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1979, hollywood, california

“the irish and the italians are about to kill each other and the fbi will take care of the rest…”

michael half listened to the phone call between quincy and some associate as he sat in one of the man’s plush office chairs. they had just completed one of the biggest projects of michael’s life and he, for some reason, felt as though there was still something missing. 

infiltrating and destroying a crime outfit was no small feat, but michael had done it without compromising too many of his morals. quincy always found it funny how self-righteous he could get while actively working in their criminal enterprise, but michael did feel conflicted at times. his brothers were good, maybe too good, at engaging in criminal behavior. he was never quite able to turn on that cruelty or tap into that meanness that allow him to fully take advantage of someone by loaning them money at inflated interest rates, kill someone in cold blood, threaten workers and withhold their benefits for not bootlicking a corrupt union, or…whatever it was randy was into these days. 

he should really check up on him.

suffice it to say, michael was not like his brothers, but he also wasn’t not like his brothers. his need to differentiate himself made him sound like he was insulting them at times, not acknowledging that they were all products of their upbringing and that he had always been seen as…better. he and jermaine were favored, but it was always to their detriment. jermaine couldn’t quite live up to exactly what joseph wanted and it wasn’t a secret that joseph would dispose of his own sons if he no longer found any utility in them. if there was ever going to be a successor to the “jackson criminal empire”, it was between michael and jermaine. 

until it wasn’t. 

there were always competitions between the boys, but michael knew he didn’t need to do much to be seen; he was a genius, that’s what joe called him when he wasn’t mad at him for some minuscule fuck up that would be corrected not too long after. because that’s what michael did, if he made a mistake it was corrected as soon as it was discovered. jermaine was joe’s pride and joy, his first official heir. michael didn’t actually know he was in competition with jermaine until jermaine left hayvenhurst, yelling about how he’d given everything to joseph just to be overlooked and treated like he wasn’t capable. in michael’s mind, he had been talking about joseph’s right hands. he did tend to treat those men better than his own sons. being a favorite of joseph’s as a son was sometimes no different from being a disappointment. 

he didn’t know how to feel about jermaine resenting him over joseph’s fickle attitude. 

jackie and tito took it all in stride. neither one of them wanted it as bad as jermaine did, if at all. marlon was only ever in competition with michael, but it was brotherly. he’d work and work and work until he could win a game or follow joseph’s directions, and beam at michael because he’d finally done it. 

“did’ja see mikey? i did it!!”

michael loved how much marlon lit up when he accomplished something. it was a far cry from the man he stood face to face with the year prior, eyes devoid of anything resembling the kid who used to run along with him at jackie’s heels, moving cement bricks almost bigger than them back in gary. though, he supposed he had been slowly watching that kid disappear for a few years until he finally left. he still hears whispers here and there about the contracts he’s on and tries to keep up with him, even if it was through the grapevine, but when marlon disappears, he’s gone until he pops up again leaving a trail of violence in his path. 

he remembered being told to “follow the bodies” if he needed to find his brother. that unsettled him.

“yeah! yeah, michael’s right here actually,” quincy looked at michael, “mr. gordy says hi,”

michael gave a small smile which quincy took as the go ahead to greet berry on his behalf. the only thing michael really knew about berry gordy was that joseph hated the man and jermaine worked closely with him. he would see his brother standing behind the politician during press conferences and in news articles. he was never named, but he knew that was on purpose. whatever jermaine was doing for the gordys was enough for him to be seen, but not known publicly. michael couldn’t even ask him exactly what they were doing, and quincy didn’t seem to know either despite his working relationship with berry, complicated as it was. 

“we’re in california right now, new york is a little hot with the war goin’ on. i hear detroit got hit pretty hard…”

suddenly, michael hears berry’s voice in the office and looks up at quincy, who was putting the receiver down as quietly as he could. whatever berry was saying, quincy wanted michael to hear it.

“what all do you know about the jacksons?”

“never met the rest, and i’m not in the business of getting in my mentee’s personal life. you worked with jermaine longer than i have with michael, he hasn’t told you anything?” 

michael frowned. “he told me what he thought i wanted to hear, but i need some more information.” berry explained, “his father is becoming a pain in my ass.”

“old joe, huh? had to make a deal with him just to work with michael,” quincy said with a chuckle.

berry didn’t laugh, “he always expect finder’s fees for his sons?”

“he seems to see them as products, so yeah,”

as accurate as it was, michael never thought of it that way. it put things into perspective for him. joseph made everything transactional, even his kids. 

“i don’t need him nosing around in my shit, and jermaine seems to always want to cave to his ridiculous whims despite the fact that he works for me. i can’t have him working with the labor unions while i’m actively trying to dismantle them. there’s no money in labor rackets anymore, joseph jackson knows it but he keeps trying to go back to the only thing he knows.”

quincy leaned back in his seat, “if jermaine is partial to working with his father and joseph is always lookin’  for a quick buck, why not make that work in your favor?”

“because whatever hold that man has on his sons is worth more than gold to them, or, at least to jermaine. he came to me, angry and ready to work, but that father…”

“what are your plans gordy? you never just call me to complain.”

there was a pause on the other line. “i need you to plant a seed for me,”

“to?”

“michael. you’ve done all you needed with him, he helped you dismantle those boys claiming to be genovese associates, helped you move up with the italians, and brokered that deal with the gambinos. send him back to his father. the only way to get jermaine’s focus is when he’s angry at someone and he did his best work when he was mad at michael and his father.”

“mr. gordy, you’re asking me to send my best worker away for your business. i have to ask, what’s in it for me?”

michael felt like a bargaining chip again. 

“what’s in it for you is i won’t have that boy’s head on a stake by 5 o’clock tomorrow.”

quincy laughed then, loud and obnoxious and michael failed to see what was funny. berry gordy had just threatened to kill him. it wasn’t his first death threat, but it was one he was going to take seriously. gordy sounded desperate and desperate men, typically, made good on their word, consequences be damned.  it was different from the usually calm and calculated man that he was. if joseph was causing that much grief for him, he wondered how jermaine was handling it. 

“berry, before i make a decision, i want you to call up your vegas contacts, then maybe an associate or two back in harlem and encino. actually, you only need one, pick one person, anybody in the world you know and ask them about the jacksons. get an idea of what would happen if you killed their brother, then call me back when you’ve cooled off a bit.”

“jones—”

“gordy. do it.”

the call ends and michael springs up in his seat, “quincy, what the fuck?”

michael rarely cursed, but he felt the word was fitting concerning he may have a pending bounty on his head. 

“just, wait,” quincy assured him.

“wait? he just threatened to kill me if you don’t use me in some hamfisted attempt to make jermaine into his loyal right hand? why am i even being used like that? i don’t want my brother to hate me because of my father!” 

“michael.” 

“what? why are you so calm we—”

the phone rang and quincy put his finger up to answer, pressing the speaker button. 

“you told me you knew nothing about the jacksons.”

“i said i never met them.” quincy corrected. 

there was silence on the other line for a few minutes and michael felt his palms begin to sweat.   “michael’s off limits,” was all berry said, his tone resigned, “but joe? he’d better watch his back.”

“fair enough.”

michael didn't think that was a good compromise either. 

1983, encino, california

“boys, i’m glad i could get all of you together today,” joseph said as he regarded his sons with a smile.

each jackson boy sat in the den of their childhood home with looks of suspicion and apprehension on their faces. it was never good when joseph wanted them together and they knew it. jackie and tito had known that their younger brothers would go for various reasons, and knew they needed to be there just in case joseph roped them into something. despite what jermaine and michael thought, they were just as susceptible to joseph’s manipulation as marlon was. randy seemed to move to the beat of his own drum, but he was still the baby brother who wanted to tagalong. jackie knew even tito held a respect for their father that wouldn’t let him ignore the man. 

“what is this about joseph?” jackie asked.

joseph’s smile faded and he raised an eyebrow at jackie, “you want me to get to the point, huh? you got somewhere to be?”

when jackie didn’t respond, he continued, “i have a job for you, one that is gonna make us a lot of money.”

the boys didn’t give him a reaction.  “it’s important that i have you boys involved in this. we can be seen as legitimate, like the gambinos or the genovese.”

“that era is dead joseph and you know it. they barely operate the way they used to. the gangs and the drug traffickers run everything now and the feds are watching them even harder. what is your big plan to put ‘us’ on the map like that?” jackie questioned.

“gordy is out, likely for good, unless he ever decides to go underground. his allies and contracts are ours for the taking.”

“there’s a jermaine-sized elephant in the room that you’re forgetting,” marlon pointed out, “no one’s touchin’ him and by extension any jackson with a ten foot pole. especially not after that charity gala shit.”

“the day i ask you for advice on anything other than how to polish my beretta’ll be the day hell freezes over,” joseph snapped, “you stick to what you know and i’ll handle logistics.”

“well joseph the best way to polish your beretta would be to stick the barrel in your mouth and—”

“marlon.” tito sighed.

“just stickin’ to what i know.” marlon said with a grin.

“he’s right though.”

all attention turned to michael, who usually never said much during these meetings. his eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark aviators, his fingers tapping against his denim covered thighs. each brother knew his anxiety was building from just being in the room with joseph. michael had strategically distanced himself from his father under the guise of mentorship and learning the tricks of the trade from other allies to their family. quincy jones taught him how to operate high enough above the board so that he was never regarded with suspicion, but low enough that he never had to continuously prove himself to those who worked deep in organized crime. michael’s intentions weren’t to hurt or get over on people, he wanted to amass wealth to help those who couldn’t help themselves. the legitimate ways to do that took too much time and even at 25 he was world weary enough to know that someone like him was never going to be able to achieve those dreams in a legitimate way.

most people in his line of work saw his efforts as futile anyway or not worth trying to execute on a large scale. he could understand why they thought that way. feds were cracking down on criminal organizations every day, wrapping people up in rico cases and turning top bosses into snitches. it all seemed to be falling apart so quickly, that the general consensus was to extract as much wealth from this as you could and get out before you got caught up too.

michael just refused to be that pessimistic about it. 

“gordy has an entire family that’s going to keep his work going, nothing is up for grabs.” he said, “so what is this really about joseph? there’s no way you think our best bet is to try to make a name for ourselves when we should be laying low.”

joseph regarded michael with a look of surprise and crossed his arms over his chest. michael’s fingers kept dancing on his thighs as joseph stared at him. “take off them glasses, boy.” joseph demanded.

michael could feel his brothers’ eyes on him, and he knew what they were thinking. they wanted him to rebel, say no, tell joseph to fuck off, but michael wasn’t like jackie, who would try to reason with joseph, he wasn’t like tito who could take his words in stride, he couldn’t forgive and forget like jermaine had, trade insults and threats like marlon, and he wasn’t a rebel like randy who would leave the room mid-sentence on joseph if he didn’t like what he was hearing. 

so michael complied, taking the aviators off of his face and stared at joseph’s shoes. “you can’t even look me in the eye.” the older man shook his head, “you grown now? still living at your mama’s house, up under her titty like you ain’t got the potential to be something other than a glorified intern to quincy damn jones. hell, even randy moved into his own shit, and you still sulk around your childhood bedroom with a chip on your shoulder like i didn’t raise you up to be the best of us.”

“who owns this house?” michael asked quietly.

“what, boy?”

“who owns the house joseph? because my name is on the deed. i saved it when you almost lost it with one of your schemes.” 

the silence in the room was suffocating for michael. he wanted to look up just in case joseph tried to hit him, just so he could see it coming, but he didn’t. “i live in my home and i allow you to come on the property to see mother or gather us around for a family meeting. if i changed the locks and told bill the gate doesn’t open for you anymore, what would you do?” he questioned.

more silence.

“bill is my—” joseph started.

“he’s on my payroll. most of your employees are because you can’t pay them,” michael looked up then, “you’re desperate, joseph and when you get desperate you start losing things. what else have you got to lose, your life?”

“that a threat?”

“it’s an inevitability.”

“i built you, all of you. you’re products of me and the empire i created for you to inherit. all i got out of it was two low level thugs, a failure who couldn’t  create a lane for himself,  a trigger happy nutjob, an ungrateful smart ass, and you…the fuck do you even do, boy?” joseph turned to randy.

“insider trading mostly, but i dabble in art dealing.”

“you mean theft.” jermaine said.

“tomato, tomahto.”

the rest of the brothers looked at randy with raised eyebrows and he shrugged, “diversify your portfolios.”

michael couldn’t help but give his youngest brother a small, soft laugh. randy had always been a jack of all trades. 

“well, at least one of you is good for something,” joseph huffed, “the rest of you…”

he turned to leave the room, “i built an empire and i’ll build another. i don’t need you.”

and with that he was gone. 

“when did you put the house in your name, michael?” jermaine questioned.

“mike just put his foot up joseph’s ass and that’s your main concern?” marlon laughed, “i almost wanna call him back in here so he can do it again.”

“always knew you still had it in you.” randy elbowed michael in the side and grinned.

michael put his sunglasses back on and tried to sink into the couch cushions. it felt good to talk back to joseph, it reminded him of his childhood when he would be more vocal in his rebellion. it always led to a chase or a beating, but speaking up on behalf of himself or his brothers was something michael took pride in back then. over the years he saw how futile it all was, especially as each jackson boy became a dim light under joseph’s “preservation of the family” which only ensured that they never left their place under his thumb. they did eventually, with varying degrees of success and a lot of added baggage. michael didn’t think his brothers were fully free.

as much as he liked to pretend that he was, he knew he wasn’t either. 

“so now what?” randy asked, “you know he ain’t done.”

“continue living your lives,” jackie said, “something is coming for him and he wants us to run point while he figures out his next move. he didn’t have the resources to take on anything gordy was doing even if he could get his hands on the man’s portfolio. he’s circling the drain, let him drown on his own.”

michael nodded in agreement. “i like that idea too,” tito said with a resigned look, “if you have any loose ends with him, tie ‘em up now.”

“i just don’t understand why he won’t outright ask for help instead of…whatever this is.” jermaine frowned.

“that man has an ego the size of texas, i can only imagine what kinda’ discussion he had with michael when it came to the house.” marlon said, “he probably sent bill to do it.”

“you’re right, actually. ” michael said with a chuckle.

“psychic and a nutjob, your skillset gets more complex by the day,” randy snorted. 

 “steven randall, you have two seconds to explain how i’m a nutjob.” marlon said.

randy turned fully to look at his older brother, “marlon, just last week a russian pulled a gun on you and you grabbed the barrel, put it to your forehead and told him to shoot.” 

“that is something a nutjob would do.” jermaine commented.

“they were testing us, i passed.” marlon shrugged, “they think you’re a pussy though.”

“marlon.” tito warned.

“oh, so i can be a nutjob, but he can’t be a pussy? would you rather me call him a bitch?”

“that’s just crass marlon.” jermaine frowned.

“bitch is crass, but pussy ain’t?” randy questioned.

“i happen to think nutjob is crass,” marlon said.

“we can call you headcase instead.”

