweet nectar around the base of his cock, had him peaking, too.
Though, Michael came a lot more desperately than you.
"Oh, Lord, god, please forgive me for I have sinned." He cried, tears streaming down his cheeks, head thrown back against the sheets as he held you tighter, pulling your body down against his chest as he squeezed his eyes shut, "Lord, please, God — forgiv—"
His orgasm rendered him mute — his voice shutting off as he moaned louder than you ever had, bewitched by the sensation of your cunt milking him for all he’s worth. He stuffed your quivering pussy to the brim — his never-before sexually released seed squelching out the side of where you connected, cum drooling from both of you, pooling on his abdomen.
Michael’s tears soon subsided, sniffling as he nuzzled deep into your neck, rubbing his face into your sticky skin — wanting nothing more than to be as close to you as possible, doing so by keeping his softening cock inside your stretched cunt. Your gentle hands, shaking with the aftermath of your climax, came up to stroke his sweat-stricken curls, cooing him to calmness.
"You okay, sweet boy?" You spoke quietly, your voice hoarse from all the screaming — cupping his face to lock your eyes.
Michael knew he could’ve said a thousand words to show his adoration and pure appreciation of how you just blew his mind and rocked his world all in the space of an hour, but instead he met your gaze with a hazy, fucked-out expression on his gorgeous face, and spoke two words he’d been meaning to say all night that he felt were more fitting.
"Thank you."
i got this idea from another creators fic, but can’t for the life of me find the user. if anyone knows who it is pls lmk!!! reqs are open! edit: found it!!
ᛝ ིྀྀི summary ❛ in the winter of 1982, a young writer arrives in new york with a notebook full of unfinished thoughts and the sinking feeling that she has spent most of her life observing instead of living. on her final night in the city, she began to wander the snow covered streets alone, where she meets a beautiful stranger who cannot stop listening to the world around him. ❜
ᛝ ིྀྀི c/w ❛ pre thriller release, unrealistic timeline for plot purposes, slow burn, yearning, heavy angst, existential loneliness, right person, wrong time, one night romance, soft!michael, f!reader, emotional dependance in the span of one night, 13k+ words ❜
ᛝ ིྀྀི a/n ❛ transitioning from wattpad to tumblr kinda nervous ❜
New York, Y/N had decided on the third day of her visit, was a city best consumed through glass.
Preferably someone else's glass.
A television screen, perhaps, where everything glittered with a kind of orchestrated loneliness that still managed to appear beautiful beneath studio lighting. Or a movie theater screen, where women in long wool coats wandered down glowing sidewalks carrying baguettes and existential crises, where steam curled romantically from manhole covers and yellow taxicabs moved through the streets like schools of goldfish through dark water.
Even photographs lied beautifully. Photographs flattened the smell. They could not capture the sourness of old snow melting into gutters, nor the thick ribbon of urine-scented steam unfurling from subway grates, nor the oily grit that settled invisibly against your skin after only an hour outside.
The city in winter was not cinematic, either. The streets were crowded even when they appeared empty. There was always movement somewhere. Men shouting through clouds of breath. Women with their shoulders drawn up tightly against the cold. Newspaper pages skidding violently along the sidewalks before collapsing into gray slush at the curbside. The traffic never seemed to cease entirely. It groaned and hissed through the avenues endlessly, taxicabs spraying dirty snow onto pedestrians who were too exhausted to react with anything stronger than resignation.
And everything smelled faintly burnt. Burnt coffee. Burnt chestnuts from street vendors standing beside rusted carts. Burnt engine oil. Burnt cigarettes crushed beneath boots outside bars glowing amber in the night. Even the air inside her tiny hotel room carried the stale scent of overheated pipes and ancient carpet dampened long ago by countless winters.
Still, everywhere she looked, the city seemed already occupied by people who knew how to belong to it. Men in long overcoats descending subway stairs without hesitation. Women laughing loudly inside crowded diners at midnight. Artists smoking cigarettes outside clubs in SoHo as though they had been born knowing exactly where to stand. Even the miserable people here appeared practiced.
Meanwhile, she spent half her time hopelessly lost.
The trip itself had been impulsive in the ugliest sense of the word, purchased less from courage than humiliation. Two weeks earlier, she had sat across from a literary editor whose face reminded her vaguely of an underfed bloodhound, all mournful folds and nicotine-yellowed fingers, while he flipped disinterestedly through her short stories.
"Technically proficient," he had called them.
The phrase had landed like a slap.
As though her writing were a machine functioning correctly despite lacking electricity.
He had leaned back afterward, studying her over the rims of his glasses with the exhausted expression of a man perpetually disappointed by the world.
"You write like someone who watches life through a window," he told her. "Everything's observed beautifully, but it feels untouched by life." She remembered smiling then, because she had not known what else to do. She remembered nodding politely while her chest hollowed itself out molecule by molecule beneath her sweater. "Go somewhere," he had said finally, tossing her manuscript onto the desk. "Do something regrettable. Fall in love with the wrong person. Drive down the wrong road. Get stranded. I don't care. But for God's sake, live a little before you write another word."
She hated him for it immediately. And she hated him even more now because part of her feared he might have been correct.
The stories she wrote were beautiful, yes. People always said so. Beautiful sentences. Beautiful atmosphere. Beautiful restraint.
And so, in what she had briefly mistaken for spontaneity, she had travelled to New York the next day with one suitcase, a notebook, and the embarrassingly naïve belief that the city would rearrange her somehow.
Instead, the city ignored her completely.
She had wandered through museums feeling nothing except sore feet. Sat in cafés pretending to write while secretly eavesdropping on strangers she found infinitely more compelling than herself. Walked through Greenwich Village in the snow trying desperately to manufacture profundity from ordinary sights. She filled pages and pages in her notebook regardless, though rereading them later only deepened her irritation.
Y/N sighed and glanced toward the clock on the bedside table.
If she left now, she could still make the train. But she would return home exactly as she had arrived: observant but untouched. A spectator in her own life.
With a groan, she pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes until color burst violently behind them.
Maybe she simply was not meant for this kind of life. Maybe certain people were born possessing whatever internal compass allowed them to move through cities gracefully, absorbing experience naturally, transforming existence into art without dissecting it to death first.
Y/N exhaled slowly and glanced again toward the window where snow drifted steadily through the electric blue glow of the neon sign across the street. The storm had calmed into soft flurries now, though enough snow had already accumulated to powder the sidewalks and soften the rooftops into pale uneven shapes.
Maybe she had judged the city too quickly.
Or maybe she simply owed herself one final attempt before admitting defeat.
Within minutes she was pulling on tights beneath her skirt and fastening the buttons of her wool coat while mentally flipping through the tourist brochures stuffed inside her bag. Most of the places listed had already disappointed her in person, but one remained unchecked. Some little attraction downtown she vaguely remembered seeing advertised repeatedly beneath phrases like hidden gem and quintessential New York experience, though now she could not entirely remember what the place actually was.
Ten minutes later she stepped out onto the street and immediately regretted not wearing thicker gloves.
The cold struck with violent immediacy, sharp enough to sting the inside of her nose when she inhaled. Snow crunched beneath her boots while gusts of wind funneled between the buildings hard enough to send powdered snow skittering along the sidewalks in silver ribbons. Around her, the city glowed.
Storefronts cast warm amber rectangles across the pavement. Christmas lights still clung stubbornly to certain windows despite the holidays having passed. Somewhere nearby a saxophone played faintly above the traffic noise, the melody warped occasionally by the wind until it sounded lonely enough to ache.
And God help her, but the city really was beautiful like this.
Its beauty existed in fragments, in overheard laughter drifting from diners. In the reflection of headlights across black ice. In strangers hurrying through snowfall with collars pulled high against their faces. Even the steam rising from subway grates looked strangely dreamlike beneath the streetlights.
Y/N tucked her chin deeper into her scarf and headed toward the subway entrance with renewed determination.
She nearly convinced herself, descending the cracked concrete stairs into the station below, that perhaps this had been what the editor meant all along. Not grand life-altering experiences necessarily, but participation. Existing somewhere fully enough to let it affect you.
A musician sat near the far wall playing guitar for an audience consisting primarily of exhausted commuters refusing eye contact. Somewhere farther down the tunnel, a train screeched loudly enough to rattle the tiled walls. Advertisements lined the station in faded rows: cigarettes, Broadway shows, department stores dressed festively for Christmas sales.
Y/N hurried toward the platform just as headlights appeared down the tunnel and almost immediately, everyone around her began moving faster in a terrifying collective instinct of people who understood the city's rhythm intimately. She found herself swept along automatically, clutching her bag against her side as wind from the approaching train rushed violently through the station.
The subway roared into place. Doors slid open. People spilled outward while others surged inward with barely controlled aggression.
Y/N hesitated half a second too long.
That was all New York required to punish indecision.
The doors shut directly in front of her face.
One moment there remained space enough to enter; the next there did not.
Y/N stood frozen inches from the closed subway doors while the train remained motionless for one horrible suspended second, long enough for her own reflection to stare back at her faintly through the smeared glass.
Then the train pulled away.
The platform quieted almost immediately afterward, the departing cars dragging a rush of stale wind through the station that lifted strands of hair loose from beneath her scarf.
For one catastrophic moment, Y/N genuinely believed she might burst into tears right there underground.
Her throat tightened painfully while heat rushed behind her eyes despite the cold station air. She became acutely aware of how alone she was underground among strangers who barely registered her existence. Somewhere nearby, the guitarist continued playing softly as though nothing significant had happened at all.
Embarrassment expanded inside her disproportionately until it felt enormous enough to swallow reason entirely. She imagined telling the story later and hearing how absurd it sounded aloud. Girl visits New York in hopes of becoming more interesting, nearly emotionally collapses because subway doors closed too quickly.
Y/N inhaled slowly through her nose and forced herself to laugh under her breath instead. Because honestly, if she could not survive one missed train without spiraling into existential despair, perhaps the editor had been right to criticize her.
Around her, the station continued existing with complete indifference. Another train would come eventually. People moved past carrying grocery bags and briefcases and exhaustion. Somewhere overhead, the city pulsed onward through snowfall whether she managed to keep pace with it or not.
And unexpectedly, the realization comforted her.
Maybe nothing meaningful had happened because meaning did not need to be extracted from every inconvenience like marrow from bone. Maybe a missed train could simply be a missed train.
Or perhaps, she thought suddenly as another gust of cold air swept through the tunnel, maybe she could walk.
Y/N adjusted the strap of her bag against her shoulder and turned toward the station stairs.
Michael had begun to suspect exhaustion possessed its own distinct sound.
It sounded like a particular flattening of the world. Conversations losing dimension around the edges until every voice blended into the same endless murmur of expectation. Recording equipment humming softly beneath fluorescent studio lights. Producers speaking in circles about sales projections and crossover appeal while cigarette smoke thickened the air molecule by molecule. The scratch of pencils against paper as schedules were rewritten again and again until entire weeks ceased resembling time at all and became instead a sequence of obligations arranged beside precise hours.
Lately his life sounded like that constantly.
Noise without rest.
By the time Michael arrived in New York, exhaustion had settled so deeply into his body he no longer experienced it as a feeling so much as an atmosphere surrounding him permanently. The city itself only intensified everything. The city moved with the same relentless momentum as the people managing his career, all sharp corners and constant urgency and voices speaking too quickly over one another. Everywhere he went, somebody wanted something.
Success, Michael was learning slowly, did not create satisfaction nearly as often as it created appetite.
Everyone around him seemed hungry lately. Hungry for bigger numbers. Bigger audiences, headlines, records. Executives spoke constantly about "the next level" as though his career were some staircase without visible ending. Quincy talked about possibilities with the feverish intensity of a man who could already hear the future before anyone else. Executives discussed demographics and radio markets and mainstream crossover success using his music like currency spread across conference tables. Even praise had begun exhausting him because praise always arrived carrying expectation inside it.
Still, New York at least offered distance.
Distance from Hayvenhurst, from rehearsals with his brothers. Distance from Joseph pacing the edges of every room carrying disappointment like weather around him.
Michael had not entirely understood why his father agreed to let him come east in the first place. Perhaps Joseph believed the sessions important enough financially to justify the temporary loss of control. Perhaps he trusted the endless entourage surrounding Michael to keep him occupied and visible at all times.
Regardless, permission arrived eventually attached to conditions severe enough to drain the relief from receiving it.
"You come back and train twice as hard," Joseph told him before the trip. Then, after studying Michael's expression carefully, corrected himself. "No. Five times harder."
Michael remembered nodding automatically.
Arguing with Joseph required energy he no longer possessed.
So instead he accepted the conditions quietly and boarded the plane carrying exhaustion inside him like another piece of luggage.
And now here he was in New York during winter, moving endlessly between hotel rooms and recording studios while snow gathered against windows outside. Some nights he forgot entirely what part of the city he occupied because everything indoors looked identical after enough hours awake. Beige walls. Coffee growing cold beside soundboards. Men discussing music in increasingly abstract language.
Tonight had been particularly unbearable.
Three consecutive sessions stretched late into the evening beneath fluorescent lights harsh enough to make everyone appear vaguely ill. Somebody kept replaying the same section of music repeatedly while two producers argued about percussion levels in voices sharpened by exhaustion. Michael sat quietly through most of it with headphones hanging around his neck, rubbing absently at his eyes while conversation swelled and receded around him like static.
At some point somebody mentioned sales forecasts again.
Michael stopped listening after that.
Outside the studio windows, snow fell steadily through the dark. He found himself watching it instead.
The snowfall softened the city completely. Buildings blurred at the edges. Streetlights glowed hazily beneath drifting white flurries. The city's endless movement seemed briefly muted under weather like this.
Something inside him ached suddenly for air.
Before he fully considered the consequences, Michael stood quietly and slipped off the headphones resting around his neck.
"I'll be back," he murmured to no one specific.
Nobody paid much attention.
That was the strange thing about fame. People watched you constantly until eventually they stopped seeing you altogether. Everyone inside the studio remained too consumed by technical arguments to notice him moving toward the hallway.
A man glanced toward him briefly before looking away, likely assuming the bundled figure in the dark wool coat and scarf was merely another exhausted guest venturing outside for cigarettes or air.
Michael stepped into the night before anyone could stop him.
Immediately the cold struck hard enough to steal breath from his lungs.
And God, it felt wonderful.
He thought of the snow as a gift. Bad weather made people selfishly observant. Nobody studied strangers closely while hurrying home through freezing wind. Everyone kept their heads lowered, shoulders hunched inward against the cold. In Los Angeles anonymity barely existed anymore. Here, beneath layers of wool and snowfall and darkness, he could disappear almost completely.
No one notices celebrities in bad weather and the thought amused him enough to smile into his scarf.
At first Y/N moved without direction, guided primarily by the instinctive desire to place distance between herself and the subway station before the embarrassment could fully settle inside her. But the cold slowly worked its way through her gloves.
That, she thought irritably, seemed perfectly in character for the evening. Of course her gloves were inadequate. Of course her boots leaked slightly around the soles whenever she stepped too deeply into slush gathered near the curb. Of course New York, even while beautiful, insisted upon remaining physically uncomfortable at all times.
Still, the walk steadied her.
Eventually, after several blocks and at least three wrong turns she stopped bothering to mentally correct, exhaustion began settling heavily into her legs. The cold had stiffened her fingers despite her gloves, and each inhale burned sharply inside her chest. Ahead, beneath the flickering glow of a streetlamp, stood a nearly empty bus stop enclosed partially by scratched plexiglass walls fogged faintly at the corners from old condensation.
Y/N crossed toward it without much thought.
The bench beneath the shelter was freezing. Even through layers of wool she could feel the cold radiating upward immediately, sharp enough to make her wince as she sat down while snow drifted lazily beyond the scratched glass walls.
She rubbed her gloved hands together vigorously and exhaled warm breath against her knuckles in a failed attempt at heat.
Y/N tilted her head backward briefly against the cold plexiglass behind her and closed her eyes and with a sigh, she reached into her bag and pulled out her notebook.
The pages had already swollen slightly from moisture over the past few days, the paper warped softly at the edges from melted snow and damp gloves and being carried endlessly through winter weather. Even the notebook itself looked exhausted now. Y/N flipped toward a blank page while outside the shelter the snowfall thickened again beneath the streetlamp.
This, she thought suddenly, was exactly the kind of moment she should write down.
Sitting alone at a bus stop after missing a train. Cold fingers. Wet boots. The strange aching beauty of the city at night when viewed through exhaustion rather than expectation. This at least felt real. Unpolished. Unimpressive in a way she could not romanticize fast enough to ruin.
She lowered the pen against the paper.
Nothing happened.
Y/N frowned immediately and scribbled harder across the page. The tip scratched faintly against damp paper without leaving more than a ghost of ink behind. "No, no, no —"
Her voice emerged sharper than intended before being swallowed almost instantly by the snow-muted night around her.
She shook the pen violently beside her ear and tried again. Still nothing. Tiny flecks of snow drifted sideways through the partially open shelter and melted instantly against the page beneath her hand, softening the paper visibly under the moisture.
"Oh, come on." Frustration surged through her disproportionately fast. She scribbled again furiously until the paper began tearing slightly beneath the pressure but the pen remained stubbornly dead in her hand.
Y/N groaned aloud and dropped her forehead briefly against the edge of the notebook while snow hissed softly against the shelter outside. For one deeply embarrassing second, she genuinely contemplated crying over the situation.
Then suddenly, quietly, a hand entered her line of vision. Black leather dusted faintly with snow.
And within it, held carefully between long fingers, another pen.
Y/N blinked in surprise and for a moment she simply stared at it stupidly, too emotionally exhausted to process what was happening. Then slowly she lifted her gaze upward toward the stranger standing beside the shelter.
He was bundled heavily against the weather. Dark wool coat. Scarf wrapped high across the lower half of his face. Snow gathered lightly along his shoulders and in the dark curls escaping from beneath his hat. Under ordinary circumstances she might have found the outfit vaguely suspicious. Instead he looked oddly soft standing there beneath the streetlamp while snow drifted steadily around him.
But it was his eyes that caught her. Not merely pretty, though they were undeniably beautiful in a startling almost delicate way, framed by impossibly long lashes now dampened slightly by snow. It was the expression inside them that unsettled her momentarily. Something quietly amused and observant, as though he had witnessed the entire battle between her and the pen and found it endearing rather than pathetic.
Y/N became suddenly and painfully aware of how ridiculous she probably looked curled miserably on a freezing bus bench with damp notebook pages and visible frustration radiating from every inch of her posture.
Heat crept instantly into her face despite the cold. "Oh," she murmured softly, startled enough that the word escaped before thought could shape it properly.
The man extended the pen slightly farther toward her.
For some reason the gesture felt strangely intimate in its simplicity. As though he had noticed a problem and decided, without turning it into performance, to solve it.
Y/N reached forward quickly and accepted the pen from his gloved hand. Their fingers brushed briefly. Even through the gloves she registered warmth.
"Thanks," she whispered, her voice worn thin by exhaustion but entirely genuine.
The stranger nodded once after she thanked him, a small movement nearly lost beneath the layers of scarf and snowfall, before gesturing quietly toward the empty space beside her on the bench.
Y/N looked at him for half a second too long, momentarily startled by the fact that he was asking permission at all.
New York did not strike her as a city where people asked permission for space.
The bench itself was long enough for several more people comfortably, yet she instinctively shifted slightly toward the left anyway, making room for him despite the unnecessary gesture. Perhaps because he was a stranger. Perhaps because something about him felt unexpectedly gentle, and gentleness from strangers always made her suddenly aware of herself in uncomfortable ways.
He sat carefully beside her. The distance between them remained polite and deliberate, though the small bus shelter suddenly felt warmer occupied by another person. Snow drifted steadily beyond the scratched plexiglass walls while headlights slid intermittently through the storm, illuminating the shelter in passing bands of pale gold before disappearing again into darkness.
Y/N had expected awkwardness. Most silences between strangers required maintenance, some mutual effort to prevent the atmosphere from curdling into discomfort. This silence simply existed. Calm and oddly companionable beneath the weather. The stranger rested his gloved hands loosely together while snow melted slowly along the shoulders of his dark coat.
Beside her, her notebook remained open uselessly across her lap. The new pen sat untouched between her fingers. She realized belatedly she still had not actually written anything.
Instead, against her better judgment, she found herself glancing sideways at him.
Only briefly at first.
A quick observational flicker of attention born more from habit than curiosity. She was an observer after all. The editor had made that painfully clear. Y/N noticed things compulsively. The shape of people's hands while they talked. The cadence of strangers' footsteps. The way exhaustion altered posture. Observation happened instinctively for her now, so automatic she often forgot she was doing it until caught.
And this stranger was... difficult not to observe.
Not because he looked dangerous or unusual. If anything, he seemed intentionally unremarkable beneath the heavy coat and scarf and hat. But something about him resisted blending fully into the background regardless of effort. The way he sat perhaps. There was a strange carefulness to his movements, almost delicate but not fragile. Or maybe it was his eyes again. Large, dark, impossibly expressive eyes that seemed to absorb everything around them with quiet alertness.
And beneath all that bundled anonymity, he felt oddly familiar.
The sensation nagged at her immediately. It wasn't familiar in the personal sense, of course. She had never met this man before in her life. Yet something about him tugged persistently at recognition. A voice remembered faintly through another room. A face glimpsed once in passing. The feeling intensified the more she studied him discreetly from the corner of her eye.
Apparently not discreetly enough.
Because after her third or fourth glance, the stranger shifted slightly beside her and tugged the scarf higher across the lower half of his face, even though it already concealed nearly everything except his eyes.
Y/N instantly felt heat crawl into her cheeks.
Great, she was staring.
Embarrassment rushed through her so quickly she looked away at once, pretending sudden intense interest in the wet pages of her notebook while internally scolding herself with genuine severity. Wonderful. Now she looked deranged. Some strange woman at a bus stop openly studying strangers in the middle of the night.
For several seconds she considered apologizing.
Then, before she could decide whether apologizing would somehow make the situation even worse, the thought surfaced fully formed in her mind with startling clarity.
The realization arrived strangely gradual and immediate at the same time, like a photograph developing beneath darkroom chemicals. Certain pieces aligned suddenly in ways impossible to ignore afterward. The eyes. The posture. The carefulness. And beneath the scarf, barely visible now in profile beneath the streetlamp, the unmistakable shape of his mouth whenever he moved.
Y/N blinked.
That was ridiculous.
What would Michael Jackson be doing alone at a bus stop at night?
Then again, what was anyone doing anywhere in New York at night? The city itself seemed composed entirely of improbable moments stitched together by exhaustion.
Beside her, the stranger shifted slightly again.
Y/N stared at her notebook intensely for another few seconds while internally debating whether saying anything at all would be humiliating beyond recovery.
Finally curiosity won.
She glanced sideways toward him once more, careful this time not to stare openly. "Has anyone ever told you," she began slowly, her voice softened automatically by the snow-muted quiet around them, "that you look exactly like Michael Jackson?"
The stranger turned toward her fully then, and though the scarf concealed most of his expression, she saw it anyway.
The smile. Not visibly, exactly, but unmistakably present in the way his cheeks lifted slightly beneath the wool and how warmth entered his eyes all at once like light switched suddenly behind dark windows.
He shrugged one shoulder lightly. "Sometimes," he murmured. His voice was soft and musical and unmistakably familiar in a way no disguise could fully conceal. Recognition slid through her instantly afterward, absolute and surreal enough to momentarily hollow the air from her lungs.
She did not gasp or lurch forward or begin babbling frantically the way she imagined most people might. Instead she simply stared at him for one startled second longer before something warm and disbelieving unfolded slowly inside her chest.
For a while after the realization settled between them, neither of them spoke.
Y/N sat very still beside him, notebook forgotten entirely in her lap. The quiet stretched long enough that eventually Y/N became aware she was still clutching his pen uselessly in her hand. "Oh," she murmured softly, startled by the realization. "Sorry." She held it back toward him.
Michael glanced at the pen, then at her notebook still spread open across her lap. "You can keep it," he said gently.
"Thanks," she said again, this time with a small laugh tucked awkwardly into the words. "Mine apparently decided it couldn't survive New York."
Michael's eyes warmed slightly above the scarf. "A city like this can do that."
Y/N looked down at the notebook in her lap for a second before gathering courage carefully inside herself. She could feel opportunity hovering nearby now, fragile and strange.
"Can I ask you something?" she said finally.
Beside her, Michael stilled almost imperceptibly.
The question itself was ordinary enough, but years in the spotlight had trained anticipation into him automatically. Internally, he prepared himself with practiced speed. An autograph perhaps. A question about his family or fame. People often asked things they believed intimate while forgetting entirely they spoke to a stranger.
Still, he nodded politely. "Sure."
Y/N hesitated briefly, suddenly worried the question in her head might sound ridiculous aloud. Yet the curiosity had already rooted itself too deeply to ignore now that he sat beside her in actual reach.
"How," she asked slowly, "do you write songs the way you do?"
Michael blinked once.
Y/N continued before nervousness could stop her.
"I mean..." She frowned slightly, struggling toward precision. "How do you make people feel when they listen to your music." Her voice softened unconsciously then, growing more earnest the farther she moved into the question.
Michael stared at her because for the first time in what felt like months, maybe longer, he found himself genuinely caught off guard. He lowered his gaze briefly toward his gloved hands, shaking his head once as though buying himself time.
"That's..." He laughed softly again. "That's a hard question."
"Oh God," she muttered, glancing down toward her notebook. "Sorry. You probably get weird questions constantly —"
"No," Michael interrupted gently.
She looked back up. And something in her expression made him pause. Because she looked genuinely hopeful. Hopeful in the painfully earnest way artists looked when asking questions they secretly believed might change their lives.
Michael felt something tighten unexpectedly in his chest. So he tried to answer honestly. "Well," he began slowly, "it's not really just me."
Even saying it felt vaguely disappointing.
"There are producers. Musicians. Writers." He shrugged lightly beneath the heavy coat. "Quincy helps a lot. Songs get rewritten all the time. Arrangements change. Lyrics change. Sometimes a song sounds completely different after enough people touch it."
As he spoke, his voice settled automatically into practicality. Years of interviews had taught him how to redirect attention away from mythologizing himself. Music was collaboration. Work. Revision. Endless revision.
"You don't really make records alone," he said quietly. "There's always a whole team behind it."
Beside him, Y/N visibly deflated. The slight fall of her shoulders and her gaze dropped toward the notebook again. Something dimmed briefly across her face, disappointment flickering there before she could fully hide it.
Michael noticed immediately.
He had spent most of his life studying expressions carefully for danger, approval, anger, expectation. He noticed small emotional shifts instinctively now.
Y/N nodded politely after his explanation finished, because it was not that his answer had been bad.
It simply was not the answer she had been searching for. Some irrational part of her had hoped for something else entirely.
Some hidden mechanism she herself had failed to discover. A particular way of seeing the world that explained why his music could crawl beneath people's skin so effortlessly. Why his songs felt alive in ways her own writing never quite managed no matter how carefully she assembled sentences.
And sitting beside Michael Jackson in the middle of a snowstorm while he explained producers and rewrites and studio arrangements somehow made artistry sound disappointingly ordinary.
"Oh," she murmured softly after a moment. "Right."
Snow drifted steadily beyond the shelter while traffic hissed through slush-covered streets nearby. A bus passed several blocks away, its brakes screeching sharply before fading again into the city's endless nighttime murmur.
Michael glanced sideways at her.
She was staring down at her notebook now, fingers resting against damp warped pages while the pen sat loosely between her hands. Her expression had folded inward subtly, thoughtful in a way that looked almost embarrassed.
He slowly pulled one glove from his hand, the motion caught Y/N's attention immediately.
She looked up just as he flexed his bare fingers briefly against the cold before lifting his hand slightly between them.
"Listen," he said quietly.
Y/N blinked once.
At first she assumed he meant listen to him. She shifted instinctively, expecting him to continue speaking.
Instead, Michael tilted his head slightly toward the street beyond the shelter.
His fingers snapped softly once in the cold air. Then he pointed lightly toward the street where taxis moved through wet slush with a rhythmic hiss.
"Hear that?"
Y/N frowned slightly. Before she could answer, he pointed elsewhere.
A crossing signal clicking steadily at the corner. A burst of distant laughter somewhere farther down the block. Wind rushing briefly between buildings hard enough to rattle the plastic advertisement panel beside the bench. The squeal of bus brakes. Footsteps compressing snow. A car horn. Another horn answering farther away.
Michael nodded softly to it all. Like he was following something invisible moving beneath the surface of the noise.
The scarf had slipped lower now while he talked, exposing more of his face without him seeming to notice. Snowflakes gathered briefly against his curls before melting there. In the pale streetlight, his expression looked transformed somehow, animated suddenly with quiet intensity.
He hummed under his breath, like he was tracing the city's sounds back to some hidden structure underneath them. His fingers began drumming lightly against the bench beside him in time with something only he fully understood.
"The city already has music," he murmured, almost to himself. Michael glanced toward her briefly before looking back out toward the street again. "People think songs start with words," he continued quietly. "But usually they don't. Usually it's rhythm first."
His fingers tapped again against the bench. "Sometimes I hear something and it stays." He pointed lightly toward the crossing signal clicking in the distance. "Or a train. Or somebody talking." Another nod toward the street where tires dragged through slush in long wet bursts. "And your brain starts putting things together."
As he spoke, Y/N realized with growing astonishment that he was not hearing the city the way she heard it at all.
To her, New York had always sounded crowded. Chaotic. An avalanche of disconnected noise constantly competing for attention.
To him, it sounded layered.
Michael leaned forward slightly, elbows resting against his knees while his fingers continued tapping absent rhythms against the bench.