“i’d rather you both call each other by the names your mama gave you.” tito snapped. 

michael sighed and smiled as his brothers went back and forth with each other. he liked it when they could just be. everything about their recent meetings had been jobs, plans, trading information and trying to talk joseph down from his desperation to be “on top”. they hadn’t been able to have normal conversations with each other in such a long time that even this stupid exchange between marlon, randy, tito and jermaine was refreshing. 

he glanced at jackie, who looked to be deep in thought and nudged him. “something on your mind?”

jackie shook his head, “nothing for you to worry about mike.” 

“jackie.” michael frowned, “i’m not a kid anymore.”

“you’re right, you’re not,” he gave michael a small smile and patted his thigh, “but i’m just not ready to have this conversation right now.”

“will you tell me when you are?”

“yeah, i will.”

1987, encino, california

michael watched as the movers took what was left of his belongings and placed them in the back of the truck. 

around ten years ago, michael had noticed a fracture in the jackson family. one that had drawn lines of division between his brothers, their work, and their parents. when they came back together, he hoped it was a permanent fix, but after the attempted hit on joseph that ended up injuring him and tito, the fracture appeared again. it started with marlon who disappeared with only jackie knowing his whereabouts. tito hadn’t liked that. there wasn’t much they didn’t tell each other, especially when it came to their younger brothers. he tracked him down, much to the disappointment of jackie, but wouldn’t talk about what he found with anyone. jermaine spent most of his time trying to find exactly which associates of the gordys could’ve done it and randy bounced between hospital visits and helping his siblings with various plans to get back at whoever hurt their brothers.

no one asked him if he even wanted that. michael just wanted his brothers to be there for him while he tried to navigate life after someone tried to kill him. he stayed out of the more dangerous aspects of their work for a reason. he didn’t knock the people who worked in the criminal world, he skirted around the darker parts of it himself but sometimes toed the line if he were being honest. whatever joseph was into to cause someone to try to blow him up, michael would never find himself dealing with something like that. 

after a few years of tense reunions and secrets being revealed, he decided it was time to move on with his life. he told his father and brothers that he was done in ‘84 when he was healed enough to return home, but he was really done now. the writing was even on the wall with quincy, who desperately wanted michael to stay on one path when he wanted to forge his own.  

he wanted to cut ties with everyone and start over.

“michael.”

well. maybe not everyone.

“mother.” 

“marlon’s here to see you off.” katherine said softly.

michael looked at his mother, “i thought we agreed to keep this under wraps.” he frowned.

“i wanted him to talk to you. it’s been three years since you’ve spoken, and he has someone he wants you to meet.” she said with a reassuring smile. 

katherine patted him on the back and left the driveway. michael swallowed and tried to make himself not feel betrayal from his mother. ultimately, she was always going to want her kids to be able to forgive each other. michael hadn’t given marlon the opportunity to apologize after he left. to this day, he still didn’t know why jackie and tito would tell him to ask marlon where he went, but he refused to. marlon was grown enough to walk up to michael and explain himself. he needed his twin and the man wasn’t there. michael remembered thinking the worst from his hospital bed, just for marlon to show up at hayvenhurst with balloons and flowers like everything was normal.

he wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to abandon him again.

“you finally movin’ out, huh?”

“figured it was time.” michael said as he turned away from the moving truck.

marlon stood there with a small smile on his face,  but that wasn’t what caught michael off guard. the little girl in his arms who bore a faint resemblance to their mother, with her father’s eyes, and brown coils surprised him. “mar…” michael starts.

“her name is nicole. gigi and i were a little paranoid about letting people know we were parents, but mother finally convinced me to tell you all,”

“is keeping secrets the only thing you know how to do?” 

“mikey—”

“don’t mikey me, marlon. i’ve told you time and time again that you can come to me about anything. you don’t trust me? you think i would’ve put your baby, my niece, in danger? you disappear, then you pop back up with jokes to distract from the fact that you’re a flake and you can’t handle it when shit gets hard.”

the words were coming faster than michael could think, tumbling out of his mouth despite knowing he didn’t want to hurt his brother. or maybe he did. because he was hurt that marlon continued doing this to him after all of the effort he put into making sure his brother knew he was there for him and that he didn’t have to carry anything alone.

but marlon left him to carry things alone all the time.

“michael that’s not fair—”

“what’s not fair is me waiting in the burn unit for you to come and jackie giving me non-answers about where you were. not fair is you showing up again and not giving me an explanation. not fair is you lying to me for years about what joseph had you doing just for me to find out from my mentor that you were contracting. i watched you become a completely different person for three years until you up and left, marlon. i get hurt, you leave, you can’t handle me being mad at you so you fuck off again and now you’re showing up to tell me about a kid you’ve had this entire time as if you, once again, don’t trust me enough to know about her? i’m not doing this with you anymore, or at all.”

the way marlon looked at him broke his heart, but michael wasn’t in the mood or space to try and clean up his words. he meant what he said. even if he didn’t mean to say it like that, he wanted to get it off of his chest.  “michael,” marlon swallowed and michael pretended not to hear the emotion in his voice, “you were still a kid the first time i took a contract for joseph.”

“we were both kids—”

“i wasn’t a kid no more, i,” he paused and seemed to remember he was holding his daughter. he put her down and whispered something in her ear that made her nod and run up to the front door.

michael watched as her brown puffs bounced with each step, and wished he could’ve watched her grow up. he wished marlon trusted him enough for that.  she grabbed the handle and opened the door before looking back and giving him a wave and a smile showing off her missing bottom tooth. he gave her a smile and a wave back as she entered the house. 

“i had a lot of anger and frustration and resentment when i was a kid that got worse as i got older and i bottled that up. i internalized a lot of what joseph said about me, and i wasn’t handling that well. the explosion was kinda my breaking point, man,” marlon crossed his arms over his chest, “jackie sent me, gia, and nikki to her people down in savannah and i got my head on straight. otherwise i think i would’ve ended up dead behind you and tito.”

michael couldn’t even appreciate the explanation because it still felt like there was something missing. it wasn’t enough to justify the behavior in his eyes. 

“you talk to me like i’m so much younger than you marlon, we’re 17 months apart. you act like i wasn’t there with you when joseph would beat our asses, or when he’d pack us up and take us to gary for the summer to move bricks from one spot to the next to ‘build character’. we both got shit from him, mar.”

marlon shook his head, “he ever tell you how useless you are because you can’t get something done as quickly as your little brothers? ‘you’ll never live up to your older brothers either, you won’t inherit shit from me because you can’t keep up, marlon, see how michael does it? do it like michael. keep up with michael. why can’t you figure it out? i can’t always be around to explain this shit over and over and over again so you need to get it now and get it right’. 

“i got a gun as a prize after fucking up so much and i think joseph wanted me to…” he pauses and michael can see him trying to take a deep breath, maybe even count backwards in his head before he continued, “i was so fucking fed up with being a failure that i didn’t kill that guy for joseph, i did it for me. i was tampering with people’s guns who pissed me off for fun. you know that’s why bill acts like i might annihilate the entire family, right? when bobby got hurt, that was me, ted lost a finger, i did that, and i’d take their failed contracts and do them myself. at 16, michael. i was taking people out just to show them i could be better, that i was better. joseph wasn’t just pulling shit out of his ass when he called me a ‘trigger happy nutjob’ a few years ago. i was, maybe i still am, but i can regulate my emotions a little better now so that’s a plus.”

“you still could’ve told me—”

“i couldn’t tell you anything, because you’d look at me the same way mother started to and i couldn’t have that. you don’t know what it’s like to have your father look at you like you’re nothing and your brothers constantly pitying you, and your mother look at you like you’re a stranger in her house. she didn’t mean to, i know she didn’t, but i saw it, mikey.”

michael swallowed and if he dug deep enough he could remember their days in gary when joseph was laying into all of them, he’d have an extra word or two for marlon. he always seemed to take in stride though, he’d smile and ask michael if he wanted to play not too long after. he remembered the days when marlon would come home to hayvenhurst after a day out with joe quiet and spaced out, and he remembered not wanting to ask what was wrong because he was afraid of the answer. how their inability to share with one another tumbled from there, because if michael could notice and not say anything how could marlon trust him to listen? 

their reunion a few years ago should’ve fixed it though. they’ve more or less had this conversation and still marlon kept things from him. 

“well, you don’t have to worry about telling me anything from now on. if you can’t be there for me or trust me enough to be there for you, then you can stay out of my life for good.” 

marlon opened his mouth to say something, but stopped himself before nodding slowly, seemingly unwilling to argue with him. “if that’s what you want, fine.”

“it is.”

he couldn’t take it back now.

santa barbara, california, 1991

“mr. jackson,  your brother is on line one.”

his assistant stood hesitantly in the doorway of his home office, smoothing out the wrinkles in her pencil skirt as he looked up from some paperwork on his desk. from his expression she wasn’t able to tell what mood he was in, just that he seemed…calm. 

after the contract with the los angeles county board of labor fell through the previous morning, she cancelled his meetings at his behest and left him alone for the day. he typically needed a few hours to decompress after something went wrong. she could only assume he was currently in the process of figuring out who sabotaged the deal and when they needed to be paid a visit. for the most part, she was content to schedule, field communications, sort through mail, and ignore the inflated paycheck that was wired into her account from a country she had never heard of.

justine knew when to keep her head down and her nose out of michael’s business. not even a two months earlier, she watched his gardener, ricky, be walked out by bill, the head of security and chauffeured off of the property in a rolls royce. the gardener’s own car was driven to the garage and when it reemerged three weeks later, it had been stripped down, rebuilt and gifted to an associate of michael’s who had recently gotten married. 

“i have five brothers, justine,” he tucks a stray curl behind his ear and fixes his gaze on her, “did he say who he was?”

“no sir, he said you wouldn’t pick up if you knew who it was.” she said, relaying the other man’s message verbatim.

the jackson siblings were an enigma. michael was tight lipped about them, only ever mentioning something about sending his sisters birthday gifts. there was gossip amongst staff; whispers about two older brothers in vegas, two in los angeles, and various other siblings in different places that no one knew enough about to say exactly where they were. michael kept his family secrets close to his chest and in his line of work it made sense.

“so it’s jermaine,” he said to himself, shaking his head in exasperation, “thank you justine. i’ll take it from here.”

she nodded and turned to leave, shutting the door behind her for privacy. when she sat back at her desk, the red blinking light on the phone turned green indicating that he had picked up the call. justine went back to her previous work; sorting through various invoices that needed to go out to contractors by the first of the month. the work was mind numbing enough that she could focus without thinking about what that phone call could have been about.

this was the first time she ever heard a name in regard to his siblings. michael hadn’t seemed too excited to hear from him either if his immediate reaction was anything to go by. she tried to think if the name jermaine was familiar to her; had she come across it while compiling documents? maybe it was tucked away in michael’s rolodex that she updated quite frequently. 

the sound of michael’s door opening broke her out of her thoughts and she went back to her work of preparing invoices, marking which ones were overdue and needed to be accompanied by a personal message from her boss. “justine, clear my schedule and buzz bill. i need to head to encino for the day,” michael said as he walked past her desk without a glance back. 

“yes sir,” she nodded, moving to pick up the phone.

he paused at the doorway and turned back to where she sat in her cubicle. justine’s finger hovered over bill’s direct line as she caught his gaze. he looked okay, but that never meant anything. michael claimed to not have a poker face, and bill would back him up on that sentiment, but justine didn’t think she ever saw him be anything other than reserved. 

“do you have any plans today?” he questioned.

she blinked owlishly at him before clearing her throat, “finishing up these invoices and getting them ready for delivery. i also needed to prepare for your meeting with mayor lodge next week. her assistant requested an itinerary, but rosie didn’t have the lunch menu together yet,” she explained.

“that can wait. i’d like for you to accompany me to encino. it’s a bit of an emergency,” 

the only thing justine knew about encino was that a monthly stipend was sent via certified mail to an address there. on the last day of each month, she would personally write the check, have michael endorse it, and get it ready for pick up by the mail carrier. the name on the envelope wasn’t familiar, but whoever katherine scruze was, she was very well taken care of. 

“we’ll need to leave now, if we want to make it before lunch.” he said, his eyes never leaving hers. 

justine noticed that he didn’t question her about any plans she may have had outside of work. she didn’t have any, but his assumption that she didn’t was a little embarrassing. it was bad enough she had no social life to speak of, but for her boss to come to that conclusion despite the fact that they didn’t discuss their personal lives was mortifying.

she made a quick mental note to at least attempt to find a hobby after today.

“sure, i can come,” she said as she stood and grabbed her purse and coat, “will i need to make any further arrangements for travel or lodging? i know you like to be discreet when you travel…”

she pressed the button for bill’s line and he picked up on the first ring, “justine, what’s going on sweetheart?” he questioned, and she couldn’t help but smile because she knew he was smiling on the other line.

bill was a lifeline and father figure to michael and would find a way to adopt the younger employees on the ranch as well. it was always a good sign if he took a liking to a new face. it meant they could be trusted which in turn put michael at ease. 

 “morning bill. mr. jackson needs to go to encino, it’s urgent,”

he didn’t even respond before hanging up. justine stared at the phone in shock before putting it down and forwarding all of the incoming calls to voicemail. “it sounds like bill is getting the car. if you’re ready, mr. jackson?” 

michael simply nodded and gestured for justine to exit the room first. 

“oh, and justine,” he said once she had crossed the threshold, “call me michael.”

something in justine’s brain short circuited at the request and she looked back at him with her eyebrows raised, “okay mr….michael,” 

"Michael Jackson has had an amazing comeback after a two-year hiatus!"

"Bad is his latest album with no promotion; he has landed at number one on the charts.

"His highly acclaimed tour has broken records and is gaining more steam."

"It seems like Michael Mania has taken over the world again."

You flickered through channels with boredom as you sat on your couch. Everybody was talking about Michael. But all you could feel was bitterness. You and Michael had an on-off relationship again. When seemingly out of nowhere, he cut you off.

Now he's back like nothing ever happened. But something still feels off about it. But you don't need to worry about that when you're no longer in his life, it seems. Besides, you have your own album to focus on if you want to drop it on time.

You sighed as you turned off the TV. Your eyes went to your phone on the table as it rang. You picked up the receiver and put it to your ear.

"Hello?"

"I'm glad you picked up." Your manager said your name. "I got these bouquets that were brought to the office.

You were slightly confused. "By who?"

"I don't know." Your manager said. "The delivery man said it was anonymous?"

"So you're just giving me random flowers? What happens if they're poisoned?" You raised an eyebrow.

"People are wild nowadays." You added.

"Don't worry, I made sure nothing was up with them."

"I'll be there in a moment."

"Okay." You hung up the phone.

You were staring at the two large bouquets in the kitchen. The size was massive; whoever paid for them spent a lot of money. You picked up the card peeking out of the vase.

It's been so long since we saw each other. I want to see you again. Are you still with that one man? Did he satisfy you as I did? You remember that time I flew you out of the country for your birthday. I know you remember that night as well as I did. -M

Of course, after he shows up back up in the public eye. He wants back in your life. But how did he know about your now ex? You two kept your relationship very private.

You closed the note as your mind drifted off to the birthday vacation back in eighty-five. You remembered Michael being such a sweetheart, making sure everything went right, then ending the night with you screaming his name in different positions in the vacation house. And you also remember that being the last time you saw him.

"I'll call you," Michael said out the window of the car while dropping back off from vacation.

"Make sure you actually do, Michael." You laughed.

It wasn't much of a joke, as he didn't call you later on that day. You called him; no answer. You called him again; his manager picked up, which you found weird. You tried calling the following days and got no answer. It was two weeks, and you hadn't heard from him. You called his siblings, who hadn't talked to him either. You were close to his mother, Katherine. She hadn't seen him either.

Turns out Michael packed everything he had and left his family home. Nobody has seen him; it was like he dropped off the face of the earth. You were worried, wondering what happened. You went to his agency office, his record company; nobody has seen this man.

It had left Katherine sick to the point that his family decided to file a missing report. And the frenzy that caused media. Michael Jackson is missing was the headline for weeks. The media came up with crazy kidnapping stories. And you thought he was missing until one day.

It was only two calls—one to his mother and one to you. He told his mother to take down the missing report; he was safe but wouldn't disclose his whereabouts. He told you he would see you soon, and you guessed that "soon" was two years too late.

You shook your head at the memory as you looked at the bouquets again. You saw another note on the other vase.

I hope to see you at AMAs tomorrow. I know I will look forward to it. -M

As you closed the note, you felt a ghost of something warm on your body. It felt like a ghost hand tracing lines on your body. It was as if it already had a map for how to please you. You walked back from the counter as the movement disappeared. You looked around your quiet apartment for signs. You must be losing it; maybe you do need to go to sleep.

The American Music Awards were your next thought. You're performing and nominated tomorrow. Knowing Michael will be there is making you nervous. You haven't seen this man in almost three years. You don't know if seeing him will bring back all those feelings full force. You have to avoid him at any cost. Which you know will probably be impossible cause it seems he's going to be looking for you. But you're going to make sure that doesn't happen.

You hope tomorrow will go smoothly, but will Michael play it smoothly? One thing you noticed about Michael is that he didn't play about you. He had no problems with claiming you together in quiet ways. Just keep a calm mind and don't let Michael fluster you.

Turns out you should've been worried about that. You couldn't escape Michael; you felt him even when he wasn't near. His eyes would follow you around the room. The stare was hypnotic, as if he was a snake charmer and you were the snake.

The first up-close contact you had with him in two years was backstage. He stood there tall against the black curtain. You had to admire him for a moment. He seemed to get even more attractive since you last saw him. But there was also something different that you couldn't put your finger on.

Michael turned his head towards you. "You look just as beautiful as I last saw you."

Just straight to the point, no hello or how are you? "Hi, Michael."

"Thank you." You looked down at your outfit, then back at him as he smiled at you.

"Did you get my flowers?"

"Yes, how did you know about my ex?"

Michael shrugged his shoulders. "It was a hunch; I knew you wouldn't be single this whole time."

You tilted your head, not quite believing that, but left it alone. "I didn't think I would see you again."

Michael tilted his head. "Why did you think that?"

"You cut off contact with me."

"I wouldn't say that; I had something come up."

"For two years?"

Michael made intense eye contact with you. "Yeah, exactly that."

You turned your head away; you just knew talking to him would bring back feelings. You held in a surprised gasp when Michael stood closer to you.

"Did you miss me?" Michael whispered. "I missed you."

You had the urge to roll your eyes. "Couldn't have missed me that much if you didn't see me for two years."

"But I'm back now." He said it like it was supposed to mean something.

You made a noise with your mouth. "Michael, please."

Michael huffed. "You still have that attitude."

"And you think you can just come back into my life."

"I know I can."

"When did you get so cocky?"

Michael tilted his head. "I know you missed me, but you're acting like you don't."

You won't give him the satisfaction of seeing through you. "You're going to have to do better than that."

"Trust me, I will."

One of the stagehands comes up, signaling to Michael that he was up. "I'll see you later." Michael smiled at you before he walked away.

You sucked in a breath as a stagehand guided you from backstage, leading you to the hallway. You were guided all the way back to the audience. You watched the camera crew signal that the commercials ended. You watched the segment of Michael accepting the award. You tried to watch passively, not focusing on how ethereal he looked as he smiled. You clapped along with everyone as Michael said his final words.

You tilted your head as a crew member came up to where you were sitting. They said something about seat changes. You didn't think they would be able to do that. The crew member guided the person next to you to a new seat, leaving the seat vacant. You didn't think much of it until you felt a presence sit next to you. You turned your head to Michael, fixing his jacket as he sat down.

"I can't escape you." You rolled your eyes.

"What did I do?"

"Michael." You gave him a knowing look. "You knew you made those seat changes."

Michael shrugged his shoulders as if he were clueless about what you were talking about. Instead, he leaned closer to you. "I can't wait to see your performance."

"I bet you can't."

Michael tilted his head before laying a hand on your thigh. You almost lost your composure seeing his big hand on you. You looked at his face instead. "Are you going to the after-party?"

"Maybe." You dragged it out. "Why do you want to know?"

"I want us to go together."

"Why is that?"

"I want you to be with me tonight."

"Michael."

"I want to make up for two years I wasn't there for you."

"And that starts tonight?" You asked.

"If you let me." Michael lifted the hand on your thigh to take your hand and kiss it.

You looked at him as he kissed your hand. You felt heat build in your body as he gave you full eye contact. You saw something flash in his eyes as he slowly dropped your hand.

"Think about it, mama."

You were about to ask more when your manager came over.

"I guess it's time to perform," Michael said.

"You'll still be here?" You turned your head as he stood up.

Michael nodded his head. "I'll be watching." He zeroed in on your body as you walked away.

You wanted to play with Michael a little bit. At the beginning of the performance, you were singing a slow song to serenade the audience before you went more upbeat. So you were about to have some fun with it.

You sang into the mic as you walked down the stage steps. Your outfit sparkled underneath the stage lights as you made eye contact with people. You saw Michael as his eyes were already on you. You walked closer before laying a gentle hand on one of his knees to sit on his lap. You wrapped your hand around his neck as you continued to sing. Michael bit his lip as he looked at you. One of his hands rested on your upper thigh.

His touch became shyer once he noticed the cameras. But his eyes did not leave you once; it gave you a rush. You gave a quick kiss to his cheek, leaving a lipstick mark before you got up.

You could feel his eyes on you as you walked away. You locked eyes with your ex, who was in the next section over. Maybe you wanted to test your limits. To see if Michael was really serious about wanting you back. You trailed your hand down your ex's chest before grabbing his chin, singing your song to him. Your laugh was heard over the mic as your ex looked flustered.

You eventually made your way back on stage after the slow song. You thought you succeeded, as Michael gave an almost blank look while his eyes grew more heated.

After your performance, you practically beamed as you made your way back to your seat. Commercials were playing, so there was mingling in the theater before it went live again.

"I liked your performance," Michael said slowly.

"Really?"

"Yeah, especially that part where you all up on that other man." Michael gave you a heated look.

"Michael, it's all part of performance art." You said.

"That's what you're going for." Michael tilted his head.

"It's nothing deeper than that."

"You like to act clueless, baby." Michael hummed. "I like it."

"What?"

"What was that about?"

You turned your head to your stunned ex standing before you. He was looking like he was waiting for an answer.

"You said you didn't want to get back together, then you pull that." Your ex tapped his foot.

"You were right there for me; it was nothing more than that."

"Yeah, right."

"Look, I don't want to have this conversation right here."

"But you have the confidence to do that." Your ex shot right back.

"Can't you see that she's uncomfortable?" Michael butted in.

Your ex's eyes went from you to Michael. "I fuckin knew it would be a boytoy from your past to haunt me."

“A boytoy?” Michael questioned. "What the fuck?" He whispered.

You just wanted to end the conversation so nothing happens. You could see the tension building between the two men. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stir up any old feelings for you or cause any discomfort."

Your ex shook his head. "Fuck that."

Michael huffed. "She apologized, so drop it and go back to your seat."

"Who are you to tell me that?"

Michael shook his head before standing up. "Listen, I was here before you and will be here after you. So you drop this and go back to your seat as I said."

Your eyebrows shot up as your ex blinked his eyes like he was under a trance. His facial expression became more neutral before he walked away. You looked at your ex, then back to Michael.

"What was that?" You raised an eyebrow.

Michael shifted his jacket before he sat down. "Don't worry about it."

"Michael."

Michael said your name back as he looked at you. "Don't worry about it, mama."

You tried to make sense of it when you saw his eyes flash green; they were back to the deep brown.

What the fuck?

You went to the private bathroom after the award show, telling Michael to wait for you. You checked your makeup in the mirror. You did a double take once you saw Michael behind you.

You spun around, bewildered. "I thought I told you to wait outside."

Michael didn't say a word back. Instead, he walked closer to you, cornering you against the sink countertop. His hands wrapped around your waist.

"You love me?" Michael whispered.

"What?" You blinked back.

"You love me?" Michael's hands rubbed your sides.

His eyes became an emerald green as he looked at you. You only stared back as you felt your body relax more against him. One of his hands traveled from your waist to your neck to tilt your head.

"Do you trust me?"

You slowly nodded your head, unable to break his gaze.

"Then let me in." You saw Michael's eyes flash a deep, blood-red.

You gasped as you almost dropped the lipstick you held in your hand. You turned around in the bathroom as you were the only person in there. You turned back to the mirror to find it empty. What was that? Was he in here? You lifted your hand to your neck as if you could still feel his hand.

You shook your head, deciding to hurry up as you started to feel creeped out. You walked out as Michael leaned back from the wall he was on.

"There you are." Michael walked closer to you. "You ready?"

You could only stare at him as you tried to figure out what just happened to you. Michael gave you a confused look as you said nothing.

"Hello?"

You shook your head. "Were you just in the bathroom?"

"No? I've been here the whole time?" Michael did.

"Did something happen?"

"Michael, are you fucking with me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Wherever, let's go." You started to walk as Michael followed close.

You thanked his security as they opened the limo door. You sat down, making yourself comfortable as Michael sat next to you.

You crossed your arms as you looked out the window as the limo pulled off.

"Are you going to pout all night?"

"No." You said while staring out the window.

"You just think everything is a joke." You said.

"Baby, I don't know who you saw, but I wasn't in the bathroom."

"Yeah, right."

You looked back to the window, trying to block him out.

"Can I touch you?"

You looked back at him, and you saw the calmness in his eyes as he tried his best not to upset you. You nodded your head. Michael wrapped his hand around your arm to pull you closer.

"I'm sorry for what you saw." Michael looked at you.

"Let me make it better." Michael hummed before he kissed your forehead.

"Can I kiss you?" He said next.

"Yes." Despite the weird shit that you're trying to process, you can't deny any longer that you miss him.

Michael kissed you softly on the lips. His hand went from your arm to your waist. You breathed out lightly, whispering his name. Michael pulled back to look at your face before he pulled you into his lap. Michael kissed you harder this time, like he was trying to savor something.

"You don't know how much I missed you," Michael told you.

"Let us make up for lost time." Michael kissed you again. He slid his hands to your ass to move your hips against him.

"Michael, we still have that after-party." You reminded

"Forget that." Michael hummed. "Matter of fact, do you still live in the high-rise condo?"

You nodded your head, and that was all Michael needed for confirmation. He gently pushed you off his lap. He knocked against the partition to let the driver know the new directions.

Michael turned around as the partition was rolled up again. "Now I want to tell you to tell all the things I can do to make you feel better."

Maybe that's how you ended up with your body laid on top of your kitchen counter, your legs on Michael's shoulders as he ate you out like no tomorrow. You writhed against the cold surface as Michael's cold hand held you down.

"I missed this pussy." Michael pulled back. "I know she missed me after three years."

You arched your back as you let out a silent cry as Michael's fingers moved faster inside you.

"Baby, you're going to cum again?" Michael hummed.

"I know cause that bum ain't treat this pretty pussy right."

"But I did and I will again."

"Michael." You moaned out.

"Yes?"

"I want your mouth on me again." You lifted your head a little bit to look at him.

"You don't have to ask twice." Michael smiled before he leaned back down.

His tongue dove in between your folds. He sucked on your clit as he brought you to your high. You moaned louder as Michael's tongue managed to lick every part of you. Your hand gripped his hair lightly to gain steady movement against his mouth. The heated feeling that was building up in your stomach finally burst as you came over Michael's face.

Your shallow breaths were heard in the air as you fully lay back on the kitchen counter. Michael licked his lips to taste more of you.

"I missed this so much." Michael groaned.

Michael leaned over you to kiss you deeply. You tasted yourself on his tongue. You moaned in his mouth as Michael made it his mission to devour you. He placed kisses around your mouth before he trailed them to your chin, then to your neck. You held on to the back of his head as he started to suck on your neck. You hummed as you closed your eyes. You weren't expecting the next moment as Michael pulled back. You opened your eyes to his red eyes.

"Shit!" You exclaimed as you pulled away from Michael abruptly.

"What?" Michael questioned, his red eyes still intently on you.

"Michael, what the fuck is happening?" You felt your chest start beating quickly with fear.

"What is it?"

"Your eyes."

Michael squinted at you before he looked at the mirror that hung from across the kitchen. Michael sighed as he laid his hands on either side of you.

"What are you?" You stared at him with big eyes.

"I guess I have to explain some things," Michael told you.

"You more than have to explain." You blinked again, hoping for his eyes to turn back to brown, hoping that this was a trick.

"Please don't look at me differently cause of this."

"Michael, tonight has been a weird night. What could top that?"

"I'm being serious, baby," Michael said.

You had to stare behind him to stop yourself from staring at his eyes. They were just so unnatural and uneasy. They had a slight glow, with different hues of red visible in his eyes.

"I'm a vampire."

You snapped your eyes back to him for a moment. "A what?"

"A vampire."

"Michael, you're fuckin with me, right?"

"A vampire? You expect me to believe that-"

Your words fell from your mouth as Michael opened his mouth, hissing at you. His fangs were long and sharp. You were stunned, blinking rapidly.

"What in the lost boys is this?"

You reached a hand up to his mouth, poking at the fangs. "These can't be real; how much did you pay for them?"

"Girl, can you stop?" Michael reached up to slap your hand away from his mouth.

"They are very much real." Michael huffed at you.

You sat there, trying to process what was said to you fully. This all made sense, as all this stuff kept happening to you. The bathroom, his eyes changing green, the incident with the flowers yesterday.

"All that was you?"

Michael sighed. "Yes."

"And you tried to act like you knew nothing?"

"Yeah."

"What you did with my ex, what was that?"

"Hypnosis."

"You can do that."

"There is a lot I can do." Michael tilted his head at you.

You tried to ignore what that implies. "Is that why you were gone for two years?"

Michael dropped his head down before lifting it back up. "Yes, I ran into some people."

"What kind of people?"

"Baby, you wouldn't believe it if I told you."

"Hit me." You wanted to know everything now.

"There is this cult that has this thing with turning celebrities into supernatural entities."

"There is more than just vampires?" You asked.

"There is a whole different world out there," Michael told you.