"It's everywhere," he said softly. "Feeling too." The words settled heavily into the cold air between them. "You just..." He paused, searching. "Have to notice where it's hiding."
Something inside Y/N shifted painfully then. Because suddenly she understood what separated artists from everyone else.
Michael looked at the world differently. Or perhaps more accurately, he allowed the world to remain alive instead of flattening it into background noise the way most people did.
The crossing signal clicked steadily. Snow whispered against wool coats outside the shelter. A couple hurried past laughing breathlessly beneath one umbrella.
And beside her, Michael Jackson quietly nodded along to the rhythm of the city like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"You can feel rhythm before you understand it," he murmured. "That's why babies dance before they can talk." Michael glanced toward her again then, suddenly almost shy as though realizing how much he'd started rambling. "I probably sound crazy," he said with a quiet laugh.
But Y/N was staring at him with such naked astonishment he actually faltered slightly beneath it. "No," she whispered immediately.
After that, conversation came easily.
Naturally, as though something subtle inside the rhythm of the night had shifted into alignment. The pauses between them shortened. Questions stopped feeling carefully constructed and became instinctive instead. Words flowed forward without either of them seeming entirely responsible for directing them.
At some point, neither of them acknowledged exactly when, the bus stop stopped making sense as a place to remain.
Perhaps it was the cold finally settling too deeply through the bench. Perhaps it was simply that the city beyond the shelter kept glowing invitingly through snowfall, enormous and alive around them. Whatever the reason, Michael stood first, tugging his glove back over his bare hand while snow drifted steadily against the streetlights.
A few moments later they were walking side-by-side through Manhattan beneath the snow.
The city had changed again while they sat talking. Midnight had pushed deeper into morning territory now, thinning the crowds slightly without ever fully emptying the streets. Storefront lights glowed warmly against the dark while steam curled upward from subway grates in thick silver ribbons. Snow softened the sidewalks into blurred white edges where footprints overlapped endlessly atop one another.
Beside her, Michael moved with increasing ease the farther they walked.
At the bus stop he had carried tension visibly in his posture, shoulders drawn slightly inward beneath the heavy coat as though instinctively attempting to occupy less space than his fame allowed him. Now that tension loosened little by little beneath conversation. His scarf slipped lower occasionally when he laughed before he remembered himself and tugged it back upward again.
Still, almost no one recognized him.
The weather protected him exactly the way he'd hoped.
People hurried through snow selfishly, too cold and exhausted to study strangers closely. Everyone kept their heads lowered against the wind. To the city around them, they were simply another pair of people wandering the city at night.
The anonymity transformed him. Or perhaps revealed him more accurately.
Because the farther they walked, the less Michael Jackson he became and the more simply Michael. Curious and observant. Funny in unexpectedly dry little ways that caught her off guard repeatedly. He asked questions carefully and listened to answers with startling sincerity, as though conversation itself interested him more than performance ever could.
And Y/N, despite herself, began rambling and she told him everything. About the editor. About the humiliating criticism that had lodged itself inside her ribs like splintered glass. About traveling to New York in a burst of stubborn recklessness disguised poorly as artistic ambition.
"The worst part," she confessed while they waited for traffic at an intersection glowing red through snowfall, "is that he wasn't wrong."
Michael glanced sideways toward her beneath the streetlight. "How?"
Y/N shoved her hands deeper into her coat pockets. "I think I spend too much time trying to understand life instead of participating in it." She laughed softly, though there was embarrassment folded into the sound. "I narrate things while they're happening. Constantly."
Michael smiled slightly at that. "That's not a bad thing."
"It is a bad."
"No," he said gently. "It sounds like writing."
Around them, New York shimmered beneath snowfall with such aggressive cinematic beauty that eventually even Y/N herself had to acknowledge the absurdity of it all.
A struggling writer wandering after midnight with a celebrity that felt startlingly normal.
It sounded fake.
Every time conversation lulled naturally, something appeared to restart it. A saxophonist beneath an awning playing against the snow. A bookstore window glowing warmly enough to pull them toward it. A diner filled with exhausted strangers and fogged windows that looked stolen directly from a film set.
The night kept escalating itself structurally.
Y/N found herself smiling at the thought before she could stop it.
Beside her, Michael noticed immediately. "What?"
She laughed softly and shook her head.
"No, it's just..." She glanced around at the city glowing beneath snowfall. "This is ridiculous."
Michael's eyes warmed with amusement. "Ridiculous good or ridiculous bad?"
"Ridiculous fiction."
He frowned slightly. "What's the difference?"
Y/N looked at him for a second, delighted suddenly by the question. "In real life," she explained, "things usually lose momentum. The longer something goes on, the more ordinary it becomes." Michael nodded thoughtfully beside her. "But stories escalate," she continued. "They build. And every time this night should logically become less interesting, it somehow gets more interesting instead."
Every writer secretly waited for moments that felt narratively alive while living them, moments possessing their own internal momentum and symbolism and impossible timing. Most of life refused structure entirely. Most conversations dissolved into forgettable static afterward.
And suddenly Y/N found herself treating it less like reality and more like an unfolding experiment in storytelling.
Because structurally speaking, things could not possibly keep improving from here.
The impulse arrived so abruptly she barely processed it before acting. One moment she and Michael were walking side-by-side beneath the snow, and the next Y/N abruptly veered away from him down a side street without explanation.
Michael blinked in surprise behind her.
"Hey —"
But she kept walking. Faster now.
Snow crunched sharply beneath her boots while the wind swept loose strands of hair across her face. Behind her she heard Michael laugh once in startled confusion before his footsteps quickened too.
"Where are you going?"
Y/N turned halfway around while still walking backward briefly through the snowfall.
Streetlight illuminated her face in flashes between drifting white flurries. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the cold and from excitement now building visibly beneath her skin.
"I'm testing the narrative!" she called brightly.
For one deeply amusing second his expression went completely blank with bewilderment.
But Y/N only laughed and turned another corner before he could properly catch up.
Michael hurried after her through the snow, genuinely laughing now despite himself.
She was insane.
The kind of person who experienced life and immediately began interrogating its symbolic structure for entertainment. And somehow, instead of exhausting him, her energy felt contagious. The city itself seemed brighter around her.
Ahead of him, Y/N moved quickly through the storm with visible delight, boots slipping slightly against packed snow as she crossed another intersection. She glanced behind herself once, spotted him still following, and laughed again beneath her breath.
Ahead, at the far end of the block, headlights glowed through the snowfall.
A bus stopped directly at the curb with its doors still open.
Y/N slowed immediately, then smiled.
The sight felt almost hilariously perfect.
This was how the story naturally ended. Two strangers wandered New York for one magical night before circumstance separated them again. Public transportation. Timing. Near misses. That was the language of serendipitous stories. The bus arriving now felt almost aggressively narratively appropriate.
And before Michael could even fully reach the corner —
Y/N ran for it.
Her boots splashed through slush while the driver glanced up in mild surprise as she bounded breathlessly onto the nearly empty bus. The doors remained open just long enough for her to step inside and turn immediately toward the window.
Outside, Michael finally rounded the corner.
Snow drifted around him while he stared at the bus with open disbelief, chest rising sharply from hurrying after her through the cold. For one utterly priceless second he looked genuinely flabbergasted, standing there beneath the streetlights in his dark coat while the city hissed quietly around him.
Y/N pressed herself lightly against the window from inside the bus, grinning so brightly she could barely contain it.
Michael pointed toward her through the glass in exaggerated disbelief, laughing now despite the obvious confusion written across his face. Y/N laughed harder watching him react, warmth flooding through her chest so intensely she nearly forgot about the cold entirely.
The bus doors finally hissed shut between them.
And still she looked thrilled.
The bus lurched forward slowly through the snow while Michael remained standing at the curb watching it pull away, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and complete bewilderment.
As the bus pulled away from the curb, Y/N remained pressed lightly against the window, smiling so hard her cheeks ached from it.
Outside, Michael grew smaller through the snowfall. Still standing there and visibly stunned.
If the night truly possessed the kind of impossible momentum she suspected it did, then they would meet again. Somehow. Ridiculously. The city would fold back in on itself and return him to her through coincidence so absurd it bordered on divine intervention.
Yet another possibility lingered beneath the excitement now too, colder and quieter.
Maybe she had ruined it.
Maybe she had stepped off the natural path of the evening and broken the fragile magic holding everything together. Stories required tension, yes, but they also required timing. What if she had pushed too hard? What if Michael simply laughed about the strange girl who abandoned him for narrative experimentation and went back to his hotel afterward?
What if she had just sabotaged the best thing she would ever write?
The thought tightened unexpectedly around her ribs.
Y/N stared out at the blurred city sliding past beyond the fogged glass while snow continued drifting steadily downward through the dark. Somewhere farther downtown, lights shimmered against the river like scattered gold. The bus groaned around corners and lurched unevenly through slush-covered streets.
She had absolutely no idea where she was going.
Which, oddly enough, felt appropriate.
Several stops passed in thoughtful silence before the bus finally hissed to another halt beside a nearly empty stretch of street lined with darkened storefronts and construction fencing.
Without fully thinking it through, Y/N stood abruptly and stepped off and the bus pulled away behind her with a low mechanical groan, disappearing slowly into the snowfall while she remained standing alone beneath the streetlights with her scarf pulled high against the wind.
Around her, the city had thinned into near stillness.
New York no longer felt bustling at this hour. Instead it resembled some enormous sleeping animal breathing quietly beneath layers of snow and neon and steam. The streets stretched emptier here. Buildings loomed dark and silent above her while traffic moved only occasionally through distant intersections.
Y/N wandered aimlessly down the block and then she saw it.
An ice rink.
Or rather, the beginning of one.
Construction fencing surrounded most of it, though portions remained unfinished beneath the snow. Temporary floodlights cast pale bluish light across the frozen surface while metal scaffolding rose skeletal against the dark. It looked abandoned for the night, suspended halfway between creation and completion.
Completely empty.
Y/N slowed instinctively. Something about the sight struck her immediately as almost offensively cinematic.
Laughing softly beneath her breath, she stepped closer until her gloved hands rested lightly against the cold metal barricade surrounding the rink.
For a moment she simply stood there breathing. Then slowly, unexpectedly, she closed her eyes.
Y/N inhaled deeply through the cold. At first she heard almost nothing. The city had quieted too much at this hour.
No crossing signals. No laughter. No crowded sidewalks humming with layered rhythm. Just distant traffic moving somewhere far enough away to sound almost oceanic beneath the snowfall.
She smiled without opening her eyes.
"There you are."
The voice behind her arrived warm with breathlessness and amusement.
Y/N's eyes flew open instantly.
She turned so fast snow slipped beneath her boots slightly, catching herself against the railing before staring toward the figure emerging through the snowfall behind her.
Dark coat dusted white again. Scarf loosened now around his neck. Breath visible in soft clouds around him from clearly hurrying through the cold.
For one suspended second, Y/N could only stare. Then delight exploded visibly across her face.
"You found me."
The words came out almost reverent with disbelief.
Michael laughed quietly, bending slightly at the waist while catching his breath.
"You disappeared onto a moving vehicle," he said. "I asked the taxi driver to drop me off bus stops until I decided on one."
Y/N grinned so brightly it physically hurt, "and you still found me."
Michael straightened slowly beneath the falling snow while looking at her with an expression hovering somewhere between exasperation and fascination.
"You're very strange," he informed her gently.
"I know."
"You left me standing in the street."
"That was important for the narrative."
He laughed again despite himself, shaking his head. "The narrative."
"Yes."
Y/N stepped backward slightly toward the rink, eyes glowing now with delighted triumph.
"See?" she continued breathlessly. "This is exactly what I meant. Realistically, we should not be here right now."
Michael folded his arms loosely against the cold. "And yet."
"And yet," she echoed softly.
Then Michael glanced past her toward the unfinished ice rink glowing pale beneath the floodlights. "You came here on purpose?"
Y/N followed his gaze before smiling sheepishly. "No," she admitted. "I got off the bus because I had no idea where it was taking me."
"You got onto a random bus with no plan?" That startled another laugh out of him.
"I was testing fate."
Michael looked at her for a long second beneath the snowfall. Then, quieter now: "And what's the verdict so far?"
She shrugged. "Do you know what serendipity is?" she asked suddenly.
Michael frowned thoughtfully. "I've heard the word."
"But?"
"But I don't think I could define it."
"It's basically a fortunate accident," she explained. "Like finding something wonderful while looking for something else entirely." Michael listened quietly. "I think it's a connection to fate," she continued, "but softer than fate. Less controlling."
His brows lifted slightly. "There are levels of fate?"
"I think so."
"Have you thought about this a lot.?"
"I'm a writer," she said as though that explained everything. "Thinking too much is the entire job."
The corner of his mouth lifted. "So serendipity is... what? Destiny?"
Y/N groaned immediately. "A little more complicated," she admitted.
"How?"
"I don't think life is fully predestined," she said slowly. "I don't think people are trapped on rails moving toward unavoidable endings or anything like that."
Michael nodded once, watching her carefully.
"But I do think..." She hesitated briefly before continuing. "I think life offers signs sometimes."
"What kind of signs?"
She gestured vaguely toward the city around them.
"Coincidences. Timing. Moments that feel unusually aligned." Her eyes brightened slightly as she spoke, the ideas clearly becoming more alive the farther she moved into them. "Like missing a train and meeting someone because of it. Or getting onto a random bus and somehow ending up exactly where you're supposed to."
Michael's gaze softened faintly.
"And you think that means something?"
"I think people decide whether it means something," Y/N corrected immediately.
That intrigued him visibly. "How's that different?"
"Because fate isn't forcing anyone." She pushed away gently from the railing now, pacing a few slow steps through the snow while talking. "That's the important part. People still make their own choices. Fate just..." She searched for the word. "Offers little openings." She turned back toward him. "Tiny moments where life nudges you toward something. But whether you follow the nudge or ignore it is still entirely up to you."
Snowflakes caught briefly in her eyelashes while she spoke.
"So if someone misses the sign," Michael asked quietly, "then what?"
Y/N smiled. "Then they miss it."
"That's sad."
Instead of answering, Y/N stepped forward abruptly and grabbed his arm through the heavy wool of his coat.
"Come with me."
Before he could properly react, she was already pulling him away from the rink and back toward the street.
Michael laughed immediately in startled confusion, nearly slipping slightly on packed snow as she tugged him along through the storm.
"Where are we going?"
"You'll see."
"Just tell me!"
"It's a surprise."
The city blurred past in glowing streaks of gold and silver beneath the weather. Y/N still held loosely onto his sleeve as though worried he might vanish if she let go, her excitement practically radiating into the freezing air around them.
Michael found himself laughing despite having absolutely no idea what was happening anymore.
Eventually she slowed suddenly at the corner of another block.
"There," she announced triumphantly.
Michael followed her gaze.