"But anyway, I can tell their next target was me."

"It was when I least expected it; actually, actually it was the day we came back from vacation."

"It was a blur, really? All I remember is drinking blood."

"I'm still stuck on the fact that there is a cult haunting celebrities." You cracked a slight smile.

Michael chuckled lightly before getting serious again. "I had to move from Hayvenhurst cause my urges were just too strong; I could literally smell everyone's blood in that house."

"So I bought land and went into hiding until I could control myself."

"And now here we are." You finished off.

Michael looked at your expression for signs of disgust, anger, or something. But all you could give him was a raised eyebrow. "How do you get blood?"

"Blood banks, hospitals."

"How has no one figured this out yet?"

"Baby, money goes a long way; did you forget who you're talking to?"

You rolled your eyes. "How could I forget?"

There was silence that fell over you before you spoke again. You watched as Michael's fangs seemed to disappear, his eyes changing from red to an emerald green. "I guess I could get used to this."

"It's going to be weird as hell, but I'll get used to it."

Michael smiled. "I'm glad because it was going to be hard to get rid of me."

"You are so possessive."

"Baby, you are mine to cherish, to love." Michael bent lower to kiss you on the mouth, then moved to your ear. "Now you're going to let me fuck you as I used to?"

You felt your body go warm from his words. "Michael."

"What, sweetheart? You're going to let me do it?"

"I know this body misses this dick." Michael's hands caressed your body slowly.

You stuttered as Michael picked you up in his arms. You wrapped your leash around his waist as he walked to your bedroom. He dropped you on the bed. You scooted back on your elbows. You're just now remembering how bare you are compared to his clothed body. You watched Michael strip off his dress shirt. His pants followed, leaving him in his underwear. You bit your lip as you looked at the large bulge in the black underwear.

Michael climbed over your body, kissing you quickly. You trailed your hand over his chest, teasing touches that rewarded you with Michael's moans. You searched until you landed on what you wanted. You gripped his clothed dick, rubbing your hand. You smirked as Michael closed his eyes, his hips following the friction of your hand.

"I miss your hands on me." Michael breathed out.

"I want to taste you." You said, looking at Michael.

"Yeah?" Michael nodded his head in consent to pull off his underwear.

Michael got off the top of you, sitting down at the edge of the bed. You followed suit and knelt on the ground. You kissed the inside of his thigh before you wrapped your hand around the base of his thigh. Michael's thighs tensed before he released them. You stroked the base of his dick, watching his facial expression. He watched his lidded eyes before smiling lazily. His hand reached up to caress your hair.

You wrapped your lips around his tip. Michael threw his head back with a moan. You pulled your mouth off to swirl your tongue around his head before taking him deeper.

"Yes, like that." Michael breathed out.

You focused on your breathing as you took more of him. Michael's head was steady on your hand. Letting you choose your pace instead of him.

"Look at me, take this dick in your mouth." Michael moaned. "I do taste good, baby?"

You nodded your head as you hollowed out your cheeks. Loud sucking noises were echoing in the room, followed by Michael's moans. You always liked how vocal Michael was; it was the right amount of encouragement you needed. You were able to make it to his base, your nose touching trimmed pubes.

"Fuck you took all of me." Michael looked down at you.

You made quick eye contact with him before closing your eyes. You were solely focusing on making Michael cum. A higher-pitched moan left Michael as you reached down to rub his balls.

"Baby, you're so beautiful." He choked out.

"Fuck I'm going to cum like this."

Michael lay down on the bed, his back arching as you suck more aggressively. The hand that was wrapped around his base moved his stomach.

"Yes, like that." Michael whimpered at the end.

You knew he was close as his legs started to shake. His moans became more pitched. You kept doing what you were doing because it was getting the best reactions from him.

"I'm going to cum." Michael breathed out. "Fuck I'm going to cum."

You tried to prepare yourself as Michael's body froze before he shot loads down your throat. You tried to drink what you could before you pulled your mouth off him.

You tried to catch your breath. "You're good?" You cringed at how raspy your voice sounded.

"I'm more than alright." Michael lifted his head to give you a lazy smile.

You did a double-take as you felt him get hard again. "What?"

"Oh, that? One thing I've noticed since becoming a vampire." Michael sat up. "My stamina improved."

Michael reached down to gather some of his cum that was on the side of your mouth. "Open."

You opened your mouth as he stuck his fingers inside. "Close them."

You held eye contact as you sucked his fingers, tasting the remnants of himself.

Michael smiled before he pulled up from your kneeling position. You crawled into the bed on all fours; you held in a yelp when a hand smacked against your ass.

You squinted your eyes as Michael laughed. "I couldn't resist doing that."

"Lie on your back." Michael watched you move onto your back. "I want to savor this."

You spread your legs to get in between. Michael's hands gripped your waist, rubbing circles. His hands grabbed his dick, lining it up to your entrance.

"I know it's been a minute, so let me know if it hurts."

Michael pushed his head in. You tensed up as you felt him down there. Michael's hands continued to rub at your waist to comfort you. You nodded your head for him to go deeper. You gripped his arms with your hands and let out a quiet moan as he pushed deeper in.

"You're just as good as I remember." Michael dropped his head to your neck.

You moved your head against the covers as Michael went deeper in. You eventually felt hips meet yours, signaling that he was completely inside.

"I'm so sorry, baby. I thought I could be gentle, but I can't." Michael breathed out.

You moaned loudly as Michael's hips snapped back into you at a rapid pace. Michael moaned against your neck as your pussy gripped him like a lifeline. Michael angled his hips to go deeper in you.

"You like me fucking you like that?" Michael spiked against your neck.

You nodded your head as a stray tear slipped out from pleasure.

"Mama, I know you do; you're tightening on me like a vice."

"Michael!"

"Yes, baby?" Michael was going faster, fucking you into the mattress. The headboard snapping hard against the walls. The neighbors are going to hate you.

"You feel so good." You told him.

"Watch me. I'm going to feel even better."

Michael leaned back to a kneeling position, pulling you with him. His hands were on your waist as he moved you down and onto his dick.

"Are you going to cum?"

"Yes." You let out.

"Can I bite you?"

You nodded your head in a daze. You watched as Michael's eyes turned from green to red as his fangs grew longer. Michael dipped his head into your neck. He licked where he wanted to bite you. You felt his fangs sink into your neck. And the pain and pleasure from it all was enough to make you cum.

"Oh, my god." You whined out as you felt Michael cum inside you.

Michael continued to drink from your neck until he was satisfied. He licked the wound he made against your neck, then kissed it lightly.

"Thank you."

You nodded your head as you tried to pull yourself together. You didn't even notice him moving you from the bed to the large window that was in your bedroom. Your back was against his chest.

"I wonder what people would think if they saw you getting fucked in the window?"

You breathed out from overstimulation as Michael pushed himself back in.

"Would you want that?" Michael asked in a way to get consent.

"Yes. Fuck me."

Michael put one hand on the window, the other on your waist as he fucked against you. You moaned, pushing your head against his shoulder. You could see Michael's face as it looked like he was focused on your puncture wound. He looked beautiful and eerie. His red eyes were blown out to the point that only a sliver of red could be seen. Your blood was over his mouth, dripping down his neck. He looked unreal in the moonlight shining into your room.

"I'm going to go all night with you." Michael breathed. "I got so much energy."

Michael snapped his hips harder against your ass. You were seeing stars from how good he was fucking you. Michael took the hand that was on the window, reaching down in front of you to find your neglected pussy.

Your eyes rolled back as he rubbed thick against your folds. "Cum again for me, baby."

You withered against him, but he used his unusual strength to hold you in place. "Nah baby you ain't running from this."

You looked in his eyes as they turned green again. "Cum."

And that simple command made you cum hard. You squirting against Michael's hand. Michael smiled as he felt you drip all over his hand. Michael still fucked against you and reached a place beyond overstimulation. Michael thrusted a few times before he came again.

You slumped against Michael as he carried your weight. Michael kissed your neck before he carried you bridal style back to the bed.

"You did so good for me, baby." Michael kissed you softly against the lips.

"I wasn't too rough, wasn't I?"

"No." You looked at him. "I liked it."

"I just want to make sure." Michael kissed you again. "It's that your ass is so sexy, I can't help it."

You laughed lightly before you kissed him again. Which he happily returned, kissing around your face.

"I was serious about going all night."

"What?"

When Michael first brought you, it took you some time to loosen up, being in a new environment, but after a few shots, you were both dancing and giggling to the music together, sure it would look like you were dancing to different beats, but you were dancing together nonetheless.

When a couple drag queens come up to you both, asking to dance with Michael, you figure it’s the perfect opportunity to step away and grab a bottle of water.

"We not good enough for you, honey?" Cupcake, a drag queen, famous at the club, questions sassily.

"Cupcake, stop playin with me. You know Mike can dance all night, I need a break," You tease one another, before kissing each other's cheeks and stepping away.

You pass by Bill, Michael’s chauffeur, and pick up your purse, before reaching the bar.

"Can I just get a water?" You ask, when the bartender makes her way to you.

Quickly she reaches underneath the counter and pulls out a cold water bottle.

"Thank you, add it to Mike's tab." You add before taking a seat and grabbing a napkin from the counter.

Taking a breath, you reach into your bag and pull out a compact mirror to look at yourself while dabbing your face with the napkin.

"Hey beautiful," You hear as you feel an arm wrap around your shoulders from the side, in a friendly manner, looking up from your seat you see Denzel Washington. A new friend of yours who you met one late night while looking for Michael at the club.

"Denzel! How are you?" You smile, a bit enthusiastic due to the alcohol in your system.

"Good, I was wondering if I'd see you here tonight. I saw you and Mike dancing." He says, chuckling kindly.

You start laughing, as he pulls a chair close to you. "He's been wanting to come! I love coming too but lord, I can't keep up with him. When Cupcake came up to us I figured it was my chance to take a break." You smile, as he leans in slightly to hear you over the music.

"O'cmon, I've seen you, you seem like you could go all night. I saw ya’ll both doing the robot in a dance circle last time I was here."

"Nooo, you didn't see that," You smile covering your face, embarrassed, before continuing, "I definitely had too many drinks that night, and it wasn’t as good as you make it seem." You laugh, the drinks in your system making you friendlier than normal.

From the distance, Michael sees you and Denzel leaning into one another's frames, talking and laughing. Michael isn't an idiot, he can tell Denzel has a crush on you, and seeing you so closely together, his mood immediately changes. Slowly he steps away from his friends and Latoya quickly glances at him before noticing where he’s looking.

She quickly walks up to him, "They're just talkin Mike."

"Yeah, whatever." He quickly begins making his way through the crowd to you.

While Michael and Latoya make their way towards you both, Denzel attempts to make a move on you.

"Hey, I mean you made it look good." He smiles, "You look beautiful tonight by the way."

You try to remain polite, forcing a smile as you begin glancing around for Michael. Not able to see him, you glance back at Denzel, "Thank you." You respond simply.

Conflicted by your reaction, Denzel decides to be forward, allowing you to accept or reject his advances.

"Look, award season is around the corner, and I'm nominated for a few different categories. My label is trying to get me to bring a date, and you were the first person I could think of asking.— Would you like to go with me to the the Oscars?"

With perfect timing, Michael shows up in your line of sight and quickly places his hand on your shoulder, in a friendly but possessive manner. He glances up at Denzel as if taken off guard by hiss presence, despite intentionally approaching you both.

"Hey Denzel, what's up, man?" Michael greets him, as Denzel stands and they dap each other up.

"Hey Mike, man. How are you?" Denzel responds, attempting to hide his frustration.

"'m good. Hope you don't mind, I need to steal my homegirl." He responds, as your teeth clench in restraint as you bite back a quick retort.

The unfortunate part about being with Michael was that despite so many people seeing you together, you had to deny any romantic relationship with one another. Of course, some people figured there was something romantic between the two of you, since you were stuck to each other's hips.

But the lack of physical affection, was also able to convince many that you were indeed ‘best friends’ like the two of you claimed. Michael made it clear that his label didn't want him to be in a public relationship, therefore when you went out together there were boundaries, including no pda.

While initially this frustrated you, you understood that you and Michael had gotten together just as his solo career was beginning to take off. So, you agreed to their terms out of fear of being perceived as using him. Sure, you were a top runway model, but Michael's career was at another level. You didn't want people to think you were trying to benefit from his image.

Despite your attempt at being understanding, you couldn't help the silence you met Michael with on your way to the car. Realizing the tension between you and Michael, Latoya quickly decides to stay at the club with one of their brothers.

As Michael holds the door open for you both and shuts it behind himself you can't help pressing him, "I didn't know I was just your homegirl now."

Michael, huffs in frustration, "You know I didn't mean it like that."

You roll your eyes, attempting to move slightly away from him, before he moves closer to you and attempts to hold your hand before you pull it away. "How'd you mean it then?"

"Baby, you know I can't just go callin you my lady in public. I didn't think about it before saying it.”

You huff a sigh as he grabs your chin and turns you to face him before pulling you in for a chaste kiss. "Forgive me." He says gazing into your eyes, inches away from your face.

You gently remove his hand from your face before leaning back in your seat and glancing out the window. "Whatever,” you reply, as he pulls your hand back in his. 

A few moments pass before Michael bites his lip and begins playing with your fingers nervously, "So, what were ya'll talkin about?"

You can't help smiling softly, you knew Michael would adamantly deny being the jealous type, but when it came to men flirting with you, you could tell when he was bothered.

"He asked me out." You admit immediately, not looking at him.

Michael's fidgeting with your hand stops, as you continue looking out the window.

"You were smiling a lot for him to be asking you out, wha'd you say?" He says, resuming his fiddling with your hands, thoughtlessly.

"I didn't say anything, you got there just in time." You reply simply, finally glancing back at him, gauging his reaction.

"Good, I know he was mad." He smiles, biting his lip and you can't help giggling softly.

"You're so dumb."

The thing about your relationship with Michael is that you both hated confrontation, the good thing is that he knew exactly how to lower your guards. He knew you were quick to reciprocate his energy and if he remained calm then you would too. You both loved how easy and peaceful your love felt.

You quickly began leaning onto one another, giggling. As you both look outside the windows together, Michael sees his favorite convenience store, that has his favorite niche brand of orange juice and leans forwards. He quickly slides back the window divider and asks Bill to pull over at the store.

"Do you want something, mama?" He asks, leaning back, glancing at you.

"I can't" You sigh, "I have that show coming up, I need to be careful with what I eat." You lean your head onto his shoulder, pouting.

He kisses the top of your head sympathetically. "You've been doing really good, a small snack won't hurt." He says, as the car stops in the back of the store's parking lot.

"C'mon, let's go look. You don't have to get anything if you don't want, but a bite won't hurt none either."

Before you head inside, you throw on a cap and Michael throws on a hoodie from the back seat of the vehicle, which he always keeps on hand for last minute outings.

The store run was quick, and isn't an odd occurrence for you two. Afterwards, you both head to Hayvenhurst where you stay the night.

The morning after, you and Michael wake up to his landline ringing. He slowly unwraps himself from your hold onto one another and mumbles a raspy greeting.

You glance at the clock, it's 8am. Before glancing back at Michael. He begins sitting up on the edge of the bed, humming.

"Okay." He sighs. The room is silent, besides his shuffling movements.

"I understand." He mumbles, seemingly frustrated, before slightly raising his voice, "Alright man— it won't happen again."

He immediately hangs the phone back on its receiver.

"What happened?" You ask, sitting up against the headboard, while Michael remains on the edge of the bed, facing away from you.

He's quiet for a moment, "There are newspapers going around with photos of us from last night, at the convenience store."

You hum, adjusting yourself on your knees behind Michael, wrapping your arms around his shoulders before placing a peck on his shoulder. "We knew it was gonna get out sooner or later right?"

You rest your head on his back, arms moving to wrap around his stomach from behind. Grogginess, keeping you from considering his responses during the phone call.

He awkwardly coughs, clearing his throat, before remaining quiet, considering his words carefully.

"John said we need to be more careful, he doesn't want us going out together in public for a while." He suggests, mentioning his manager.

You slowly pull away, eyebrows furrowing in shock. You had been in a relationship for over a year, you thought you had earned some semblance of respect and authority in your relationship. Michael's position on the matter seems clear, he must agree with their opinion

"Is that what you want?" You ask softly, staring at his slumped figure, as he continues facing away from you, avoiding eye contact.

The silence is lingering, as he simply doesn't respond, his eyes shutting as he lowers his head to rest on his hands.

You nod to yourself slowly, and begin gathering yourself together before leaving quietly.

Michael didn't want to hurt you, but when the conversation of your relationship arose in meetings, he understood where his team was coming from. As horrible as it may seem, Michael knew you didn't match him in status. Sure, you were a supermodel, and did amazing in that facet of your career, but your acting skills weren't up to par. You were criticized often in the public eye for only being a pretty face.

When his team discussed your image, they said that any negative discussion directed towards you would naturally be placed onto Michael. They figured since the 'Thriller' album was doing so well, they shouldn't entertain any discussion of Michael being in a relationship with a c list actress.

Unfortunately, Michael prioritizes his career over almost everything in his life, in his mind, not telling you that your negative image is what is keeping him from going public with you, is him protecting you. He figures what he doesn’t tell you can’t hurt you.

What Michael doesn’t know is that you’re fully aware of what critics are saying about your acting skills and that you were actively taking acting classes now, to help you improve yourself.

It was initially supposed to be a surprise, you wanted to prove yourself to your boyfriend. You know how hard working and successful Michael is and figured, he would be excited for you when you got accepted in a blockbuster horror film, after taking acting classes. Yet, when you got the call confirming you got the role, you decided to not mention it to him.

Things hadn't been the same after his phone call with John Branca. He seemed distant, and while it wasn't unusual for you to go some time without a proper conversation, you couldn't shake the feeling that this time was different.

You never had a proper conversation about their call or how you both felt, so the tension felt lingering when you did speak to one another. While you typically appreciated how you both avoided confrontation, in moments like this when it built distance between you two, you can't help feeling resentful about how passive you both are.

A few days turned into a week and a half.

You knew that Michael was nominated for multiple grammy's and despite the distance between you two, you tried to contact him beforehand, wanting to bask in the moment with him in any way you could.

When he didn't pick up your phone call, you were hurt, but convinced yourself that he must've been incredibly busy preparing for the award show. Since you couldn't be with him, you decided to surprise him and wait for him at Hayvenhurst.

You were seated on his bed, in his pajamas, when you noticed Brooke Shields was seated beside him. He brought her as his date.

You never heard Michael even mention her. Sure, Michael had plenty of friends in the industry and he didn't need to explain any of them to you, but you both knew what him showing up with her meant. Michael was a very meticulous person, if he brought her as his date it could only mean one thing.

He wanted people to think they were together.

Watching Michael break the record for the most nominations and awards received in a single night feels bittersweet. The man you love is being celebrated for something he worked tirelessly for, but at his side is another woman.

You sit for the entirety of the award show in tears, considering how you want to react when he arrives, but your rational side is thrown out the window when he enters the room. You’re pacing his room, face puffy, when he enters. People are a few steps behind him talking, when he sees you and his smile fades.

The people helping him carry his awards are disregarded as he shakes his head at them and quickly shuts his bedroom door, before setting down the two awards he was holding onto his nightstand. He sits on the edge of his bed and watches you, as you pace, biting your lip, in an attempt to focus on anything besides your blurrying vision.

Finally you stop pacing and grab his award softly, looking at it. "Congratulations," Your voice cracks.

Michael's eyebrows furrow, as he sees you struggling to hold yourself together, but restrains himself from reaching for you, attempting to give you space.

You sigh, as tears stain your cheeks, and you gently place the award back on the nightstand before walking to his dresser. You finally look at him, as you lean back onto it.

"Why’d you take her as your date?" Your voice remains steady, as tears continue falling and you wipe them away.

"John thought it would be a good idea to bring a date. We ended up deciding I would ask Brooke."

You can't help scoffing, "Instead of your girlfriend?"

"They thought it'd be best"

You can't help rolling your eyes and raising your voice, "Michael, can you take some responsibility? You're a grown man! You have a say, stop using your team as a way out."

His eyebrows furrow in confusion at your raised voice, you had never yelled at him before.

He looks at the floor, nodding slowly, "I thought it'd be best."

"Why?" You plead, wanting a genuine answer for once.

"John doesn't think you have the best image." His eyebrows scrunch together, embarrassed.

"What are you talking about? I've never been on the front page of a magazine for my private life until you." You can't help scoffing.

Michael covers his face, slowly sliding them down in exasperation before leaning on his elbows, which rest on his knees. He is slouched over on the edge of the bed.

"It's the acting roles you've been doing, people say they just haven't really been— the best." He says, avoiding eye contact.

"Are you kidding me right now? That's what this is about." You begin connecting the dots. Michael was okay being seen out with women in public, taking photos. Just not you. You didn't fit into his picture perfect life.

"You just don't think I'm good enough for you," You mumble to yourself.

"That's not what I said," He stands, approaching you, attempting to touch your waist, before you pull away.

You take a step away from him before folding your arms underneath your chest, and dropping them quickly. You don't want to look as small as you feel right now. "You know, even though things haven't been the best between us the past few days, I called you." Your voice trembles.

"I figured it's Michael's big day, I need to put our problems aside. I was so sad I couldn't be there with you. Not because I needed to be seen with Michael Jackson, but because I knew you would break records tonight." You can't help glancing at the ground and shaking your head in disbelief.

You slowly continue, despite your voice cracking, "I never doubted you for a second. I just wish you believed in me too."

Michael is facing you directly, wanting more than anything to hold you, as his vision becomes blurry. "I'm sorry, I was wrong, I see that now. You didn't deserve that. It's just hard." He struggles to find the right words.

"It's hard?" You can't help raising your voice, "What part was hard, Michael?" You ask, as he flinches in embarrassment. You point at the television, voice never faltering, "Cause from here, it looked pretty easy.— Was it hard asking her out? Was it hard sitting beside a pretty girl all night? Was it hard accepting every award, while I was at home, in tears?"

You scoff, "Oh I know, maybe it was hard thinking about the possibility of ever needing to be seen with me. You know what, you're right. It must've been so hard lying to me in the meantime."

In tears, Michael shakes his head, "I never lied,— I never lied to you. Everything with you was real, especially my feelings."

"Intentionally withholding the truth, is lying to me. You went with her and didn’t tell me. And your feelings for me mean nothing if they don't come hand and hand with respect."

Michael's eyebrows furrow in frustration, "I never said I don't respect you, you keep puttin words in my mouth.— I did wrong, I know I did. I shouldn't have taken her. I should’ve gone public with you, but don't make it seem like I'm this evil person."

He pleads, continuing, "I never meant to hurt you, that's why I didn't wanna tell you I was goin with her or what they were saying about your acting ."

You roll your eyes, "You aren't getting it. If you can be in a room where people are talking about me and you don’t feel the need to defend me, then you don't respect me."

You shake your head, pointing outside the bedroom door, as your voice trembles." I don't care what anyone else has'ta say about me. I know what the media is sayin about me, trust me. I just thought if anyone would be on my side it was you."

Michael takes a step closer to you, and you allow him too, as he takes hold of your hand, fidgeting with it. "I am on your side. But I understand, baby, I did wrong. I'm sorry, really."

You give yourself a moment of comfort and allow Michael to play with your hands before you gently pull away altogether.

"I don’t forgive you." You simply whisper in return, biting your lip.

You begin turning around and gathering your items that you had slowly left over at Michael’s over the year and a half that you have been together.

He remains hot on your heels, "C'mon, work with me here.” He pleads, “ I said I'm sorry, really I mean it.— I'll tell them that we're gonna go public, I don't care. Just don't do this. Don't walk away from something good."

You stop digging through your designated drawer in his room and look at him. "This isn't something a sorry can fix, Michael. If you want me the way you say you do, prove it."

You quickly throw as many things as you can into a duffle bag and leave his house.

Operation Getting Your Lick Back .ᐟ

The movie crew wanted to do a quick table read weeks before shooting the horror movie to make sure everyone's on screen chemistry was good. It was here you became close with Jane Fonda and Rita Moreno, your costars. Although you weren't supposed to discuss your relationship with Michael to others, you never signed an nda, so when they found you sulking, you opened up.

After an hour, they knew about your acting career, your year and a half long whirlwind romance, his obsession with control over his public image, and Brooke Shields.

"Oh, honey. This reminds me of my past relationship with Marlon Brando." Rita shook her head in remembrance.

"You dated Marlon Brando?" You ask in disbelief, never having heard of their relationship.

She hums, "Those years were some of the best nights of my life," she winks, laughing softly.

"He had the women chasing after him, that's for sure" Jane chimes in.

"He did plenty of the chasing too" Rita adds.

"He cheated?" You say, face scrunched in disgust.

"Of course, he was a dog." She states indifferently, as your eyes widen.

Without a second thought, she continues, "There was a point, I was so tired of his cheating I decided to get even." She states, as you and Jane lean forward in anticipation.

"I had just found a pair of lingerie in his house, and I was so heartbroken. I remember going home in tears,— And anyway the next day I got a call from Colonel Parker, Elvis' assistant and he said Elvis saw me at the commissary at Fox Studios and he wanted to meet me. He asked if I would also like to meet him."

She smirks, continuing, "I remember thinking about the lingerie I had just found and I said why yes I would."

You all began laughing together.

You quickly chime in, excitedly, "Well, what happened next?"

"Well, we went out that night, and it quickly spread into the gossip columns the next morning! Marlon heard about it and he was furiouss, he was throwing chairs and yelling, oh he was so mad." She smiles widely.

She quickly grabs Jane's and your knees, leaning in and whispering slowly, "And it was wonderful." You begin squealing in excitement while they laugh along together.

"Did you get back together then?" You enthusiastically ask.

As you all three lean into one another, your hands interlocked with Rita, who appreciated your enthusiasm.

She smiles sadly, patting your interlocked hands with one of her own. "Of course, at that point I didn't want to end things with Marlon. I just wanted to make him feel the way he had made me feel.— We were obsessed with one another. We wouldn't end things for good until two years later."

You hum in response, as you all begin thinking quietly amongst yourselves.

Jane pipes in, "I guess the question now is whether you wanna just wanna make Michael work for it, or whether you wanna see him sweat? The way Rita did."

"And boy did I make him sweat," Rita giggles softly as they both lean in and you pull your hands from Rita's, twiddling your fingers, considering your next words carefully.

It's silent for a moment, and then you smile nervously before making eye contact with the both of them. "I wanna make him sweat."

They began squealing together, before Rita chimes "I knew, I liked you!"

You smile softly, as she pulls you in for a quick hug. You continue, "I just want him to feel how I did, seeing them at the Grammy's together."

"Well you’ll need a man," Jane chimes.

"But not just any man!" Rita elaborates, "You need a man who is able to make him sweat, part of what made me meeting Elvis so hurtful was that it made Marlon realize I could be with someone more successful than him."

"I don't know anyone more successful than Michael." You think aloud.

"He doesn't need to be more successful, He just needs to be someone who everyone knows and holds in high regards. Someone important,— someone who can make him sweat." Jane corrects.

You think for a moment before you quickly lean forward on the sofa, "I know exactly who! Denzel Washington, he's a good friend of mine, and Michael knows he's asked me out."

The women gasped and began gushing over him, Denzel's career was just beginning to reach new heights. Everyone was talking about him, and that partly was because he was easy on the eyes. Which only helped your situation. He's the perfect man to make Michael sweat.

The plan is quickly under way, and when you call Denzel, asking if the invitation to the Academy Awards is still open, he happily agrees.

-

A few days later the awards show was held, you had been receiving calls from Michael, but made it clear that simple 'sorry's' weren't going to cut it. In the meantime, you were walking the red carpet with Denzel.

The dress you wore hugged your figure perfectly. Your back was completely showing, with only two thin straps holding the front piece in place from behind. The back cut was almost uncomfortably low as it rested directly above your ass.

Photographers are immediately yelling out for you both to look in their direction. The dress would go down in history and your delicate makeup and voluminous hair only added an elegance to the look.

Throughout the entirety of your photos together, Denzel's hand rested directly against your lower back, right where the dress ended, adding another layer of conversation to your look for the night. Your comfortability with one another, along with your appearance, and Denzel's first ever award show wins demanded attention.

'Denzel 'Wins Multiple Awards for First Time, Alongside Supermodel Date!'

Gossip columns went on tangents the next day over your look and comfortability with one another. Photos circulating of you both in the car after the award show, laughing closely with one another. Which led them to believe you were both in a relationship, much to both of your satisfaction.

The gossip just assured you that Michael would hear about your public appearance together.

Operation Getting His Girl Back .ᐟ

"Yo, Mike!" Michael hears Randy yelling from the outside of his bedroom door, as Randy and Marlon continue banging on his bedroom door.

"Mike! Hurry up, open the door." Janet yells, with Latoya by her side, reads another newspaper.

Michael, groggily shuffles out of bed. "I'm comin, damn."

As soon as the door opens, Marlon shoves a newspaper in his face, a small section showing a blurry image of a man and woman in a car, close together.

"Who is it?" Michael questions in a raspy voice.

"It's your girl and Denzel Washington, man." Marlon shakes his head, while everyone looks over his shoulder at the newspaper.

"He's so fine," Latoya mumbles to herself, before her siblings stare at her, dumbfounded.

"My bad," She forces an awkward smile.

"What're you gonna do?" Randy chimes in curiously.

Michael stares at the image, before mumbling "I'm gonna get my girl back."

The past week after your argument, Michael had been calling you daily, unsure of how to approach getting you back. These calls were cut short by you, but the fact you were still answering at all feels like a positive sign. You were open to the possibility of something, he just couldn’t understand how to prove it to you.

The siblings huddled around in Michael's room, as he began pacing slowly, While Janet sat crisscrossed in the middle of the bed, with Latoya laying down next to her, looking up at the ceiling.

Randy was digging through Michael's trinkets, while Marlon sat crisscross on the floor, leaning back on his hands.