Across the street stood a hotel wrapped almost obscenely in Christmas decorations. Warm white lights cascaded from the awning in glowing strands while enormous wreaths framed the revolving entrance doors. Red ribbons fluttered faintly in the wind beside polished brass railings already dusted in snow. The lobby beyond the glass windows glowed amber and warm against the freezing blue darkness outside.
The entire building looked like something invented by a screenwriter.
Michael looked sideways toward her slowly. "You've gotta be kidding me."
"I'm absolutely not kidding." Y/N grinned.
Then promptly darted across the street toward the hotel entrance.
Heat rushed around them in soft waves carrying the scent of polished wood and old carpet and faint pine from the enormous Christmas tree dominating the center of the lobby. Gold garlands curled around stair railings while soft jazz drifted lazily through hidden speakers overhead. Compared to the frozen city outside, the hotel felt almost dreamlike.
Y/N laughed breathlessly as she pushed damp snow from her coat sleeves.
Across the lobby, the night receptionist glanced up from behind the desk with mild curiosity. His eyes moved briefly between the snow-covered pair standing in the entrance at nearly three in the morning before settling back toward the magazine spread open in front of him with the deeply perfected indifference unique to hotel employees.
Michael lowered his voice immediately. "You brought me into a hotel?"
Y/N ignored him entirely. Instead she grabbed his sleeve again and pointed dramatically toward the elevators at the far end of the lobby.
Two identical golden elevator doors stood side-by-side beneath warm chandelier light.
Michael stared at them. Then at her. Then back at the elevators.
"Oh no."
"Oh yes."
"You have a plan."
"Think of it as an experiment."
"That's worse."
Y/N practically glowed now with excitement.
"Okay," she said quickly, pulling him toward the elevators. "If fate really keeps trying to force this ridiculous narrative together —"
"You mean the narrative you keep sabotaging?"
"Testing," she corrected immediately. "I'm testing it."
Michael laughed softly under his breath. "Right. Sorry. Testing."
Y/N immediately positioned herself in front of the left one while Michael, already smiling helplessly now, moved toward the right.
The polished brass doors reflected them faintly beneath the warm lobby lighting. Snow still melted slowly from their coats onto the marble floor beneath their feet.
"So here's the rule," Y/N explained, pointing between them. "We each pick a random floor."
"And?"
"And if fate's actually with us tonight," she said, eyes bright with delight, "we'll choose the same one."
Michael stared at her for a long moment then slowly shook his head in disbelief. "You really think the universe has this much free time?"
"I think the universe loves drama."
"That sounds exhausting for the universe."
The elevator beside Y/N dinged softly.
The doors slid open.
At nearly the exact same moment, Michael's elevator opened too.
Y/N gasped theatrically. The symmetry of it nearly made her dizzy.
The elevator doors slid shut between them with a soft mechanical whisper. And suddenly Y/N was alone again.
The elevator remained still while she stared at the glowing panel of numbered buttons beside the door. Floors stretched upward in neat illuminated rows, each one suddenly carrying absurd emotional significance despite being nothing more than architecture.
Y/N inhaled slowly. Then reached out, clicking her lucky number.
The button lit amber beneath her fingertip. Soft jazz music drifted faintly through hidden speakers while the floors climbed steadily upward one by one. Y/N leaned back lightly against the mirrored wall, arms folded loosely around herself now as anticipation fluttered embarrassingly through her chest.
What if he picked the same number too? The possibility made her grin instantly.
Meanwhile, several floors away inside the other elevator, Michael stared at the buttons with increasing distress. Because suddenly he realized he had absolutely no idea what number to choose.
The doors had barely closed before his brain immediately betrayed him by trying to strategize fate.
Which presumably defeated the entire point.
Michael rubbed one gloved hand anxiously against the back of his neck while the elevator remained waiting patiently for instruction. The mirrored walls reflected his exhausted expression back at him endlessly from every angle.
His first instinct said lower floors. Something simple. Seven maybe. Or three. Numbers people picked instinctively in games and stories.
But immediately another part of his brain objected. No, she'd expect that. Which somehow made the twenties feel more logical. Except now he was overthinking it entirely.
Michael laughed once under his breath, genuinely exasperated with himself.
"You're losing your mind," he muttered softly. Finally, impulsively, he hit twenty-eight.
The farther the elevator climbed, the more convinced he became that somewhere below him Y/N was probably standing on a much smaller floor laughing about how fate apparently hated them after all.
The thought unsettled him more than it should have. By the time the doors opened onto the twenty-eighth floor, Michael barely glanced outward before hitting another button immediately.
He stared out at the empty hallway for barely two seconds. No Y/N. The doors slid shut again. He hit another button. Then immediately afterward: another.
Meanwhile, on her floor, Y/N stepped out into a silent hallway lined with ornate carpet and dim golden sconces and waited.
The opposite elevator remained closed. She stared at it hopefully at first, then patiently, then with growing disappointment.
The hallway remained perfectly still around her. Somewhere farther down the corridor an ice machine hummed softly in the quiet, but otherwise there was only silence.
Y/N folded her arms loosely against herself. "Hm," she murmured softly. A strange ache settled unexpectedly beneath her ribs with the quiet sadness of momentum ending.
Because perhaps this was the point where reality finally reclaimed the night from fiction. The test had failed. The narrative had stretched as far as coincidence allowed before collapsing back into ordinary randomness.
Y/N looked once more toward the unopened elevator doors before sighing softly and stepping back inside her own elevator.
As the elevator descended, she leaned back tiredly against the mirrored wall while exhaustion finally began creeping fully into her bones. It was really late now. Her feet hurt. Her hair was damp from snow. Somewhere beneath the thrill of the night, reality slowly waited to reclaim her entirely.
The elevator dinged softly upon reaching the lobby.
And at the exact same moment —
The other elevator opened too.
Across the marble floor, Michael stood inside the opposite elevator looking utterly disheveled.
His curls were messier now from repeatedly tugging gloves through his hair in frustration. His scarf hung half undone around his neck. There was visible anxiety still lingering across his expression from whatever chaotic journey he had apparently just endured through the hotel.
For one stunned second they simply stared at each other.
Then Y/N's eyes widened so dramatically it almost hurt. Laughter burst out of her immediately afterward, loud and uncontrollable and bright enough to echo across the nearly empty lobby. She clapped both hands over her mouth in complete astonishment while staring at him across the marble floor like she could barely process what she was seeing.
Michael just stood there smiling, profoundly, visibly relieved.
"You look guilty." Y/N accused breathlessly through laughter.
"I may have panicked." That only made her laugh harder. "I figured," he said softly, "there's only one entrance and exit to this hotel." Michael looked at her for another second before laughing softly to himself, exhaustion finally catching up visibly now that the adrenaline had worn off. "Thank God I picked the lobby eventually," he admitted. "Or I probably would've lost you forever."
By the time they stepped back outside the hotel, the city had softened into that strange fragile hour belonging neither to night nor morning.
Four in the morning approached invisibly now beneath the snowfall.
The hotel elevator moment had shifted something invisible. now there existed undeniable awareness humming quietly beneath every conversation afterward. The realization that neither of them had wanted the night to end. That both of them had, in their own embarrassing ways, searched for the other.
The knowledge settled warmly between them now like a shared secret neither seemed eager to expose directly.
So instead they kept walking. And talking.
Conversation unfurled endlessly through the snowy streets with almost unnatural momentum. One story led effortlessly into another until entire blocks disappeared beneath laughter and questions and tangents. Y/N spoke with her hands when excited, Michael noticed. Especially when talking about books. Her fingers moved constantly through the cold air as though physically arranging thoughts in front of herself while she spoke.
Meanwhile, Michael told stories quietly, which had surprised her. She had expected someone raised inside fame to speak like an entertainer even casually, shaping anecdotes toward reaction automatically. Instead Michael told stories almost shyly at first, eyes lowering occasionally while he laughed at his own memories midway through recounting them.
He told her about recording sessions that lasted until sunrise. About learning choreography until his legs physically gave out beneath him. About sneaking candy into places he technically wasn't supposed to. About childhood pranks with his brothers during tours.
And Y/N listened greedily to all of it because he was fascinating.
At one point while crossing an intersection, Michael abruptly stopped mid-conversation because a shop window displayed elaborate wind-up toys moving mechanically beneath fake snow.
Y/N turned around after realizing he'd vanished beside her.
His face practically illuminated beneath the glow of the display window while tiny mechanical ballerinas spun endlessly behind the glass.
Michael glanced at her sheepishly without moving away from the window.
Eventually, after several more blocks of wandering through snow and conversation, they stumbled across a diner glowing warmly at the corner of a nearly empty street.
The neon sign buzzed faintly overhead in pink and blue.
Inside, chrome fixtures gleamed beneath fluorescent lights while sleepy jazz hummed softly from a jukebox near the counter. A tired waitress looked up briefly as they entered before returning to refilling coffee for a truck driver sitting alone near the window.
They slid into a booth near the back beneath fogged windows streaked with melting snow. The vinyl seats squeaked quietly beneath their coats while laminated menus spread open between them across the table.
Y/N immediately became invested in the menu with alarming seriousness. "I never order the same thing twice," she informed him proudly.
"What if you hate it?"
"Then I hate it."
The waitress arrived sleepily beside the table not long afterward, pencil poised above her notepad.
Y/N ordered an absurd milkshake flavor immediately simply because she had never tried it before.
He shook his head, smiling helplessly before ordering a chocolate milkshake himself.
The waitress returned several minutes later balancing the tray carefully through the nearly empty diner, one hand steady against the underside while the tiny silver bracelets on her wrist jingled softly with each step. The overhead fluorescent lights reflected against the chrome milkshake glasses so brightly they almost looked theatrical by the time she reached their booth.
Y/N straightened immediately in anticipation.
The old woman placed Michael's milkshake down first.
It looked comfortingly traditional. Thick chocolate ice cream blended smooth beneath a generous swirl of whipped cream, the cherry on top glossy and impossibly red beneath the diner lights. Condensation already gathered along the metal cup beside it while cold mist curled faintly from the surface. It looked like the kind of milkshake advertised in old magazines from the fifties.
Then the waitress set Y/N's down.
Michael blinked. Because hers looked absolutely insane.
The glass practically disappeared beneath chaos. Rainbow sprinkles coated the whipped cream in glittering layers while bright syrup dripped extravagantly down the sides. Tiny crushed candies clung stubbornly to the rim. And sticking proudly from the very top was a miniature sparkling sprinkler actively crackling and fizzing golden sparks into the air like a tiny firework display.
Her entire face lit up with such sincere delight that Michael immediately started laughing because the joy radiating from her expression looked almost childlike in its honesty. She leaned toward the glass with both hands pressed lightly together beneath her chin while the sparks reflected brightly in her eyes.
"This is the greatest thing I've ever seen."
Michael shook his head slowly, grinning helplessly while glancing between her and the aggressively decorated drink. "It looks like a parade float," he informed her.
The old waitress looked between them with visible amusement softening her tired features. She had probably spent decades watching people pass through this diner at impossible hours of the night, yet something about the two snow-soaked strangers tucked into the back booth clearly entertained her.
"You two complement each other's spark," she remarked casually.
The sentence settled warmly into the space between them.
Y/N blinked in surprise before laughing softly beneath her breath, embarrassed suddenly by how intimate the comment sounded coming from a stranger.
But Michael smiled so widely at the remark it physically transformed his entire face.
Before Y/N could properly process that expression, she leaned forward and blew gently toward the tiny sprinkler atop her milkshake. The sparks fizzled dramatically into smoke while she laughed quietly to herself at the ridiculousness of it all.
The waitress chuckled. "Well," she murmured while collecting empty coffee mugs from a neighboring table, "you two enjoy yourselves."
Then she wandered back toward the counter beneath the low hum of fluorescent lights and sleepy jazz music.
Y/N reached across the table and stole a sip from his milkshake entirely on instinct. And Michael let her, he had too many siblings so this was familiar.
The straw made a quiet sound against the thick chocolate as she tasted it, and almost immediately her eyebrows lifted.
Michael watched her reaction with visible amusement. "Well?"
She swallowed. "So good."
His grin widened immediately and before she could say anything else, Michael leaned forward and took a sip from hers in return.
He froze almost instantly afterward. "What?"
"This is way better."
She looked genuinely horrified. "No, it's not."
"It is."
"It's radioactive."
"No, it's good I swear."
The sincerity of the answer startled a laugh out of her.
Michael took another sip before sliding the glass reluctantly back toward her. "I should've ordered this."
"You absolutely should not have."
"I'm serious."
"You don't mean that."
"I do."
"You're having a temporary lapse in judgment because of the sprinkles."
Michael shook his head once, still smiling faintly. "I'm getting this from now on."
"No," she decided. "You can't."
Michael tilted his head slightly. "Why not?"
"Because if we ever come back here —" The words slipped out naturally. Neither acknowledged it directly. Still, something soft flickered briefly through Michael's expression afterward. "— then I need you to order the reliable milkshake while I try new things without risking complete disappointment because I'll still have yours."
Michael stared at her in mild disbelief.
"So your plan was stealing my milkshake from the beginning."
"Our milkshake," she corrected absentmindedly.
By the time they left the diner, the night had begun unraveling around the edges.
Cold morning air greeted them immediately upon stepping outside, sharper now than it had been hours earlier. Snow still blanketed the sidewalks in soft uneven layers, though the sky above had begun changing almost imperceptibly from black into deep bruised blue. The darkness no longer felt endless. Somewhere far beyond the buildings, dawn waited patiently beneath the horizon.
Y/N pulled her coat tighter around herself while the diner door swung shut behind them with a muted little bell chime. For a second she simply stood there breathing in the freezing air again, her cheeks still warm from the diner heat and sugar and laughter.
Beside her, Michael looked upward toward the sky.
The expression crossing his face afterward was subtle enough most people would have missed it entirely.
Night had protected them somehow. Snow and darkness and empty streets had blurred the impossible parts of their encounter into something private and suspended outside ordinary life. But morning would return structure to everything. People would wake up. Traffic would swell. Sidewalks would crowd. Michael Jackson would stop being simply Michael again.
The city would recognize him eventually.
Michael shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets while cold wind curled visibly around them. Internally, something restless had begun clawing quietly beneath his ribs.
He did not want to go back yet.
He did not want handlers or schedules or recording sessions or meetings about sales projections and market expectations. He did not want people watching him again. He especially did not want the strange bright version of himself that had emerged tonight to disappear the second daylight touched the city.
Because somewhere between the bus stop and the diner booth, he had become simply a boy wandering New York with a girl who listened to the world like music.
And now morning threatened to take that away.
"So," he murmured beside her, "what act are we in now?"
Y/N looked toward him immediately. "What?"
"In the narrative," he clarified. "You're the expert."
She smiled faintly. "Oh." Their breath curled pale into the cold air while dawn stretched slowly across the skyline behind them. "Hm," she murmured thoughtfully. "Definitely late second act."
Michael looked ahead toward the slowly waking streets. "And what happens after that?"
Y/N shoved her hands deeper into her coat pockets before answering. "Usually?" she said carefully. "The characters have to decide whether the story was important enough to change them."
Michael fell quiet after that. "And if they don't change?" he asked eventually.
Y/N glanced toward him. "Then the story wasn't very good."
A small smile touched his mouth at that, though it faded quickly afterward into something more thoughtful.
"You really see life like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like moments are chapters."
"No," she admitted. "I think moments are moments."
"Then why turn them into stories?"
"I think..." She hesitated briefly. "I think stories are the only way people know how to keep things from disappearing."
"You're scared of forgetting?" he asked softly.
Y/N laughed once beneath her breath, though no humor reached it. "I'm terrified of it." She kept walking while speaking now, eyes fixed ahead on the pale horizon beginning to bloom gold behind Manhattan's buildings. "People think writing is about creating things," she continued quietly. "But most of it's really just trying to hold onto moments before they vanish."
His mouth parted slightly. His brows pulled together in that thoughtful way they always did whenever she said something that unsettled him emotionally. She could practically see the question forming behind his eyes before he even spoke it.
But before either of them could continue — A sharp car horn split through the morning air.
The sound shattered the fragile stillness instantly.
A dark car sat idling near the curb half a block away, exhaust curling pale into the freezing dawn. The passenger door had already swung open before the vehicle even fully stopped, and a tall man hurried out immediately afterward wearing an expression balanced somewhere between fury and overwhelming relief.
"Michael!" The name echoed loudly through the waking street.
Michael visibly froze.
Y/N felt it happen beside her physically, like watching someone pulled suddenly backward into themselves after hours spent forgetting who they were required to be.
The man strode toward them quickly through the snow. The entire atmosphere changed around him instantly. The playfulness dissolved. The wandering-night softness evaporated beneath something sharper and more structured. Morning sunlight touched the city fully now, illuminating everything too clearly.
Bill finally reached them, breathing hard from obvious panic and frustration both.
"Jesus Christ, Mike," he said, dragging one gloved hand down his face. "Do you have any idea how long we've been looking for you?"
Michael immediately looked guilty. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Bill repeated incredulously. "Man, everybody's been losing their minds since midnight. We checked the studio, the hotel, the streets —" He stopped abruptly, exhaling hard through his nose before looking upward briefly like he was physically trying to lower his blood pressure.
Bill finally looked toward her then for the first time properly. His expression softened almost immediately afterward. Because suddenly the situation became painfully obvious to him in ways neither Michael nor Y/N fully realized themselves yet.
Two young people standing together beneath the pale light of morning looking at one another like they had accidentally wandered too far into something neither was ready to lose.
Bill sighed quietly. "I'm just glad you're okay," he muttered more gently this time, mostly to Michael. "Been chasing you across Manhattan all night."
Michael rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I didn't mean to disappear that long."
"I know."
Michael turned toward her then and suddenly all the playful ease from earlier vanished beneath something far more vulnerable.
"I'm sorry," he said softly.
The apology hurt more than she expected.
Y/N smiled gently anyway. "You don't have to apologize."
Michael looked like he wanted to argue with that.
Before he could, Bill stepped slightly forward and extended one hand politely toward her. "Bill Bray," he introduced quietly. "I'm the poor guy responsible for making sure he stays alive."
That startled a soft laugh out of her. Y/N shook his hand warmly despite the ache beginning to spread slowly through her chest. "Y/N."
The moment the name left her mouth, Michael's eyes lifted sharply toward her.
And suddenly she realized.
Not once all night had she exchanged her name.
After everything — the bus stop and the diner and the elevators and the endless wandering streets beneath the snow — they had somehow remained strangers in the simplest possible way.
Michael repeated her name softly beneath his breath like he was trying to memorize its shape immediately. The way he said it made her heart twist painfully.
The older man glanced briefly away afterward, giving them both a small mercy of privacy before sighing heavily. "I'm gonna give you two a minute," he said quietly to Michael. Then, gentler: "Say your goodbyes and get in the car."
Bill stepped back toward the curb afterward, leaving them standing alone together again beneath the pale morning light.
Y/N swallowed softly against the ache beginning to settle inside her chest. Then smiled anyway. "Well," she murmured quietly, "may we meet again." Y/N tucked her hands deeper into her coat pockets before continuing, her breath curling pale around the edges of her voice. "One final test for fate," she said softly.
Michael laughed quietly beneath his breath. But the sound carried sadness through it now. "I think," he said slowly, carefully, "I believe in it a little now." Michael glanced back up toward her afterward, almost sheepish suddenly. "Just a little," he clarified quietly. "I'm not completely convinced yet."
Y/N smiled faintly. "That's probably healthier."
"I mean it," he continued, voice softer now. "Before tonight I thought people just... met each other. Randomly. But this..." He laughed once under his breath, shaking his head slightly. "This didn't feel random."
Something painful and warm twisted simultaneously through her chest.
Y/N looked at him carefully. Then finally, honestly: "I had a really good time with you."
The sentence sounded heartbreakingly small compared to what the night had actually become.
His expression softened almost immediately into something quieter. "So did I." Then Michael laughed softly beneath his breath again, though this time the sound carried embarrassment through it. "You know what's strange?"
"What?"
"When I was with you..." He hesitated briefly like he was trying to find the exact shape of the thought before continuing. "It was nice not having to talk so much."
Michael shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets while speaking, eyes lowering briefly toward the snow beneath his shoes. "Usually I feel like I have to keep people entertained all the time," he admitted quietly. "Like if I stop performing for even a second, everything gets awkward."
"But with you..." He smiled faintly. "It was nice to just listen."
Y/N felt her throat tighten unexpectedly. Then, despite herself, she laughed softly. "That's funny."
"Why?"
"Because I think it was the opposite for me."
His brows lifted slightly.
She smiled down toward the snow briefly before continuing.
"I usually stay quiet around people," she admitted. "I spend most of my time observing instead of talking. I like listening better." Michael watched her carefully. "But with you," she said softly, "I kept wanting to tell you everything."
Y/N swallowed hard against the ache rising into her throat.
Then slowly, gently, she stepped closer toward him.
Without saying anything, Y/N began pulling her gloves off finger by finger, the cold air striking instantly against her skin. Her fingers had gone pink from the weather, slightly numb now from wandering Manhattan for hours beneath the snow.
Michael watched her carefully, confused at first.
Then she reached for his hands.
The movement startled him enough that he almost pulled back instinctively before realizing what she meant. Y/N smiled softly at the hesitation and tugged lightly at his gloves until he finally let her remove those too.
Cold air rushed against both their bare hands immediately.
And then finally — Skin against skin.
After an entire night spent beside one another, this was somehow the first time they had touched.
Then gently, almost ceremonially, Y/N folded both his hands together between her own until they rested like something fragile she was trying very carefully not to break.
Her thumbs brushed lightly over his knuckles once. Twice. Then softly, beneath the pale winter morning:
"To our one and only night together."
Y/N tapped lightly against one side of his clasped hands with her finger. Then the other.
The tiny movement felt unbearably intimate somehow. Childlike. Sacred. Like creating a ritual for something too beautiful to survive ordinary language.
Michael stared down at their hands silently, then up at her.
And suddenly the sadness inside his smile became almost impossible to bear. His throat moved slightly before he spoke again, voice rougher now than before. "I didn't ask you enough questions."
Michael laughed once beneath his breath afterward, though the sound broke halfway through.
"I spent the whole night talking about myself."
"That's not true." The vulnerability in his voice cracked straight through her chest. Michael looked at her like he was trying desperately to memorize what little time remained. "I never asked you what's your favorite time of day." he said suddenly. Michael continued before she could answer. "Or your favorite flower." His voice softened further. "Or what's your favorite cloud shape."
Snow drifted quietly around them.
"I don't know what kind of books made you wanna start writing," he continued, words tumbling faster now like he was afraid time itself might interrupt him. "Or what your room looks like. Or if you like thunderstorms or if they scare you."
Y/N felt emotion rise so sharply inside her she physically could not speak for a moment.
Michael looked down briefly before laughing softly again through the ache. "I don't even know your favorite color."
She stepped forward fast enough that Michael barely had time to react before her arms wrapped tightly around him.
Michael inhaled sharply the second she touched him.
Then immediately, impossibly, held her even tighter.
His arms wrapped around her completely while the city disappeared around them both. Y/N buried her face against the cold wool of his coat, breathing in winter air and faint traces of diner sugar and snow and something heartbreakingly him beneath it all.
Y/N closed her eyes tightly. The ache inside her chest had grown too large now for language alone. So instead she whispered softly against him: "When we meet again..." Michael's grip tightened almost imperceptibly. "I promise I'll answer those questions."
A tear slipping warm against the side of her face where his cheek rested briefly against her hair.
Michael exhaled shakily. And very quietly, like the words themselves frightened him with how much he meant them: "Let's meet again."
The separation happened slowly, reluctantly, like untangling something fragile thread by thread. Michael's hands lingered at her waist for half a second longer than necessary while Y/N's fingers remained curled lightly into the fabric of his coat as though her body had not yet accepted the goodbye her mind understood perfectly.
Y/N covered her mouth immediately, shaking her head in disbelief while tears still clung embarrassingly to her lashes.
She breathed through laughter. "Look at us."
Michael laughed too, softer than hers but equally overwhelmed, one hand dragging through his curls while he tried recovering from the emotional whiplash of the last several minutes.
"We're a mess."
"Completely."
"We've known each other one night."
The laughter faded slowly afterward into something quieter.
Michael looked at her carefully again. Then, very softly, "What if I look for you?"
Y/N felt her heartbeat stumble painfully against her ribs.
For one dangerous second part of her wanted to say yes.
Please do.
Please ruin the ending.
Please find me anyway.
But instead Y/N smiled through the ache gathering thickly in her throat. "Well," she whispered gently, "then it wouldn't be fate anymore."
Michael looked at her like the answer simultaneously hurt and healed him. Then slowly, almost reverently, he lifted one bare hand toward her face. His fingertips brushed gently against her cheek, catching a tear she hadn't realized had fallen again. The touch was impossibly careful, like he feared she might disappear beneath it.
"Will you," he said quietly, thumb lingering briefly against her cheekbone, "at least write about me?"
Y/N looked at him for a long moment afterward then slowly shook her head. "No," she whispered. Michael's brows lifted slightly and Y/N looked at him like she was trying to memorize every detail at once. "The truth is," she admitted softly, "I think I'd rather remember you."
Michael's eyes flickered briefly toward the street where Bill still sat inside the idling car pretending very hard not to witness the ending of something fragile. Exhaust curled slowly upward into the pale morning air while sunlight spread steadily brighter across the snow-covered city.
The moment had finally run out of places to hide.
Michael exhaled slowly through his nose before his hand finally slipped away from her cheek.
For a second longer they simply stood there facing one another beneath the winter morning sky, both looking like people who had accidentally wandered too deeply into a story neither was ready to leave behind.
Then Y/N reached quietly into her coat pocket. Michael frowned slightly at the movement until she pulled out a pair of gloves.
"You'll freeze," she murmured softly.
Michael accepted them carefully from her hands, fingers brushing briefly against hers in the exchange. Something about the small domestic tenderness of it — the simplicity of giving someone their gloves back after surviving a night together — hurt infinitely more than dramatic goodbye speeches ever could.
He opened his mouth slightly like he wanted to say something else. But no words arrived. What could possibly follow a night like this? Nothing large enough.
So instead Michael just looked at her one last time. Then finally, reluctantly, he stepped backward.
The distance between them widened slowly, painfully, until cold morning air settled fully back into the space where they had stood together.
Michael turned finally toward the waiting car and just before climbing into the car, he looked back.
Y/N still stood exactly where he'd left her.
Small against the enormous winter city, and lifted one hand gently in goodbye.
Michael felt his chest tighten so sharply it almost physically hurt.
Inside the vehicle, warmth wrapped around him immediately while the world outside blurred faintly through fogged windows. Bill glanced once toward him from the driver's seat but wisely said nothing. The older man simply pulled quietly away from the curb, giving Michael the mercy of silence.
As the car moved through the streets, Michael kept his eyes fixed on the window.
Y/N remained standing there longer than necessary.
He watched her slowly disappear behind distance and snowfall and morning traffic until finally she vanished entirely into the waking city.
Only then did he look away.
Bill drove carefully through the slush-covered streets while radio static hummed quietly beneath the heater vents. Every so often Michael caught him glancing over briefly like he wanted to ask questions, but thankfully he never did.
Because Michael wouldn't have known how to explain any of it anyway. How do you explain one night becoming important enough to rearrange something permanently inside you?
Eventually, absentmindedly, Michael glanced down toward the gloves resting loosely in his lap.
Then paused. A small crease formed between his brows.
These weren't his.
Slowly, he turned them over in his hands again. The realization hit him instantly enough that he nearly spoke aloud without thinking. "Bill, turn around —"
But the words died halfway out of him because something white caught against the inside lining of one glove.
Carefully, almost reverently now, he reached inside and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
The note had clearly been tucked there intentionally. The paper itself was slightly wrinkled from warmth and movement, edges softened from being hidden inside the glove.
He unfolded it gently. And there, written in hurried elegant handwriting, were the words:
If this night was only borrowed from the universe for a little while, then I think we spent it beautifully.
You once asked me what happens when stories end. I think they don't.
I think they simply become part of the people who lived them.
So wherever life carries you after this — through music, through cities, through every beautiful impossible thing waiting for you — I hope the world is gentle when it holds your heart.
And if fate is kind enough to let our paths cross again someday, I promise I'll stay.
Until then, thank you for letting me be young beside you for one night.
Live beautifully, Michael.
For several seconds he simply stared at the note. Then slowly, painfully, his face folded inward around emotion again. And then finally the tear came.
It slipped silently down his cheek before falling onto the paper itself, staining the ink slightly near the edge of her handwriting.
Michael laughed softly beneath his breath at the sight of it, shaking his head once while pressing trembling fingers briefly against his mouth.
What an utterly, unforgettable goodbye from a beautiful stranger.
ᛝ ིྀྀི more a/n ❛ oh 'serendipity' and 'before sunrise', u will always be loved by me!!! thinking of a part two if enough people want it enough but i'm kinda obsessed with this ending so who knows ❜
tags: bad era!michael, female!reader, musician!reader, mutual pining, studio sessions, friends to lovers, slow burn romance
summary: you’re a rising star but it wasn’t always that way. you originally started out at CBS Records as a background singer for multiple artists until you get a specific request from michael jackson himself.
note: this is a slow burn!!! emphasis on slow!!! there are mentions of abuse, proceed with caution loves. ♡ longer chapter today!! reader is ovulating heavy in this LMAO also was listening to twymmf and just friends a lot so this is inspired by those songs ♡
disclaimer: this is a fictional story created purely for entertainment purposes. while it may reference real public figures, events, or time periods, all situations, relationships, dialogue, and portrayals are imagined and should not be taken as factual representations of real individuals or real-life events. any similarities to actual people or occurrences are entirely coincidental and part of the fictional narrative.
you wanted to let michael in, you really did. but something inside you held back. maybe because you were embarrassed, or maybe you just didn’t want to feel weak despite everything he’d said.
for the last month, your boyfriend had been coming to sit in on the studio sessions for his own manipulative reasons.