"So a phone call is a no?" Marlon asks.

"I've been doin that, she answers but never wants to talk long." Michael says before sitting on the edge of the bed, frustrated.

"Have you tried sending her flowers?" Latoya asks, looking in Michael's direction.

"No." Michael responds.

"Well what have you tried?" Janet asks.

"Calling and showing up at her house." Michael sighs.

"Did she open the door," Marlon asks. As Randy opens a wooden treasure chest full of toys, digging inside.

"No." Michael replies, flopping back on the bed, and rubbing his face.

"What if you try sending a big arrangement of flowers and a letter?" Latoya adds, sitting up.

"Do you think that'll work?" Michael asks.

"I don't think you have much of a choice, you needa try something else fast." Janet criticizes.

"Alright," Michael replies, nodding.

-

In the meantime, you were doing your daily routine of working out, going to your acting class, and meeting up with Rita Moreno for lunch. Who was overjoyed to see you on the front page of her newspaper that morning with Denzel, and demanded you grab lunch to gossip.

By the time you had gotten to your small Hollywood home you immediately noticed multiple giant flower bouquets on your doorstep.

You struggle to enter your doorway and notice that your door is struggling to open because of the amount of flowers surrounding your foyer. You smile softly before following the flower petals leading up to your room. You see bags of your favorite couture brands on your bed surrounding an envelope signed 'Mister winning my lady back, Yours Truly, Michael ᥫ᭡".

Immediately you tear open the envelope.

'Dear Pretty Girl,

The past week has been really weird. The best way I can explain it is that it feels like I'm missing a limb from my body, and no one else except I seem to notice it. I'm trying to go about my daily life like everything's normal, but I feel this part of me missing, and I can't stop thinking about it. I miss you. I really really do. I didn't realize how deeply my actions were hurting you until you left. I know, I'm an idiot.

I'm not quite sure what else to say. I know that my actions haven't been the best, and even now I feel like I've waited too long to do something drastic but I'm trying to be intentional. I'll do whatever it takes. I love you, Pretty Girl.

Yours Truly,

You're Pinhead Boyfriend.'

Quickly glancing through the bags you notice items you have previously circled in magazines, while at Hayvenhurst with Michael. Biting your lip, you decide to give Michael a small break and call him. He answers on the third ring.

"Hello?" He questions.

"Hey," You smile softly, "I appreciate the gifts and the letter."

"Good!" He says enthusiastically, before coughing awkwardly "I mean good, I'm glad."

You giggle softly, before thinking out loud, "How did you get everything inside my house?"

"OH, um I have that key you gave me. I didn't want the men who were moving everything inside to do it while your house was empty and I didn't think you'd want me in there so Latoya and Janet were there to let the guys in." He says, nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

You hum in response, appreciating his thoughtfulness. "Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you, really. But that doesn't mean everything is okay. I'll talk to you later." You mumble quietly.

"Wait," He raises his voice anxiously. "I'm dying here, baby. I don't know what you want me to do. Whatever it is, I'll do it! I just need a hint. Give me something, mama." He pleads.

Considering his perspective, you sigh. "I'll think about it." You're quiet for a moment before continuing. "Anyways, I really need to go. I'll talk to you later Michael, bye."

"Bye, I love you," He replies, as you hang up.

-

When Michael wakes up the next day to a hand written letter signed by you, his excitement is overwhelming. You decided to cut him some slack. He quickly tears open the envelope.

'Hey, Pinhead Boyfriend #1'

He reads, before rolling his eyes smiling, he knew you wanted to make him jealous and he definitely was, but he knew he had to be careful about how he handled your situation with Denzel. If he acted irrationally, he may push you away for good. For now he intended to focus on fulfilling your demands.

'I decided to be nice and write some demands out for you, the sooner you complete them, the sooner I'll hear you out. First, I need you to announce your relationship status. However, I want this done on my terms. I want you to announce it publicly in a television interview. I also want to see you announce it to our closest friends, at Studio 54 through a thoughtful and practiced performance. Secondly, I want to see you be creative and come up with a thoughtful heartfelt gift on your own. Get to it dummy, I’ll be waiting! ❤︎⁠

Sincerely,

The Only Woman Who Better Be Sending You Love Letters!’

-

The interview was recorded and televised the next day, despite Michael’s busy schedule he demanded John fit it into his agenda. The interview was brief as a result but Michael figured that would be okay. The less said in the interview, the more that the public's focus would be on his newly announced relationship status. Which it was.

Despite the completion of his task, his phone call with you was still short. You meant business.

Wanting desperately to be back in your good graces as soon as possible, Michael began cancelling his obligations throughout the week to begin practicing for his serenade performance at Studio 54. He had exactly four days to perfect it.

He even paid his brothers as well as ya’ll’s favorite drag queens, to practice and be a part of the performance. After the drag queens berated him for his decision to keep your relationship a secret, they agreed to help.

He also made sure to set aside time at night to paint his gift, a portrait of you.

The days felt too quick for his liking, and he began to worry about the performance, but he already told you to be at Studio 54 on Saturday night and he couldn't go back on that now.

He can't help his nervousness as he begins setting up the stage with his brothers for their performance. You sit in a private, elevated section with your friends. In the meantime, Cupcake is continuing her crowd work.

Michael quickly takes a seat on the edge of the stage, gazing down at the floor, unmistakably sad. Before Cupcake approaches him, calling his name. A part of the performance.

Michael and Cupcake follow their prewritten script, building up the anticipation for their performance, before Michael and his brothers get on stage and the melody to 'I Want You Back' begins playing and the boys begin dancing the choreography in sync. The crowd cheers as Michael focuses on you entirely.

'When I had you to myself, I didn't want you around. Those pretty faces always made you stand out in a crowd'

You can't help smiling, watching the obviously rehearsed performance begin. Your friends in your section immediately squeal and begin chattering about the performance, which you don't pay attention to as your focus remains on Michael. Who is also completely focused on you.

'Oh, baby, give me one more chance, to show you that I love you.'

Michael emphasizes the lyrics, while simultaneously staying in line with his brothers who are all dancing alongside one another.

As the music progresses, couples around the room are dancing together, friends are singing passionately to one another, and other audience members are dancing with the drag queens in the crowd. The song begins passing midway through, when you see a few drag queens take each of the Jackson sibling's place on stage as the brothers slowly stop performing and move off stage. Michael remains singing, as the drag queens take their places on stage, serving as backup singers and dancers for the crowd.

The brothers quietly walk off stage, Michael, walking up the steps to your section with his brothers following suit, grabbing items from the side of the stage before rushing after him. Marlon brings a bouquet of roses, Jackie brings a bottle of wine and glass cups, Tito holds a large but thin wrapped gift, and Jermaine holds small tubes in his hand that you can't yet identify.

'Oh, baby, I need one more chance. I tell ya that I love you'

Michael smiles as he reaches you, and you begin dancing with one another. You both gaze into one another's eyes lovingly, smiling widely as the song comes to an end.

As the music finishes, Michael hands his mic to Jermaine, and holds both of your hands while playing with them. He's nervous and unintentionally avoids eye contact for a moment, to gather himself together.

You see his adam's apple bob up and down, while he nervously clears his throat, before finally meeting your gaze.

"What do you say, can I have one more chance?" He nervously gauges your response.

You smile softly and nod your head.

Immediately, confetti is flying around you as everyone in the room is now cheering. Michael looks around and, as he meets your gaze once again he's smiling genuinely now. He lets go of his grip on your hands and they instead move to your jaw, before leaning in. Your lips meet for a slow but chaste kiss.

You spend your night celebrating together with your friends, dancing and laughing. And when you both finally get home, you have a serious and much needed heartfelt conversation. Specifically, about his negative reaction to the criticism you were receiving regarding your past acting roles, as well as his decision to bring Brooke to the Grammy’s

He listened intently to everything you had to say and apologized profusely for his obsession with his and your public image, promising to spend as long as he needed make it up to you. He also promised he wouldn't have contact with Brooke Shield's going forward.

Until the conversation of Denzel finally arose.

"I just kinda feel bad about leading him on." You mumble.

"Oh, he'll be fine, don't worry about that." He states indifferently, playing with the hem of his oversized shirt, which you are wearing, as you both cuddled on the bed.

"You sound so sure of yourself. He really liked me, you know," You acknowledge.

He scoffs, irritated at the mention of Denzel, "Trust me I know."

You sit up from your position. Curiosity getting the best of you, as you look at him, "Then what makes you so sure he won't care."

Michael's eyebrows furrow as he cringes momentarily, frustrated with himself for saying anything. He rubs his hands against his face before sighing.

"I may or may not have spent the last few days setting him back up with his last longterm girlfriend." He coughs, before adding, "They're actually on a date now,— in Hawaii."

"Did you pay for them to travel to Hawaii, just to get him out of the picture?" You scoff in astonishment.

He bites his lip, "When you say it like that, it sounds crazy." He mumbles.

"Yeah, I'm the one making it sound crazy" You reply sarcastically.

You can't help furrowing your eyebrows, while looking at him. "I don't know whether I should be concerned or flattered." You think aloud.

He quickly pulls you back down against him, as his hands find themselves on your jaw as he begins smothering you in kisses. "Flattered, definitely flattered." He replies,

You smile softly. "You know, that seems an awful lot like jealousy." You tease.

He pulls away, humming in response, "I don't think so. I was just tying up a few loose ends, helping a friend out, you know?"

You scoff in astonishment, "You might actually be insane."

"I wasn't gonna let him ruin my one chance at getting you back. I just did something nice to get him out of the way in the meantime." He states gauging your reaction, his thumb softly tracing your jawline.

"Are you upset?" He asks softly.

You remain quiet for a moment, considering your answer, "No, if I had seen you in person with Brooke at the Grammy's, I may have done worse."

He huffs a breathy laugh, "Yeah?" He asks, biting his lip before leaning down and leaving open mouthed kisses on your neck. He loved when you got possessive.

'mhmm' You smile, placing your hand on his jawline, softly leaning back on the bed, as you gently pull his face above yours.

"And if you ever do some dumb shit like that again, we're done." You murmur softly, eyebrows furrowed as he notices the hurt in your tone.

He nods softly, " I did wrong by you and I know that, but I swear it won’t happen again."

He leans down and your lips meet in an open mouthed kiss, his tongue softly teasing your bottom lip in the process. While his hands softly trace your jawline and yours slowly begin tugging on the hair on the nape of his neck, as you follow his lead.

Michael sucks on the bottom of your lip slowly before he begins gradually leaning back, as his grip on your throat tightens slightly, guiding your frame on top of his, before he slowly pulls back from the kiss, while you begin kissing along his jaw towards his neck. He settles himself against the headboard, while you straddle him.

His hands make their way up your thighs before groping your ass and eventually tugging at the shirt you have on. Both of your clothes are quickly disregarded as you successfully attempt to find comfort in one another’s embrace for the night. You both seem to wordlessly agree in simply wanting to become intimately reacquainted with one another after your time apart.

He's Never Living It Down .ᐟ

It had been over forty years since your brief separation from Michael, which was the only time where you genuinely almost walked away from him for good. Life has been great. You have five beautiful children together and 12 grandchildren. Things are good.

It was the last Friday night of the month, and therefore your mandatory family night. Your house was filled with children, teenagers, and adults all roaming around, talking amongst themselves in the living room or kitchen.

You were sat on Michael's lap, cuddling on the sofa, with a blanket draped over you, talking quietly amongst yourselves. While completely unaware of three of your grandchildren who were planning on messing with you, laughing quietly amongst themselves.

They quietly sit on the opposite end of the couch, attempting to look casual when your granddaughter, Kayla, raises her voice, immediately catching ya'll's attention, as her brother, Jackson records, attempting to stifle his laughs.

"I'm soo hungry," She wails. "I could eat Denzel Washington."

You scoff a laugh in complete disbelief, as Michael immediately sits up loosening his grip on your waist.

"Denzel Washington?" Michael's eyebrows immediately furrow in annoyance, while he lets go of you.

"Has she been mentioning him," He asks looking at you in disbelief, while the kids start laughing hysterically and you sit completely baffled.

"I haven't thought of that man in years, don't start." You say getting annoyed with him.

"Why are they talkin bout him?" He quickly directs his questions towards the children who are wheezing with laughter, while the rest of the room has gotten quiet and everyone is now watching y'all's reactions, smiling or laughing. "Where'd y'all get that name?" He asks them seriously.

"Papa, we found the photos of Granny with him when they were young and just wanted to mess with ya'll, it's a tiktok trend." Jayla speaks up from her spot, next to her sister, smiling widely.

You can't help chiming in "You chose the wrong name, the one you should've said was Brooke Shields." You say raising your eyebrows at Michael. To which he closes his eyes and his head falls back on the couch in disbelief. How he ended up in trouble, he didn’t know.

Your eldest son chimes in, "Ya'll done got Papa in some trouble." He says as you stand up and walk away, annoyed that he would get angry over hearing Denzel's name when he knows he was the one who rubbed Brooke Shields in your face. He didn't have any right to be annoyed.

Michael quickly follows after you, hoping you weren't genuinely upset with him.

One of your daughters chimes in "He's gonna be sleeping on the couch if he doesn't start kissing up." They laugh amongst themselves before one of their significant others asks about the story behind the celebrities being mentioned.

They slowly settle around the couch while Michael follows you silently in the kitchen.

"Papa cheated on Granny with Brooke Shields." One of your grandchildren chimes in.

"I thought Granny cheated with Denzel," Another asks.

Slowly your children reveal the story to their children and significant others, each one chiming in at different points, having heard the story multiple times before.

By the end of the story, everyone is murmuring amongst themselves. Before your youngest daughter explains to those unaware, that their names were basically forbidden words in your house growing up. They always led to an argument, with Michael ultimately being the one in trouble and having to apologize.

One of your children's significant others finally speaks up, "I hope they figure things out, she seemed really upset."

Your youngest daughter rolls her eyes before revealing "Oh, they'll be fine. They get like this every once in a while. I bet they're already good."

Your next youngest son butts in, "No way! The last time, mama was so mad she made him sleep on the couch."

They begin bickering amongst themselves, as a few of your children and grandchildren decide to peek into the kitchen, to see if you were arguing with Michael. Instead, they see you leaned up against the kitchen island, hands on Michael's face while his hands rest on your waist, and he is smothering you in kisses "'m sorry— love you— 'm a dummy." he mumbles between kisses, while you giggle softly.

૮₍ ´ ꒳ `₎ა ⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝒌𝒂𝒊': first ever long fic damnnnn to my long fic writers THIS IS THE WORST PAIN. so please LET ME KNOW (I'm begging yall.) if this was good! feedback & comments & reblogs IS ALWAYS appreciated. don't be scared to comment <33 ily.

𝟭 𝗮𝗺. 𝗛𝗮𝘆𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝟭𝟵𝟳𝟴.

𝑴𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒆𝒍’𝒔 hand slid up to cup you jaw, thumb brushing softly over your cheek as he pulled you closer.

His lips met yours again, deeper this time, tongue teasing yours as he kissed like he’d been dreaming of this for years. You gasped softly into the kiss and your tug on his soft hair.