“you did so good, baby.” he smiled, grabbing your waist when you stepped out of the recording booth.
“thank you.” your movements were delayed, an ill-timed smile pulling at your lips as you played along to satisfy the front he’d put up in front of the others.
michael shot the two of you a smile, his aviators hiding the false positivity he emitted. there was something about your boyfriend that rubbed him the wrong way. maybe it was because he’d already pieced things together deep down. his intuition wouldn’t let him shake the feeling that he was the reason you seemed so small sometimes.
you were seated on the studio couch, your boyfriend cradling you on his lap while quincy sat at the soundboard and michael stood in the recording booth finishing up man in the mirror, one of your favorite songs from the lineup on the album.
you couldn’t help but keep your attention glued to him as he sang over the choir on the track, everything blending together so perfectly it felt unreal witnessing it happen in front of your eyes. but then you felt your boyfriend’s stare burning into the side of your head, so you turned and gave him a smile.
he smiled back before pressing a few pecks against your neck.
when you weren’t looking, it always seemed michael was. and in this moment, he wished he wasn’t.
your body language basically screamed for help. “stop..” you whispered. “this is unprofessional.” you lightly hit his chest, trying to push him away just as michael finished recording and stepped out of the booth.
“hey, i gotta finish writing and recording this last song so uh.. y/n, you can head home early tonight.” he gave the both of you a nod and friendly smile.
a pit settled in your stomach. hesitation flickered across your face before you stood and gathered your things.
“thanks, michael.” you tried not to let your discomfort show at the thought of now being alone with the man you didn’t want to be alone with.
“see ya, mike.” your boyfriend waved at quincy and michael before quietly gripping your hand and practically yanking you out of there.
your eyes met michael’s one last time before disappearing from the room.
“why were you watching him so hard in that booth, y/n?” your boyfriend confronted once you got into the car. you stayed silent. you didn’t have to answer him, so you turned your attention to the window.
“answer me!” he roared, smacking the steering wheel. your silence only fueled his fire more, but all you could muster was a sigh.
“fucking pathetic..” he started the engine and recklessly pulled out of the studio parking lot.
3 hours later
quincy had whipped up a synth-heavy beat that michael quickly started writing over after the two of you left. the idea had been lingering in his head for the past month.
he shot quincy a look that practically screamed hell yeah while q only scoffed and shook his head, amused by the grin spreading across michael’s face.
michael grabbed his notepad and stepped into the dimly lit recording booth, slipping the headphones over his ears. he tapped his loafer against the carpet to the beat before cueing quincy.
“i watched you on the floor, cheek to cheek, she’s getting to you, you didn’t see her eyes on me, no, she looked right through you,” michael sang into the mic almost desperately.
“you’re trouble, mike.” quincy muttered, bopping his head to the song.
one week later — los angeles, california
“fucking leave then! nothing is keeping you here with me!”
it was 7:30 in the morning. you’d been up all night writing your own music, getting lost in lyrics and melodies on your guitar when your boyfriend found the pages—not just the songs you wrote for others, but one specifically about him and everything you’d endured because of him.
you’d tried convincing him otherwise at first, but eventually gave up.
“shut the fuck up! you need me, remember that y/n. where will you live then, huh? whose name is the apartment in? or the car?” it was one of his favorite manipulation tactics because he knew you had nowhere else to go.
your brows pinched together as you fought back tears. “yeah, that’s what i thought. i’m the one who takes care of you, have you forgotten that?” he stepped inches from your face.
“you gonna sit there and cry?” he grabbed your jaw firmly with one hand, making you flinch.
“fuck you!” you shoved him back, quickly grabbing your things before slamming the front door behind you.
you rushed into the beat-up car and sped toward the studio. once you parked, you sat there for a moment trying to calm yourself down.
“fuck..” your mascara had run. you licked your finger and wiped away as much as you could before digging through your purse for your lipstick and mascara tube. you dabbed the plum-maroon lipstick against your lips, blending it with your fingertip before tossing it back into your bag and running mascara over your lashes a few times. then you headed inside.
you moved through the familiar luxurious hallway, hearing that familiar voice of silk before you even reached the room.
“thereee she is,” q sang playfully as you entered the room. you hadn’t been at the studio for the past week. everyone knew why, even if your excuse had been illness.
you smiled as quincy got up and pulled you into a quick hug while michael stood on the other side of the glass finishing the last verse of the way you make me feel.
“just in time. mike’s been putting off the chorus because he specifically wanted the two of you to tackle it together,” quincy explained. “wanted to hear it naturally instead of manually layering the vocals.”
“of course, got it.” you nodded.
quincy leaned over the control panel and pressed the intercom button.
“that was good mike—”
“good or great?” michael interrupted, his perfectionism slipping out.
“great- but hey, look who’s finally back from vacation.” he motioned toward you.
the second michael saw you, his smile spread instantly. god, that smile. he slipped the headphones off and quickly stepped out of the booth.
he wrapped you into one of his signature hugs, one arm around your torso while his hand rested against the back of your head. you’d only experienced one once before. you couldn’t deny the way michael hugged people felt healing somehow.
“hi, baby,” he murmured quietly enough for only you to hear.
the nickname sent a small shock through you, but you acted like you hadn’t heard it. you just assumed he called everyone that.
“hey, you..” you cooed once you pulled away. “how’ve you two been surviving without me?”
“we’ve been trying.” quincy chuckled, nudging your arm. meanwhile michael nodded along as he rocked on his heels with his hands shoved into his pockets. he wore a flannel with a black baseball cap, loose curls falling around his face. he looked dashing, to say the least.
“we should get this chorus done though,” he said, “label wants the music videos filmed soon so..” he motioned toward the recording booth, snapping his fingers lightly.
you held your hands up. “alright, alright.”
you slipped your coat off and tugged your sleeves over your palms, fiddling with the fabric the way you always did when focusing. michael followed behind you into the booth.
you stood at the mic across from him, slipping the headphones over your ears before doing a few quick lip trills to warm up. singing with michael jackson wasn’t exactly easy. especially not after this morning.
michael kept his eyes fixed on you while he waited for you to be ready. you nodded at him, cueing quincy. the instrumental started eight beats before the first chorus.
you bobbed your head to the beat, listening to michael’s finished verses before locking in on your timing.
“the way you make me feel,” michael sang passionately.
“the way you make me feel,” you layered beneath him.
when making this album, michael and quincy had become obsessed with tight vocal layering, especially on hooks.
“you knock me off of my feet—”
your eyes never left his as you matched his rhythm, fingers twisting in your sleeves while his gaze stayed locked on yours. every so often he closed his eyes to push through the stronger notes.
he threw in little adlibs that hadn’t existed before. a breathy “uh, uh” near the end of the chorus or a “go’n girl” that felt directed entirely at you while the two of you danced around to the beat.
you took a sip from your water bottle as the song continued. now you were at the final chorus, the most important part.
you hit the harmonies perfectly while michael suddenly started freestyling an alternate ending.
“give it to me, give me some time, cmon be my girl, i wanna make you mine—” his eyes locked with yours unconsciously. he couldn’t deny he’d missed hearing your voice.
“you really turn me on,” you sang back, giving him a playful squint.
was michael jackson really flirting with you right now?
you found yourself dancing now that your part was mostly over, michael tapping his thigh passionately while singing.
for the first time all day, you forgot about everything else. maybe god had seen you struggling just hours earlier and decided to answer your prayers by giving you one good day.
3 hours later
quincy had left to grab lunch for the three of you after losing a ridiculous bet with michael.
you sat cross-legged on the floor with your notebook open, scribbling down lyrics while humming quietly to yourself.
before you knew it, michael had crept behind you.
“ahh!” he grabbed both your shoulders with a loud noise.
“what the—!” you whipped around and slammed the notebook shut.
“michael! you ass!”
he doubled over laughing, “sorry, sorry,” he sighed before dropping into one of the spinning chairs. “what’re you writing?”
“nothing. none of your business.” you scrunched your nose at him.
“that means it’s something.”
“or maybe i just don’t want you reading my embarrassing thoughts.”
“oh what embarrassing thoughts? i already know you’re mean.. and dramatic.”
you huffed out a laugh despite yourself then michael held his hand out.
“cmonnn.” he whined. he could be unbelievably stubborn when he wanted something. after a minute, you finally gave in and handed him the notebook.
his expression shifted almost immediately to a focused expression like he was holding something fragile.
you watched nervously as he flipped through the pages filled with half-written songs, messy doodles, guitar notes, and lyrics you desperately hoped he wouldn’t realize were about him.
“it’s stupid..” you muttered, fiddling with your pen.
he shook his head without looking up. “you wrote this?”
“obviously.” you said monotonously.
“no, i know.” he chuckled softly. “i just..”
“okay, give it back now.” heat crept up your neck and to your cheeks.
“no.”
“michael—”
“this is good, y/n. like really good.”
the sincerity in his voice made you pause. your boyfriend had laughed in your face the first time he caught you writing songs in your bedroom months ago, called you a silly wannabe cyndi lauper.
everybody can write songs. doesn’t mean everybody is talented.
the memory hit harder now because michael was looking at your words like they mattered. he must’ve noticed the shift in your expression because he gently handed the notebook back.
“you ever think about recording your own stuff?”
you exhaled slowly, “no.. i don’t know. i’ve thought about it but..” you trailed off before forcing a laugh. “i’m not as good as my competitors."
“but you are.” michael frowned slightly. “your words and your voice are worth hearing.”
you looked up at him then, “you really think so?”
he nodded immediately, “i can get quincy to help produce demos for you. we can get you a marketing team—”
“woah woah, slow down there,” you laughed, standing up from the floor. “you still have your album and music videos and short films to prepare for, remember?”
“y/n, i have twenty years of experience in this industry.” he laughed. “don’t worry about me. you just better get those demos made.”
he stood too, hands resting on his hips. you smiled softly before realizing just how much taller he actually was than you and for some reason, that thought alone completely distracted you.
“um.. when do you start filming?” you asked quickly.
“next week.” he pointed at you. “so you better be there.”
your brows furrowed. “why do i need to be there?”
he gave you a look like seriously?
“because i want my friend there!” he wrapped an arm around your shoulders.
you laughed to cover up the butterflies erupting in your stomach as his sweet cologne filled your senses, “ohh, okay.”
a knock interrupted the moment. it was quincy, who finally returned with lunch.
michael pulled his arm away to open the door for him.
Review ・・ Michael has a crush on his next door neighbor.
⠀ Sound Check・・ Deep thanks to my pookies @confetti-cakemix and @vampgothicz for enabling me to write this! I said I would never write a rpf but the Michael movie has been on my mind and his music is currently being injected into my brain.
⠀ Credits・・ General audience! Fluff. Light teasing. First kiss. Post Off the wall/ Pre thriller! MJ Era. not proof read , I am free. wc. 3k
Disclaimer ‼ I’m basing this on Jafaar's performance of Michael. That means his personality is taken straight from the movies portrayal! This is all purely fictional. Thank You .ᐟ
It wasn't often that Michael had people over to his house. Sure, he had Managers and musicians come and go. The mailman and other various company movers ride through, but he doesn't ever remember a time when somebody so normal, someone whose main task wasn't to appeal to the Jacksons, came through here.
Michael didn't have friends, not human at least. He had Bubbles, Louie, Muscles— but none of them was a girl— a human girl— who was currently sitting in the stables of Louie's pen. Waiting for Michael to introduce another one of his exotic friends.
You waited patiently, eyes filled with sparkle, cheeks blooming with warmth. You came over, your first time, usually only conversing through the cracks of the walls or by mail due to the massive amounts of fans outside of his gates.
It happened by coincidence, a mistake that turned into a blessing of sorts.
You had packages delivered to his front door, a mishap by the mailman, but you didn't seem to mind it too much. You simply found the perfect opportunity to catch him while he was leaving from his recording studio, calling for someone to answer because you've been trying to get past the gates all week.
He heard, remembering that Latoya had mentioned that there were a few packages that weren't meant for the Jacksons a few days ago and he followed the tune of your shouts.
After another helpless call, he answered.
"I think we have your packages," he said, your voice immediately stopping.
He heard silence for a while, the breeze brushing through the trees. "Um, Hello?" He said. The sun was slowly making its way down to introduce the night. He was getting cold, and he had a meeting to get to in the morning.
He thought you left, but you spoke up.
"Y-Yes! I'm sorry, I've been doing this every day, I thought I started to hear things!"
He chuckled lowly, finding it all amusing. "Sorry, the front gates are always guarded, but I can have someone deliver it to you tomorrow."
"Oh, that would be perfect! Thank you!"
It wasn't the last time he got your packages, occasionally getting them every few weeks. But it was all cleared when he had the mailman return them.
"Do you really read through all of this mail?" Latoya gasped, opening a red envelope with decorated hearts. "There are so many, it'll be next year by the time you finish."
"I don't mind, it makes me feel important to people when they take the time to write to me."
He picked up a white envelope, his eyes immediately drawn to the last name.
He's seen that name before, on the wrong packages often delivered to his front step.
He opened it, turning away from Latoya who was still in awe of the thousands of letters scattered around on his floor.
He finally got your name— a pretty name at that. Handwriting that was cursive and bubbly, penmanship you don't see often decorated the paper.
You thanked him. A few sentences written about how grateful you were that even with the mishap, he didn't mind sending the packages back. You also mentioned how you were amazed at the fact that you could see a giraffe from your bedroom window sometimes, a sight you don't see often but felt delighted by it.
"I would love to see one up close the same way you do. But maybe when I'm much older and can travel the world on my own, perhaps I will. Thank you once again!"
And that was it.
He probably read the letter ten times before he realized that for the first time, you didn't want to see him as everybody else did— hoping they could get something out of him like a picture or an autograph— but you didn't mention any of it. You simply stated that you wanted to see his animals.
Not him.
His animals.
And that is what started his deep infatuation with you.
He wrote a letter back in the dead of night. The Pen scratching off certain words, frustration hitting through him, and then he was crumpling the paper once more, a fresh sheet already settled under his hand. It's been an hour, the fifth paper so far, and he tried his best to make sure the letter was perfect. It's easier sending a fax to businessmen about his ideas and new musical ideas regarding his career and the next album of his life, but sending a letter to somebody so… regular felt like the hardest thing in the world.
And sending it out was even harder.
But it happened.
And he kicked himself for it.
When he got his fan mail in two large bags, the only thing he wanted to read was yours.
The dial rings once before the line is picked up, the receiver immediately placed against his ear. You greet him first, voice trembling. “Oh! H-Hello? Im S-Sorry, is this the Jackson’s residence?”
“Depends." Michael was lying on his back, the cord stretching from his night stand. “Missing a package again?”
"Michael? Oh goodness, I thought I got the wrong number. I thought that, maybe you were pranking me or something—"
That was a few days ago.
"Why would I give you a fake number?"
"Why wouldn't you?"
There's some hidden underlying fact in your words, like this wasn't the first time you've gotten somebodies number and it was fake. But Michael wasn't like that. He was kind and genuine— he liked having someone to talk to, even if they were animals sometimes.
"No, this is real. My own personal number."
"O-Oh, I see."
It went quiet on the other line.
"I hope I'm not bothering you, I know it's late but you said if I needed anybody to talk to you… you were always free—"
"Did I say that?" He sounded dead serious.
"Huh? I think so? Wait— I'm pretty sure?" You gasped in distraught. "Oh my gosh, did I read that wrong? I'm so sorry, I-I thought the letter —"
Michael laughed behind the line. "I'm joking with you."
“Hey! Come on, don’t be a tease!" you whined.
He found comfort like this, something he only truly found in his family centric circle— besides Joe.
"So, what's the matter?"
He heard you shuffling, the line going quiet.
"I um…needed to hear someone other then my parents… I guess?"
Michael sat up, the tension hardening. "What's wrong with your parents?"
"They think it's okay to control your life," you sighed. "I understand, respect your parents, blah, blah, blah— but I have dreams too you know? I wanna be an actor! Or maybe a journalist? I'm not sure yet, but I'm working it out."
He could relate to that. All of his life has been controlled by Joe. Singing, dancing, shows, music— all of it. His last album was probably the first time he's felt free and the thought of making another one gave him hope but that heavy presence has never left.
"I get it. I have issues with my parents too."
The connection sparkled.
You both talked for hours afterwards, bubbles sleeping besides him, curled up against his side. You talked about more of your dreams, thoughts you had of the world and he listened.
Eventually it turned into him listing off exotic animals he liked and planned on inviting to his home. He was on number 47, the list already bizarre as it was.
"— and If I could own a panda, I could have free cuddly hugs every minute of the day."
"Panda… elephant… koala…" you said in anstonishment. "Gee, what are you going to say next? A snake?"
"No, I wouldn't say that."
"Thank goodness—"
"I already own a snake. His name is Muscles."
Another slew of chuckles shot through him at how silent you had gotten. "Are you surprised? I mean, do you think that's…" his laughter died, jaw setting tightly. He didn't want to say that word, he hated using that word, but he wouldn't be surprised if you used it. "—That's … not like…weird…to you?"
"Weird?" You started, voice shooting up an octave in offense.
"Y-Yeah, I mean, some people say it's weird. My brothers think so, and Joesph—"
"Oh Michael—" He thought he heard an angel on the other line. "—that's not weird at all. If anything, it makes you more interesting. Not a lot of people care about animals."
He chewed his bottom lip. "If you want— I mean, only if you want, you can say no if you want too. But… You can come over— I mean, visit. I can show you what I have so far."
"You mean that?"
"Yes. How about tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow is no good—" He kicked himself for asking. "— the day after is perfect though. If you still want me?"
He jumped from the bed and bubbles snorted in annoyance but went back to sleep. "Yes! yes, of course. I'll have Bill come for you."
"Who's that?"
"He's my body guard, but I trust him like a father."
"Okay."
Michael got the excited jitters, pumping his fist.
"The day after tomorrow then?" You asked.
"The day after tomorrow then," he repeated back, like he couldn't believe what he was saying.
"Goodnight Michael."
The line cut, and Michael felt like he was on cloud nine.
You came over, just as he hoped, and he immediately showed you his home. The pool, the garden, his room. Nobody was home but the maids, his brothers and father were off somewhere he didn't care to know. All that mattered was that he got the house to himself so that he could show you around without questions following.
You were amazed at his room, the collections of toys and posters he had almost made your eyes pop. You asked about his endless figurines of the Disney character Peter Pan and he gave you the simplest answer.
"He's me."
You didn't make a face in disgust, but you did ask a question.
"Can you fly too?"
He laughed at that. "I'm working on it. If we can land on the moon, it's not far off that a man could fly too."
He introduced you to Bubbles first and while you were scared to get close— holding onto his hand and shaking like an earth quake— you told him that it was very kind of him to rescue a chimpanzee. Muscles on the other hand you refused to go in the room.
He's never laughed so much in his life.
Louie made you calmer. Finding that he was cute and cuddly. And the famous giraffe you often saw outside of your window made the time spent perfect.
You had to go of course, but the late night call was filled with joy.
After that, the calls only kept coming. When he was away, far off while traveling with his brothers, he would send letters to your home in hopes that you would send back. It made him feel special in some way, knowing that somebody cared more about who he was then just the musical aspects of his character.
Whenever you felt down, expressing concern about life and your parents exhausting expectations, he would sneak you over to his house and play twisters in his room.
The maids saw you enough, but they didn't say anything.
And he was thankful for that.
But Bill, his bodyguard and trusted friend had a whole lot to say with a sharp raise of his brows and that light smirk on his face.
"She's your girlfriend now?"
Michael would dodge the question with another question. "So men can't have female friends?"
Bill didn't push for more, but he knew deep down that as long as Michael was happy, that's all that mattered.
"I wonder what he's thinking?"
You were sitting besides him, arms stretched out to pet Louie's head, a small grin adorning your face.
He's known you for a year and your friendship still felt new. Like always, you snuck over, played one of his many board games, and he talked about the stress he had over his upcoming album. So, you suggested that some fresh air could do him good.
Here you were, dangerously close, while showing one of his friends love that he so desperately wanted himself. He believed this was his chance to confess his deepest desire. He chewed the inside of his lips, formed the words in his head, and let it go.
"I think…" He took a deep breath, eyes scanning your face for your next reaction. You were petting Louie's head, comepletly enamored by him— a girl unlike anybody he's ever seen. "I…um, I think he likes you," He finally said, his breath leaving seconds after.
Your eyes slowly found his, attention drawn, your hands slowing down but still acknowledging Louie. "Really?" You questioned, lips curling into a grin. "How'd you know that?"
He gulped, suddenly put on the spot. "He told me."
"Told you?" You titled your head, cheeks puffing with your grin. "Who Louie?"
If this was anybody else, they would have laughed in his face. Called him insane, maybe delusional— in need of more time with humans and less time with animals— but you didn't do either.
You stared at him in wonder, your attention all on him.
Michael cleared his throat, "Y-Yeah, when they like someone, t-they make this small humming noise— sometimes you can tell by the ears. It's down, relaxed— he likes you. A lot." And he probably shouldn't have stumbled on his words so much, painfully obvious, but thankfully you didn't seem to catch it.
"Oh wow, you sure know a whole lot about llamas." you drew your attention back to Louie.
He could finally catch his breath.
"I should probably leave soon. Your family might be back any minute now."
He didn't want you to leave.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, Your probably a very busy man. Don't need to cut your time to spend it with me."
And that was the problem, he wanted to spend it with you.
He needed an excuse to get you to stay longer. "Wait— can I show you something?"
"Show me what?" You looked at him questionably.
"I've been working on something but I need input."
"You want my input?" You looked down in thought, "I mean, sure, but I'm not that very good at criticizing things."
"Don't worry, I don't bite."
You shoved him with your elbow lightly. "Please, I'm more scared of the snake."
"Then let's go." He stood up abruptly, dusting off his pants. "It's only a few steps away from here—"
Michael's jaw almost dropped.
You were leaning forward, placing a kiss against Louie's cheek, a goodbye filled with love. Michael wasn't often jealous, but standing here, now, watching you show affection for someone other than him filled him with jealousy beyond comprehension.
"Goodbye Louie." You petted his head once again and stood up.
Michael swallowed around a lump.
"Where is it again?" You questioned.
The studio felt warmer than before. Inches away from you once again but this time it was in his most vulnerable field.
He finished playing a few of his demos, the ones Quincy gave his stamp of approval. You listened and bobbed your head, side eyeing him at particular high ending sections of the songs with a amazement on your face.
"These were really good," you smiled, "I particularly like Starlight, although I'm a little confused on the meaning."
"It's upbeat— something to get the crowd moving."
"Sure,but—" you tapped your chin, "I feel like it's missing something."
He wrote something down on paper, a few words taken straight from your mouth.
Good but missing something
He placed his pen down, turning towards you. "The album isn't done yet, but I'm hoping it becomes the biggest album ever. Still working through some other songs, a title for the album, promotional pictures— other tedious things that you probably don't want to hear."
"I don't mind," you looked over at him. "I like when your like this— happy. You get so hyper about music, I can't help but be hypnotized."
Michael begin to sweat, his face suddenly warm. "You do?"
"We're alike, you and me. Although I'm not a Super Star like you," you laughed. "I can barely handle cleaning my room and your here mixing instruments and doing tours."
"T-That makes sense."
A knock on the door startled you both.
Bill came in, tapping his watch. "You family will be back soon, time to go."
Michael screamed internally.
"Guess I'll see you later?" You titled your head, rubbing a hand over his arm.
"I-I guess so."
You both couldn't break eye contact even if you tried.
"Can I do something real quick?" You asked, catching Michael off guard.
"Sure—"
He wasn't sure what this feeling was— if he was going through cardiac arrest or if someone was hitting him with a bat at the chest, but all he knew was that he didn't want that feeling to go away.
You leaned in, same way you did with Louie and kissed Michael's cheek. Your eyes shut close and your hands resting over his knee. You didn't pull away, even when Bill knocked on the door again. Time fell still. The moment so right that everything was swept away and replaced by your presences only.
Michael didn't know what to do with himself.
Finally, you broke away and chuckled to yourself. "See you later Mikey." You stood up and left a very flabbergasted Michael Jackson.
You opened the door, Bill greeted you and you left with a light skip in your step.
Bill came in, checking in on Michael. "You alright?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah," he shook the shock from his body, cheeks still warm. "I was going to write down a new song."
"Ohhh, Okay. Well, if you need me, I'll be out here— " before he turned, he called out. "— and Michael?"
Michael looked at him in question. "Yes?"
Bill pointed to his cheek. "You got a little something there. It's red, like a kiss—"
Michael quickly rubbed his hand over his cheek. "O-Oh okay! I gotta get to work. I'm a very busy man Bill."
Once Bill left, Michael finally left to his thoughts. He wrote something else under your critique, his face still bloomed with heat.
NOTE: THESE ARE ALL ACTORS THAT WERE POSTED ON A REGULATED SITE. EVERYTHING IS BETWEEN CONSENTING ADULTS.
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part of my kinktober series!
its ok if as long as it's not inside, right? ᡣ anal + toys ᡣ backshots ᡣ cuddlefuck ᡣ this ᡣ riding ᡣ deeeeep breeding ᡣ (tw) ghostface ᡣ somno ᡣ stuck! ᡣ fingering both holes
pussy eating ᡣ eating you out ᡣ jerking off to you ᡣ toys ᡣ riding ᡣ public sex ᡣ pounding + hair pulling ᡣ hole swap ᡣ groping + rough sex ᡣ 69 ᡣ pussy eating ᡣ the condom broke!
kisses between thrusts ᡣ he won't let you play your game... ᡣ doggy position ᡣ titty fuck ᡣ dryhumping ᡣ thigh fucking ᡣ more thigh fucking ᡣ reverse cowgirl ᡣ ripping your panties
somno pt. ii ᡣ cuddles ᡣ fingering ᡣ this ᡣ mutual masturbation ᡣ more fingering ᡣ tummy bulge ᡣ using you as stress relief after work ᡣ princess treatment ᡣ riding and breeding ᡣ new position ᡣ anal
see more in my main masterlist
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while were on the subject of markiplier egos and yanderes,,,, do you have any thoughts on Dark "I CAN GIVE YOU A N Y T H I N G ." Iplier? Hes such a jealous fellow..
Oh my goodness do I have thoughts. Maybe not well organized thoughts, but they are thoughts.
🖤 You most likely met him during the events of A Date With Markiplier. You were this strange new person that was dragged into Mark's little storyline... and for Dark, that was an opportunity. If he could win you over with offers of anything, he could potentially escape. No longer would he need to wait for Mark's stories to be able to appear, since he'd be with you. Needless to say, that didn't quite work out the way he wanted... but he did get to interact with you.
🖤 Over your short interaction, where he offered you anything you could ever desire, as well as everything you didn't, he was intrigued. You didn't exactly react the way he thought you would. No complaints of "Where's Mark?" or fearful cries of "Where am I?" Instead, you listened closely to what he had to say. Sure, you were also afraid, but you were able to keep a calm facade. Whoever you were, Mark must have picked you to be a part of his story for a reason.
🖤 Then, he kept seeing you in every story after that. Always one of the main stars of the show, right beside... Mark... While he was pushed aside to be the villain. That idea from before, to use you as a way to escape these stories, has been thrown out the window. Not just because it's become clear that you could also be stuck playing along with Mark's whims, but also because Dark has found himself too interested to simply use you as a tool. There's the strange way his chest flutters as he watches you move along with the chaos... The way it sinks whenever you leave his sight...
🖤 It takes him a while to realize that his interest is love, and to be honest, he doesn't even care that it is an obsession. Something about the way you interact with the stories that Mark concocts has him entranced and he thinks it is worthy of being obsessed over. The only problem is Mark... Mark always brings you back to safety at the end of the day, and considering that Dark is a villain in his stories, that means away from him. He hates Mark... you shouldn't have to listen to what Mark says or play along with the stories Mark wants to play. So, in the background, he starts planning a way to separate you from the story. A way to get you truly alone with him, in order to get more time with you. This time, though, his offer of anything will be true.
🖤 He brings you back to the table from your first meeting, this time acting a bit more desperate. He can give you anything. He will give you everything. Just stay with him for as long as you can. Keep him company. Better yet: join his side. Be a villain with him. Maybe that can break you out of your "role" in Mark's stories, so you won't be taken from Dark at the end of the day? Maybe that can let the two of you be together forever?
🖤 He just wants you to be with him. He's never thought about the possibility of truly being with someone enough to say he actually has an idea of what he would want to do with you. For him, whatever you want is what he wants. Do you want that romantic dinner from Mark's dumb date story? He'll provide you with one, but better. Do you want to walk along a beautiful beach with him? He'll take you there and watch how the sunlight catches your eyes. Do you want to live out a cozy life in a cabin in a forest? He can do that. He'll even wrap you up in warm blankets to keep you warm.
🖤 As much as he wants to, he can't actually make you stay. Mark has the final word at the end of the day... At least, Dark thinks he does. He's been unsure ever since you showed up. You might have more power than either of you think you do. The point still stands: he can't force you to stay. What he can do is stay persistent. He'll ask you again... and again... and again. His idea is that, if he is persistent enough, you'll get tired of being dragged back here with him, then just say yes. Every time, he gets more and more desperate with his pleading... Spilling out more and more feelings than he really intends to.