Eyes wide, full of longing and need, you whispered, "I need you, mike..." The words made him pause just long enough to glance down at you, chest heaving, a mixture of disbelief and desire in his eyes.

Your big eyes staring up at him, lips already swollen from his kisses, seemed to pull him in further.

He kissed you again, slower, savoring you, before his lips trailed to the side of your neck, his hand still gently cradling your jaw, teasing just enough to make you tremble.

Heat pooled low in your belly, and though nothing else had happened yet, every touch and kiss was enough to make it feel like the world had narrowed down to just the two of you.

He pulled back just slightly, his forehead resting against yours, eyes dark. His voice dropped low, rough with desire. "C-can I touch you?"

you swallowed hard and whispered, breathless, "Please..angel please..." His hand slid further under your shirt, fingers brushing over the soft curve of your breast through your bra. A soft gasp escaped your lips, and he immediately kissed you again.

slower and deeper this time. His mouth is warm and sure, hands trailing along your waist, slipping beneath your sleep dress to touch your bare skin.

His lips move to your neck, dragging along the sensitive skin just below your jaw. "you smell so heavenly...baby," he murmurs, voice sweet and innocent.

Your fingers dig into his shoulders. And when he slips a hand beneath your sleep dress, eyes locked on yours, his sweet voice drops to a whisper that sends shivers straight to your core,

"Let me make you feel good, yeah? but y' gotta be real quiet f'me okay?" His fingers slip, sliding over your panties and the moment he feels the dampness there, he lets out a low groan.

"F-Fuck, lovely." he murmurs, pressing his forehead against yours for a beat. "already wet f'me?"

You nod shakily, unable to speak, hips twitching as he rubs slow, deliberate circles over your clothed slit. The pressure of his fingers through the thin fabric has you gasping, legs parting on instinct.

then he presses a little harder, and your breath hitches, your body arching into his hand with a quiet, needy whimper. Michael smiles against your neck, voice low and sweet. "Sound so sweet f’me, baby."

You shiver as his hands slide up your legs, thumbs brushing gently along your inner thighs. Then he leans in close, until his breath is hot and heavy right against your dripping cunt.

He doesn’t touch you yet. Just breathes. Watches. Fingers going up and down your slick folds as you writhe under him, desperate and aching. "Look at you," he murmurs, completely entranced.

His thumb swipes gently through your wetness. "My sweet beautiful girl." You bite your lip, a whimper slipping from your throat. "Shhh baby, we don't wanna wake the others up don't we?"

then, he presses a kiss to your inner thigh, soft and lingering, before sliding his tongue slowly up your slit, groaning low against you like you’re the only thing he’s ever wanted.

The moment his tongue touches you, it’s over. He moans and whimpers low against your pussy like he’s tasting something he’s been craving for years.

He starts slow, teasing licks through your folds, lips wrapping around your clit just enough to make your whole body jolt. And then he does it again. And again. Each time a little rougher. A little wetter.

A little more desperate. "Fuuuck," he groans into you, hands gripping your thighs, keeping you open for him. "You taste so good, so good baby."

You gasp, fingers tangling in his hair, hips lifting off the bed as he sucks your clit into his mouth. It’s messy, and dirty, the sounds of him licking you echoing through the room, wet and filthy and perfect.

Then suddenly, he’s slipping two fingers back inside you pushing in deep, curling them up in just the right way, and your moan breaks into a whimper. "Ngh—Michael—!" he groans again, like your voice alone is enough to make him lose it. Then he adds a third finger.

Your back arches, legs trembling as he fucks them into your soaked cunt fast and deep, his palm smacking softly against your skin with every thrust. His mouth never leaves your clit tongue flicking, sucking, devouring like it’s the only thing that matters.

"Let go, my sweet girl," he mumbles against you. "Wanna feel you." You’re already so close.

you can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t stop yourself from grinding against his face like your body’s got a mind of its own. The pressure snaps.

you cry out, thighs clenching around his head as your orgasm crashes into you. Your fingers tug at his hair, your hips jerk, your moans breaking into soft, high pitched whines as you fall apart in his mouth. But Michael doesn’t stop.

He keeps licking. Keeps fucking his fingers into you like he wants to memorize the way you cum.

And when you finally start to go still, trembling and breathless beneath him, he pulls back just enough to kiss your inner thigh, lips swollen, chin glistening with your slick.

He crawls back up your body, kissing a trail from your trembling thighs to your stomach, over your chest, leaving warm, messy kisses across your skin before finally reaching your mouth.

He kisses you hard. Hungry, deep, desperate, his lips still slick from tasting you, his tongue dragging over yours like he needs more of you in every way.

You can feel how hard he is now, pressed between your thighs. It’s driving you crazy every movement, every breath just making it worse. Still kissing you, he breaks just long enough to whisper, breathless, "n-need to be inside you, baby. Can’t wait no more." You nod, dazed, still catching your breath.

michael shifts back, and in one smooth motion, he pushes his shorts and boxers down, finally freeing his cock.

You can’t help the soft gasp that leaves your lips, and Michael smirks through heavy breaths. He leans down again to kiss you, while his hand slides up your thigh.

Then suddenly, he grabs one of your legs, lifting it over his shoulder. His other hand cups your breast, fingers squeezing, thumb brushing softly over your nipple as he lines himself up.

"Look at me..please baby." he murmurs, voice low and thick with heat. You do. And then he slides in.

Slow at first, inch by inch, until he’s buried deep inside you, your walls fluttering around him. You moan his name, back arching off the bed.

Michael’s jaw clenches, his hand tightening on your thigh. "F-Fuck, lovely…"

he groans, eyes fluttering shut for a second. "You feel—so good—fuck."

His hips start to move, deep, rolling thrusts that drag every inch of him along your soaked walls. He keeps your leg hooked over his shoulder, the angle letting him hit every sweet spot, his other hand still cupping your breast like he can’t get enough.

"So perfect…so tight for me—fuck!" he pants, voice all praise and heat. You moan louder, nails digging into his arms as he starts to pick up the pace,

hips slapping against yours, breath hot and ragged, all while he keeps watching your face like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Michael's rhythm starts to falter, his hips snapping faster, rougher, his breathing growing messier with each thrust.

His brows are furrowed and lips parted.

"Oh my goodness—shit baby," he moans, head dropping forward.

"Y-you feel so f-fucking good, baby—s-shit, you’re so tight—oh fuckk—" The way he says it, so breathless, whimpering, makes your whole body react.

Your walls clench down around him instinctively, squeezing him hard, and it pulls another choked moan straight from his throat. His voice breaks again.

"Ohhh f-fuck—just like that—my s-sweet g-girl.. shit—" He sounds so good. Ruined. Wrecked.

Like he’s completely unraveling inside you. You’re a moaning mess beneath him, gasping for air, thighs trembling as he pounds into you deep and fast, hitting that perfect spot with every stroke.

Then he brings his hand down, finding your clit like he knows exactly what you need.

His fingers are messy, fast, rubbing tight circles in sync with his thrusts. You cry out, arching under him, clutching at his biceps as he holds himself over you and keeps fucking you through it.

"Yess m-mikey—!" you sob, voice high and desperate. He groans like it’s the hottest thing he’s ever heard.

"That’s it, sweet girl," he pants, kissing your jaw, your neck. "C-come on—cum for me again—please, I need to feel it—need to feel you fall apart on me."

You’re so close, your legs starting to shake, your fingers gripping him like a lifeline, your moans breaking into breathless little whimpers.

And all you can hear is him—moaning, gasping, whimpering, praising you like he’s gone completely stupid from how good you feel.

Your whole body locks up as that final wave crashes over you—tight and hot and overwhelming.

You cry out his name, legs shaking, back arching as you cum hard around him, fluttering and pulsing deep on his cock.

michael chokes on a moan—high, broken, wrecked. "fuuuck—so good—so fucking good, baby—"

He doesn't pull out in time, gritting his teeth through a loud, desperate groan as he grinds a little harder and spills in, all in your pussy, sticky and thick ropes of cum painting your skin while his hips twitch and his breath catches in short.

He collapses forward slightly, chest rising and falling, eyes still glazed with pleasure. Then his gaze drops down, seeing the mess he made of you, and he groans again, softer this time, like it’s too much to handle. "Shit,"

he breathes. "you’re so fucking perfect…" He leans in and kisses you slow and warm.

his hand brushes your cheek before moving to the nightstand, grabbing some tissue from a pack you kept there. "I got you." he murmurs.

you hum softly as he wipes you clean—gentle, patient, still pressing soft kisses to your collarbone, your shoulder, anywhere his mouth can reach.

And when he’s done, he tosses the tissues aside and crawls back into bed, settling in beside you. He wraps his arms around you from behind, pulling you into his chest like he has to keep you close.

You feel his breath in your hair, slow and steady now. His hands finds your waist, his thumb stroking lazily over your skin.

Then he whispers, barely audible in the dark,

"I’m sorry..i'll clean you up better tomorrow yeah? Joseph and the rest are here..so there's not much I can do baby..."

You kiss him back sleepy. "It's okay angelface..you made me feel really..really good."

the room was dark and quiet.

Michael was already asleep beside you, one arm lazily draped across your waist, his breathing slow and steady.

for a moment, you let yourself pretend, pretend you weren't hiding, pretend there wasn't a ring tucked away where nobody could find it, pretend everything was okay.

Then your stomach hurt. You immediately sat up. a sharp wave of nausea hitting you out of nowhere.

Your hand flew to your mouth. "Oh goodness." The movement woke Michael instantly.

He was always like that. Light sleeper. The second you moved, he was awake. "lovely?" His voice was rough from sleep.

You pushed yourself off the bed. "Bathroom." He still doesn't understand what's going on. "Y'okay?"

No.

You weren't. You practically stumbled into the bathroom, shutting the door behind you. the nausea passed after a few minutes, but the panic did stay... because this wasn't the first time.

Suddenly all you could hear was your own heartbeat, Michael's face, The secret engagement ring and...Joe. Joe. Joe.

you leaned against the sink, trying to breathe, trying not to think. Because if you thought about it too hard...you'd start crying.

a soft knock.

"pretty baby?"

Michael. You closed your eyes. "I'm okay angel."

lie.

Because Michael knew you.The door opened a crack.Then he stepped inside. Concern written all over his face. "What happened?"

"N-Nothing baby..don't worry." Immediately —"Nah." His hand found yours. Cold fingers wrapping around cold fingers.

"Baby, What happened?" And that was all it took. Your eyes filled immediately. Michael's expression changed. "n-no." His voice dropped.

"What is it my baby? please..talk t'me baby...did I hurt you while we were makin' love?"

You couldn't even look at him, saying it out loud would make it real. "I think..." Your voice cracked. And suddenly you were crying. "I think I might be pregnant.." It was Completely silence.

Michael froze. For like one horrible second. Then again. You couldn't read his face. Then your chest hurt. "Mike...say something." His eyes finally lifted.

And fuck. He looked terrified. Just as terrified as you felt, i mean hello?....Secretly engaged. Living under the shadow of everybody else's opinions.

And now maybe—Maybe a baby.

A shaky breath left him.You watched him process it, the panic, fear and reality.

Then his hand squeezed yours tighter. not letting go. "Okay beautiful." You stared. "What?"

His voice wasn't steady...Not at all. But he kept talking anyway. "Okay."

"Michael—"

"W-we don't even know yet." His eyes were shiny now. "You hear me lovely?" You nodded.

"We don't know." Another squeeze. "But if y' are..." His voice cracked.

And for the first time all night he looked every bit as young as he actually was. Just a scared young adult.

"If y' are baby...wow." He swallowed hard. "We'll figure it out. 'kay?" Fresh tears rolled down your cheeks.

Because that wasn't the problem, the baby wasn't even the problem. The problem was everything around it.

Joe.

all the pressure,The expectations, The way people already looked at you. Like you didn't belong. Like you were getting in the way.

Michael knew exactly what you were thinking.

Because he looked away. Jaw tightening.

"You talked to my Joseph again, didn't y'?" The question wasn't really a question.

You just stayed silent, and that was enough. Michael closed his eyes. Immediately understanding and angry. not at you, Michael was never mad at you.

At him. "What'd he say?" You shook your head. "Forget it."

"Beloved, talk t'me, What did that bastard say?" The hurt in your expression answered before you could.

And suddenly Michael looked sick. Because he already knew. He knew exactly what kind of things Joe said.

"He..thinks I ruined you.." The words came out before you could stop them. Michael's face darkened instantly. "He said that?" You looked down.

"He thinks I'm a problem." Michael couldn't believe it. "Baby, fuck... y'know you ain't the problem right?" The response came quickly.

"That fucking bustard, how dare he...fuck. i'm so mad.."

"M-michael, it's okay..you know how Joe is."

"I don’t care, he can not talk to my woman like that." His voice shook.

"You are not my problem." Tears slipped down your face. And that made him look even more upset, he hated when you cried.

Especially over things other people put in your head. Michael stepped closer. Both hands finding your face. Making you look at him.

"My Pretty baby, don't cry..listen to me okay?"

You could hear the emotion in his voice now. "I chose y'." Your breath caught. "I chose y'." He said it again.

like, he needed you to understand. he needed himself to understand. "They didn't choose y'...i did."

The bathroom felt too small for all the emotions trapped inside it.

Everything all tangled together. Michael looked down at your hand. At the hidden ring. Then back at you. You cried so hard.

The second your voice cracked in that bathroom—too loud, you already knew what was coming.

You just didn’t want to believe it. Michael was still in front of you, hands on your face, breathing uneven, trying to keep you steady like he always did when everything was falling apart.

But then—Footsteps. Down the hallway.

Both of you froze. Michael didn’t even have to look.His jaw tightened instantly. "No." You barely breathed it.

"Michael…" The knock came anyway. not soft also asking...a warning. Then the door opened.

Joe. He didn’t even bother hiding the fact that he was already angry. His eyes moved first to you. Then to Michael. Then to the bathroom.

"Why the hell is there yelling in my house at this hour?"

Michael stepped slightly in front of you without even thinking. Protective. "Go back to your room."

Joe’s eyes narrowed. "I asked a question."

Michael didn’t move. "Leave." That one word changed the air. Joe walked in anyway. Joe Jackson didn’t ask permission in his own house.

His gaze landed on you again. Longer this time.

"Still here," he muttered. like you were something that had overstayed its welcome.

Your stomach dropped. Michael felt it.You could tell by the way his hand clenched slightly at his side.

"You don’t talk about her like that." Joe let out a short laugh. "Oh, I don’t?" A step closer.

"Then what the hell do you call it, Michael? Sneaking her into my house like this? Acting like I don’t see what she’s doing to you?" Michael’s breathing changed.

"She’s my fiancée." The word hit the room like a gunshot. Joe’s expression didn’t change at first. Then it hardened. "Your what?" Michael didn’t look away.

"Fiancée." You felt your blood run cold.

Because that wasn’t supposed to be said..not like this, not here.

© KAIOMII. ‎‎‎ ❤︎ all rights reserved. all works are a work of fiction. do not copy.