🖤 Saying yes would just be easier for the both of you, now, wouldn't it? Especially when everything and anything is waiting right around the corner if you do.
synopsis: Pleasure versus pain, affection versus control, it all becomes a little jumbled in your mind, and Clark takes advantage of that.
warnings: +18, daddy/caretaker dynamic, obsession, infantilization, emotional manipulation, dubcon, shy reader with low self-esteem, age gap, possession, spanking, oral (female receiving) minimal editing, proceed with caution.
word count: 2.7k
original oneshot
Clark’s apartment is much closer to the Daily Planet. It makes sense for you to stay a few nights a week. When your body naturally wakes you up at four in the morning, and you absentmindedly start to walk out of your bedroom sleepily, strong arms lift you and carry you back to your bed. “Not yet, sweetheart.” Somehow, he always knows where you are, he senses your every move, and understands your body even more than you do.
He tucks you back into the cloud-like bed, this time joining you, and he lets his large body fold over you like a protective barrier. You’re surprised by how innocent his touch is. He pulls loose strands of hair from your face and brushes a thumb across your cheek. Soothing brushes against your skin. Besides bath time, Clark kept his hands from wandering lower.
It confused you. Maybe you’d read him wrong. The touches between your legs, the pressure he placed against your most sensitive area, you thought things like that were reserved for couples. Surely it meant that Clark was attracted to you, but he doesn’t touch you like that at any other time of the day. His methods are clinical, a bullet point on his daily to-do list. The rest of the day, he only treats you like … a child.
He lets you sleep in for two more hours, and when it’s time to get ready for the day, he presents you with a dress he’s picked out. The tweed fabric features a brown and black checkered design, puffed sleeves, a dropped waist, and a frilly hem that would reach down to your knees. It’s professional and yet the cutest dress you’ve ever seen. Clark even presents you with a pair of bleach white, knee-high socks to pair with your Mary Janes.
“This is too nice, Clark.” You say a little too weakly as your fingers run over the tweed fabric.
“It’s perfect for you,” He said, like he’d already pictured you wearing it a million times before. You check the tag and see a luxury brand whose name is so French that you can’t even pronounce it. You’d stopped asking where he’d gotten the clothes, the decorations, and the trinkets from. Clark was simply ten steps ahead of you. The longer you were with him, the more it seemed like everything was planned.
You don’t argue. You can barely get any words of protest to form when he looks down at you with those piercing blue eyes. He’s just so determined. Your instinct was to shrink, to make things easier, to give him what he wanted. It wasn’t so bad. The dress was cute, and although you’d been dressing yourself since elementary school, it didn’t hurt to have an extra hand now.
He holds your smaller hand in his as he maneuvers around his apartment, grabbing his work bag and his lunch. “I packed up the leftover takeout from last night, figured we could have it for lunch.” You nodded, a nervous smile on your lips. “And I thought we’d stop for bagels this morning.”
“Oh, I’m supposed to get coffee for everyone–”
“Don’t worry about it. I asked the other temp, Jared or Jake or something, he’s gonna do it.” Clark interrupts.
Your lips part as Clark places a hand on the small of your back, guiding you to the front door, and you make the mistake of trying to stop in your tracks. You forget that Clark is a force of mass that you are not meant to get in the way of. You stumble, and Clark has to grab you before you fall forward.
“Do I need to carry you?”
You shake your head quickly, “Clark, that’s my job. Mr. White asked me —”
“Anyone can get coffee, Y/N. Why does it matter who does it?”
“I just–” You tried to compose your thoughts as Clark gave you a concerned look, “I feel like I’m already on thin ice with him. Isn’t it a bad look?”
“I promise, sweetheart, Perry won’t even notice. Besides that, it’s not fair that you have to ride the train for two hours to get here and then run to Fifth Street to get coffee for everyone.”
You hadn’t thought about the fairness of your situation until now. You took the brunt work because you thought that’s what every intern had to do. When you really thought about it, the other interns didn’t have to commute nearly as far. Most people who’d made it into your graduate program had parents who were completely supporting them.
Maybe Clark was right.
The two of you walk into the Daily Planet together, and you’re not the frazzled mess that you usually are. The two of you get looks from everyone, but you assume it’s because of how out of place you look in the clothes you’re wearing. In reality, it’s the fact that Clark Kent is carrying your heavy, pink work tote and that he walks you to your tiny desk. He makes sure you have your emotional support water bottle and that your sweater is hanging on the back of your chair, just in case you get cold.
He’s still there when you settle into your seat and leans down to your ear, “Make sure you finish your breakfast, okay?”
You flutter your eyelashes up at him, nodding quickly, “Okay.”
“I’ll see you in a little bit, pretty girl,” He smiles, and your heart flutters. Clark Kent actually likes you. And why hadn’t you noticed how cute his dimples were until now?
It takes you a full minute to collect your thoughts before you can think about the research articles Perry wanted you to comb through for a piece he wanted one of the teams to cover. Even as you scroll through page after page of scientific terms, you can’t fully concentrate. Were you dating now? Was he your boyfriend? Or just your Daddy?
You thought that when you did finally get into your first relationship, the lines wouldn’t be so blurred. You also thought you’d have a little bit more choice in the matter. But maybe you had chosen. You never said no. Or maybe you had, but it wasn’t clear enough for him.
Jimmy wants Clark to join him Lois, and Cat for lunch. Clark politely rejects the offer, although you whisper to him that he should eat with his friends. He does what he does best when it comes to you: he reassures you and gets his way at the same time.
The night after work is almost too normal. Clark can see that you’ve almost forgotten how fast the relationship has escalated. You sit at the dining table and finish your online assignments for the week while Clark cooks breakfast for dinner. The two of you talk about your days while you eat like a normal couple. You’re quiet, you let Clark have control over the conversation, but he pries into your personal life and upbringing. For a moment, you feel as if you’re being interviewed, but you find yourself sharing more than you had with anyone before.
You hadn’t been home to see your family in the entire year that you’ve been in grad school. And you’d liked it that way. They were disapproving and never really supported your dreams. Clark couldn’t hide his irritation. They’d told you over and over that someone like you could never amount to your dreams. He hated even more that you spoke about yourself like those things were true.
“You know that’s not true, right? You’d be a great journalist.”
“Oh, I know,” You lied. “It sounds worse than it is. They don’t mean it like you think. They just want me to be realistic.”
Clark’s lips press into a thin line of frustration. He’s quiet for a long moment, which makes you worry that he’s mad at you.
“The least you could do is not talk about yourself the same way,” His words come out harsher than he intended. Your lips part and your words fail you. His gaze is sharp, like he’s looking right through you, like your heart is on full display, “I have something I want to do with you.”
Clark stands from the table and quickly steals your plate, stacking it on top of his.
He gestures with his head towards the hallway where the two bedrooms are tucked away. “I’ll clean up. Go to your room and wait for me.”
Your anxiety peaks, although he doesn’t pay much attention to the worry in your eyes. He has something on his mind that he is clearly brooding over. Hesitantly, you rise from your seat and walk slowly towards the guest room. Your room, he’d called it.
"You don’t have to do anything but let me take care of you."
Clark had kept his word. He’s been taking care of you, feeding you, and making sure you got enough sleep. He was kinder to your body than you’d ever been. And yet deep down, you knew what you were doing – what he was doing was wrong. Good intentions or not. And yet you obediently sat down on your bed and waited.
When he appeared again, the white sleeves of his button-up shirt were rolled up to his elbows. He kept his eyes on you. You swallowed the lump in your throat as you watched him. He started to undo his belt, and you found yourself, once again, freezing.
Had you secretly manifested this? You’d been wondering why he hadn’t wanted to actually have sex with you. Now you were regretting letting that thought even cross your mind. You didn’t think you were ready for him. You could barely tolerate the insecurity and embarrassment that came with his touches during bathtime. For some reason, you didn’t want him to realize how inexperienced you were, how bad you’d probably be in bed.
Your mind was racing so much that you almost didn’t register that he’d moved forward. Holding your hips, he pulled you up from your spot, and for a moment, you thought he might kiss you. Instead, he spun your body around and started to lift your dress. Much to your confusion, he only lifted the dress to your waist. A strong hand on your shoulder, and suddenly you were bending at your hips. Just as quickly, he was pulling down your underwear.
Was this really how he wanted your first time to be?
“Look forward, sweetheart.”
Your eyes connected with a plush bunny tucked against a fluffy, white pillow, “Clark, I don’t want to–” You felt cool air on your bottom, and your face heated with embarrassment, “I don’t want–”
“I know, baby, keep looking forward. You’re being a good girl.”
You were looking forward, yes, but Clark was also holding you in the position. There wasn’t anywhere for you to go. “W-What are you doing?” You stuttered.
“Daddy’s going to spank you,” Clark grabbed ahold of your hips when they suddenly attempted to lurch forward. He shushed you, no energy exerted on his part, and you panicked even more, “You’re not in trouble. Don’t worry.”
“Please don’t, Clark!” It was the most you’d raised your voice at him. “Please, please, please.”
He rubbed his palm over the smoothness of your backside. A comforting gesture that only made you more tense.
“You know, I don’t like how you talk about yourself sometimes. Do you think I’d want you to be mine if I didn’t think you were perfect?” You can tell his question is rhetorical by the way he brings his palm down against your skin. You flinch, it hurts badly, and yet you know he’s holding back.
“It only really matters what I think, okay?”
“Okay!” You answer, high-pitched and desperate.
Another spank. “Call me Daddy, sweetheart.”
Your lips part and close over and over. Saying the word feels more intimate than the current position that you’re in. “Okay … Daddy.”
Clark releases a deep breath, and for a moment, you’re hopeful that the spanking is over. “Good girl. Just a few more.”
You whine as the next one lands. Your legs kick up as the pain reverberates through your body. Your mind is emptying and only holding onto the pain and Clark’s voice. “You’re beautiful and intelligent, you know that?”
No, you didn’t know that.
Your first instinct is to tell the truth but you’re smart enough not to, “Yes…” Another spank. “Daddy.”
Clark rubs your back, shushes you, as your tears begin to fall. The tears are less for the pain and more from the shame. “Good girl, Y/N,” You stilled as he pulled your underwear towards the floor. He lifted you then, laying you down gently onto the comforter, and you couldn’t hold back as you hiccuped and wiped tears from your eyes. “Such a good girl.”
Through your blurry eyes, you could see how Clark’s expression had darkened. His brows drew together in concentration, and his mouth tightened.
Arms on either side of your head, he leaned down until his face was an inch from yours, “My pretty girl,” He kissed beneath each of your eyes, softly and sweeter than you thought someone so strong and commanding could manage. When his lips enveloped yours, you felt your body go into shock. You weren’t sure what to do with your hands on your body. Your anxiety stopped you from moving your lips against his, but that only made Clark deepen the kiss. Your hands pressed against his chest.
Clark paused as if he had to remind himself that you needed to come up for air, “Clark,” Breathless, his name left your lips.
“Not Clark,” Now he was the one whining, “Not right now.”
“I don’t know how to …give you what you want, Daddy,” You tried to explain, scurting around the obvious, “Mmm-maybe we can wait.”
“You give me what I want just by existing, sweetheart,” Clark’s lips tug into a mischievous smile, “We can wait for the real thing. Just let Daddy taste you.”
He kisses you again, this time you melt against him and let him guide your lips the way he wants. You imagine it ending there and part of you is hoping to escape from the pressure that he exudes. He makes you feel pleasure, pain and embarrassment all at once. And now you were even starting to think that Clark actually found you pretty.
He rolls up your dress even further until it’s bunched underneath your chest. His mouth moves lower, kisses your belly button, and your inner thigh. That makes you squirm; however, Clark keeps you still. You don’t expect it when he starts to kiss between your folds, and you don’t even recognize the sound that leaves your lips when he starts to carefully lick.
You tremble, and unlike when he used his fingers, Clark decides to take his time. He teases you. Applies the correct pressure and then takes his attention away, his tongue pressing into your hole. You squeeze your hands around the fabric beneath you, your chest heaving, as your body completely betrays you.
“So sensitive,” Clark groans against your skin, “I knew you’d taste sweet. My sweet girl.”
“Oh my–”
Clark doesn’t realize his strength. He brings you to he edge of an orgasm over and over again. He doesn’t tire no does it seem like he’s gotten enough of you. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy..” You babble as you struggle to keep your eyes open, “Please, Daddy, please…”
“Come for me, baby,” And you do. Hard. You shake as your head tilts back and a soft scream leaves your lips. Then it gets dark. You don’t realize you’ve passed out until Clark is dragging a warm, wet washcloth against your cheek. The feeling brings you out of your short coma. Your eyes flutter open, and you realize you’re sitting in the bathtub. “There you are, you scared me, sweetheart.”
“Daddy,” You whine, finding yourself still trembling, still sensitive, and Clark leans in to kiss your forehead.
“I know, I know, Daddy’s sorry,” Clark apologizes. Another kiss, “You tasted so good and you sounded so good… I lost control.”
He couldn’t say it wouldn’t happen again. This was as new to him as it was for you. Your eyes flutter up at him tiredly.
“Which book do you want Daddy to read to you tonight, hmm?”
You perk up at that, and it’s obvious you already have something in mind, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?”
Clark smiled against your hair. “Anything you want, Y/N.”
reblog with your thoughts to be added to my clark taglist :)
LOOK AT HIM ALL GIDDY AND HAPPY AND GIGGLY MEETING JK ROWLING HOW IS HE 35 I CANT BELIEVE THIS SMOL BEAN IS A FATHER WHAT A PURE AND PRECIOUS SOUL I WILL PROTECT HIM AT ALL COSTS UGH EDDIE REDMAYNE
UPDATE: (30/10/2018) First, I wanna tank you for the help on my birthday, and all the messages i got, all the love. <3
November is coming up, so are the bills. I’m looking for a job, tho i still have panic attacks, but no one has called me yet.
We’re seeing if next year, a friend of mine comes living with me, to help me out with the main bills. It’s still not a certain thing, yet.
But it’s still november. I need help for next month’s rent, light bill, internet bill, the pets, everything.
If you’re able to donate a coin, would help.
Ps: take 5 minutes and read this: FIBROMYALGIA. I suffer from fibromyalgia, so, IN THE NAME OF GOD, leave me alone if you can’t help, scroll down, unfollow the blos where this post is being reblogged or block me, I don’t care. I just CAN’T stop asking for help, or I’ll be homeless. I am NOT kidding. If you think that I am, I’m sorry for you.
Through PayPal email [email protected] choosing “payment for products”. Here’s a longer post if you want to know about all the history. Thank you all.
(I’m @artsluna and i’m a friend of tais, that one who thanks you guys so much for helping me coming to her birthday, <3
I’m writing this because she doesn’t have a PC rn and she asked me to edit the post for her. Kisses and thank you <3)
Anything can save me right now, my fridge is empty and my light bill is 7 days late, completing 12, they’ll cut my power and I am alone. $5, $10, $15, $20, anything, helps. Please, consider this with your heart. I’m begging you. And reblog this post, in the name of God, help me to spread the word. Thank you all.