She sat on the floor between two couches in the corner, surrounded by the clutter of an artist’s mind. Open notebooks, loose sheets of paper and pens scattered across the flooring. One notebook housed lyrics and the other contained.. literally everything else from fleeting observations, fragments of conversations and questions she found herself unable to stop thinking about. The thoughts that were too insignificant to piece together in the moment but had too much potential to ignore. Every so often she would pause, chewing thoughtfully on the end of her pen as she stared down at a page, scribbling another line with furrowed brows. Across the room Michael worked through notes of his own, occasionally adjusting something on the mixing console or replaying a section of music.

Neither of them spoke or even seemed inclined to.

This could go on for hours upon hours and it was maybe the most unusual aspect of their friendship:

How easy it was.

Because most people approached Michael Jackson with some level of a mental obstacle he couldn’t look past to see them, even if it wasn’t conscious. Some people became nervous, others became overeager.. but many spent entire conversations attempting to impress him.

But somehow she had skipped every single stage of this discomfort and awkwardness entirely.

Their first meeting months earlier had been brief, a polite little exchange at a charity event attended by dozens of entertainers and industry figures. Neither had anticipated seeing the other again, and yet something about that initial conversation had really stuck. A second meeting followed. Then another. Phone calls became commonplace. Invitations to studio sessions no longer required formal asking. Somewhere along the way, what should have remained a casual acquaintance turned into one of the closest friendships either possessed.

Michael often attributed it to recognition, she felt less like someone new and more like someone he’d forgotten he already knew. He had met plenty of people in his life, but very few made him feel this way in particular and it was intriguing—intoxicating, even.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen that kind of ambition before. The way she carried her lyric books almost everywhere she went. The way she dissected her own work with such a relentless scrutiny. The frustration that overtook her whenever an idea failed to match the version she had envisioned in her head. He recognized it because he had spent his entire life battling the same instincts. While others saw a young entertainer on the verge of stardom, Michael saw pieces of himself reflected back at him with this startling clarity. The perfectionism. The sensitivity.

The inability to leave “good enough” alone.

For (Name), the friendship had begun from an entirely different place. Admiration, certainly. How could it not? Michael Jackson had occupied such a permanent space within popular culture that separating the man from the legend often felt impossible. He felt like a deity. But what surprised her most was how quickly the legend disappeared once they were alone. The Michael she encountered in studios, hallways, and late night phone conversations bore little resemblance to the larger than life figure the public imagined. He was thoughtful. Curious. Shy. Nosey. And far funnier than anyone ever gave him credit for. He asked questions and genuinely listened to the answers. He remembered details from conversations months earlier. More importantly, he understood the strange loneliness that came with building a career at a young age in an industry that did more harm than good. Few people in the world could comprehend that reality and fewer still had survived it unscathed.

Which was probably why he felt so protective of her. It wasn’t that he didn’t think she was incapable of protecting herself, but.. he knew exactly how cruel the industry could be. The media, too. At twenty, she was still vulnerable in ways she didn’t even recognize yet, still young enough to believe talent and hard work would shield her from the uglier parts of success. Michael remembered being twenty himself. Bright eyed, eager and convinced that if he gave enough of himself, people would give something back. He wished someone with good intentions had been there to guide him through it all, someone who wanted nothing from him except to see him make it through in one piece.

Granted, their youth had looked nothing alike. Michael had never really been afforded the luxury of a childhood. By the time he was her age, he’d already spent years belonging to the public in one way or another. She meanwhile, had stories. Endless stories. Sleepovers and school dances and family vacations and embarrassing teenage crushes. Entire chapters of ordinary life that Michael found himself fascinated by.

That more than anything, surprised him. He wasn’t a naturally curious man when it came to other people in general. Most conversations with industry stars and such felt like a chore.. But he could sit and listen to her talk for hours, chin propped in his hand, completely engrossed as she recounted some insignificant memory from when she was twelve. To anyone else, the stories would have sounded so pointless and boring. But to Michael, they were so captivating. Hearing someone describe a childhood that had actually belonged to them felt almost miraculous. He never seemed to tire of it, always asking another question, always wanting another detail, as though he could piece together an entire world he had never gotten the chance to know himself.

He’d always be a dreamer, dreaming his life away.

The longer (Name) stared at the notebook in her lap, the more hopeless the page had become. What had started a few hours ago as a verse she was genuinely excited about had since become a shit show of crossed out lyrics, scribbled replacements, and arrows leading to ideas she wasn’t even sure she liked anymore. Entire sections had been rewritten only to end up exactly as they’d been before. Others had been abandoned halfway through, casualties of a train of thought she’d lost somewhere along the way.

The frustrating part was that the song wasn’t bad.

If it had been bad, she could’ve walked away from it. Started over. Scrapped the whole thing without a second thought. But, unfortunately there was potential in it. Every time she read the verse back, she could feel it. The song was close to becoming what she wanted it to be, close enough to keep her chasing it but not close enough to cooperate with what she feels on the inside. Every attempt to improve a line only seemed to draw her attention to another one that suddenly wasn’t working. A word would feel wrong. Then the rhythm. Then an entire section she’d liked five minutes earlier.

Eventually, she stopped making changes altogether and she just sat there rereading the same few lines, hoping that if she stared at them long enough, the answer would appear on its own. It never did.

Without thinking, her fingers drifted toward the rubber band looped around her wrist. The sharp sting against her skin followed a second later. It was a habit she’d picked up years ago and never quite managed to abandon, a small physical interruption to break the endless cycle of thoughts whenever she became trapped inside her own head. Usually she barely noticed herself doing it. Another minute passed. She stared at the page. Read the same line again. Hated it for an entirely new reason.

The rubber band snapped once more, harder this time.

Across the room, Michael’s attention slowly drifted away from the notes spread across the mixing console. They had spent enough afternoons together by now for him to recognize the various stages of her creative frustration. There was the concentration that came with the beginning of an idea. The excited rush that followed whenever she felt something falling into place. Then came this stage. The stage where progress slowed to a crawl and every sentence had her itchy and uncomfortable to be in her own skin. He watched her stare down at the notebook, reading the same section repeatedly and the rubber band snapped against her wrist again. Michael found himself smiling despite himself. Some things about artists appeared to be universal.

“Should we take a break?”

Her head lifted immediately, brows furrowed. “Why?” The response came far too quickly.

The moment the word left her mouth, embarrassment followed close behind. Because what she heard in his question wasn’t an invitation—it was recognition that she was struggling. She was suddenly hyper aware that he saw how she’d spent the better part of an hour trapped on the same verse and hadn’t written anything in quite some time. The realization that he maybe noticed everything bothering her made heat creep into her face almost immediately. Creative frustration was difficult enough in private but being perceived in it felt infinitely worse.

For a brief moment, Michael simply looked at her. Then understanding settled across his features. He knew exactly where her mind had gone. Knew she thought he’d been commenting on the fact that she’d been losing patience with herself for the last forty five minutes.

His expression softened like she was being silly. “For lunch,” He clarified.

The relief came so quickly. “Oh.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Michael’s mouth. “Unless your plan was to be like Louie and eat your notebook..”

A small laugh escaped her before she could stop it and the tension that had wound itself so tightly around her shoulders throughout the afternoon loosened ever so slightly. Somehow he’d managed to offer her a way out without drawing attention to the song or pointed out her frustration. Michael didn’t like offering advice when she didn’t ask for it because he never cared for it himself. Instead, he’d simply given her an excuse to step away from the problem for a little while.

It was one of the things she appreciated most about him, though she rarely said so aloud. Michael understood creative obsession because he lived with it himself. He knew the difference between helping and making someone feel watched. Knew that sometimes.. the kindest thing you could do for another artist was pretend not to notice the battle they were fighting with their own work. As he gathered a few papers from the console and prepared to leave the studio, (Name) found herself looking down at the notebook once more. The lyrics still weren’t right and they probably wouldn’t be right when she returned. And yet they felt less daunting than they had a few moments earlier.

Sometimes all it took was being reminded there was a world beyond the page.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ ㅤㅤApril, 1987.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ American Music Awards - Manhattan, New York City.

“Oh my god, you were amazing!”

“Did you see the crowd out there? That pop was insane!”

“You did the damn thing, kiddo. Congratulations.”

The aftermath of her performance felt louder than the actual performance itself. The air backstage was bustling with movement, people calling her name from different directions and hands reaching out to touch her shoulders, squeeze her arms, telling her she had done it—she had really done it. Someone pressed a bouquet into her hands and more people were already talking about reviews they had overheard in the hallway. There were congratulations layered over congratulations until none of them sounded real anymore, just overlapping noise dressed up as celebration. (Name) stood in the middle of it all with the bouquet held tightly against her chest, nodding at the right moments, smiling when it was expected, saying thank you in a voice that felt detached from her own body.

She’s disassociating.

All she could think about was the note.

The one she had nearly missed.

It’s ridiculous, really. It wasn’t noticeable for anyone to catch or enough to interrupt the direction of the set, but she knew it happened. It wasn’t even her fault, it was due to technical slip making her slightly off beat before the problem fixed itself. She had handled it so well that no one even suspected anything, only a note alteration but that was very common during live performances. But she wanted perfection.

(Name) could feel it still sitting wrong in her throat, the memory of it stood out like a thorn more than anything else from the entire night. It replayed behind everything people were saying to her, the praise going in one ear and out the other. She nodded again on cue adjusting her grip on the flowers and tried to keep her face fixed into something that resembled gratitude instead of frustration.

She only noticed Michael when he appeared at the edge of the crowd by the doorway. Unlike everyone else, he didn’t immediately make his way over. He lingered near the back instead, allowing managers, producers, executives, and well wishers to reach her first. It was a habit she’d observed countless times before. Michael understood better than most how quickly a room could change around his presence. One appearance was often enough to redirect an entire conversation. Two steps into a crowd and suddenly every eye belonged to him whether he wanted them or not. Fame had taught him many things over the years. One of them was when to take up space. Another was when to surrender it.

Tonight wasn’t about him, nor did he want it to be. So he remained where he was but not out of indifference, quite the opposite. It was her night. Her performance. Her achievement. The last thing he wanted was for the attention she had earned to quietly shift elsewhere. Michael had spent enough of his life accidentally becoming the center of things to recognize when someone else deserved the spotlight. He knew what it had taken for her to get here. The years of work hidden beneath a handful of minutes onstage. The rehearsals nobody saw. The disappointments. The self doubt. The relentless pursuit of something just out of reach.

From a distance, he looked almost detached from the celebration, standing just beyond its center with his hands hidden in his pockets and sunglasses on while the crowd continued to orbit around her. Yet his attention never wandered very far. Every so often his gaze found her through the sea of people gathered around her, watching with the satisfaction of someone who had believed in her long before the rest of the room had caught up.

There was pride in his expression, yeah. But it wasn’t quite the same pride everyone else seemed intent on expressing. Theirs was loud and straight to the point, entirely built upon the performance they had witnessed.

Michael’s was quieter and more attentive. And perhaps because he knew her so well by now, there was something else beneath it. He knew.

While everyone else saw success, he found himself watching for her reaction to it. The smile that never quite reached her eyes. Watching the way her grip tightened around the bouquet each time another person congratulated her. Watching her nod at conversations she didn’t seem entirely present for.

And unfortunately, he knew exactly what this was.

When her eyes finally met his shades, something in her shoulders tightened without permission. She could feel his stare.

Of course he would have noticed.

Of course he would know.

(Name) looked away first, because looking at him felt like she was acknowledging something she didn’t want to yet. A producer pulled her into another conversation, someone else asked about upcoming plans and she answered on autopilot, the words coming out in trained fragments while her attention kept slipping back toward the same place in the room where he stood.

Eventually, she found herself drifting toward one of the side hallways, retreating from the crowd. The noise softened the moment she crossed the threshold, the cheers and conversations dissolving into something distant and more manageable. For the first time all evening, nobody was speaking to her. Nobody was congratulating her or asking questions. The sudden absence of attention settled around her and she let out a long overdue exhale, leaning against the wall and adjusting the bouquet in her arms before realizing she’d been gripping the stems so tightly that a part of her palm had begun to bleed from a throne that pricked her. Slowly she loosened her hold, watching a few crushed petals spring back into place as she drew in a deeper breath than any she’d managed all night.

“Tinker.” His voice came from behind her.

She didn’t turn right away. “Hi, Michael..”

He stepped closer, not looking at the flowers but he looked at her face instead. “It went well,” He said. “Please, stop.”

“Stop what?” She replied too quickly. “It went okay.”

The silence that followed made it worse because he had seen right through her bullshit. She adjusted the bouquet again and her fingers had started picking at the ribbon

“I messed up.” She said suddenly, like stating it out loud would keep it from growing.

Michael blinked once slowly, as if processing whether she was joking or not. Then he shook his head, removing his shades. “Do you think anyone in there noticed except you? Honestly?”

“I noticed it, Michael..” She says. “I did.”

“Mm.” That sound Michael liked to do. It wasn’t dismissive but he wasn’t really agreeing either. Just acknowledging that her mind had already made a decision and was now refusing to let it go.

She stared down the hallway instead of at him. “I shouldn’t be fucking up on things.”

“Language..”

“I’m sorry. I’m frustrated.”

“You’re allowed to be human,” He said, and there was something faintly amused in it. “Y’know that right?”

“Says you.” Her mouth tightened anyway. “Michael, I rehearsed for weeks..” Her voice had changed. Slightly smaller but tightly bound in a tone that wasn’t aimed at him, even if it sounded like it might be. “I rushed the transition. I came in late on the second verse and I felt it. I felt it and I still did it anyway.”

Michael watched her for a long moment without interrupting. When he spoke again his tone had shifted, less performer observing another performer. “I used to do that,” he said. “All the time. I would finish a show and all I could think about was the one thing I didn’t do perfectly. Not the rest of it. Not what people were screaming about. Just the thing I knew I could’ve done better.”

She finally looked at him then and he wasn’t smiling now.

“I would go over it in my head so many times I’d forget the rest of the performance happened at all,” He continued. “And nobody ever told me what I’m about to tell you now, so I’ll say it because someone should have said it to me when I was your age.”

He paused, just long enough for her to feel it. “People don’t come to see you be flawless,” He said quietly. “They come because of what it feels like when you’re up there. There’s a difference. You’re the only one who turns it into a test.”

Something in her expression shifted, but she didn’t speak yet. Michael tilted his head slightly, studying her like he was trying to make sure the words actually landed where they needed.

“One little thing doesn’t undo the fact that you just held the entire world in your hands,” He added. “But I can already tell you’re not going to believe that tonight.”

A faint, reluctant exhale left her.

The bouquet drooped slightly in her hands as her grip loosened again. The silence returned, but it felt different now, less like pressure and more like space she didn’t know what to do with yet.

Michael didn't push further. He just stayed beside her, letting the noise of the celebration belong to another version of the night, one neither of them was currently living.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ May, 1987.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ The (Surname) Residence - Los Angeles, California.

The phone call had long since outlived whatever purpose it may have originally possessed. Not.. that either of them could remember what that purpose had been to begin with. Hours earlier, one of them had called the other for a reason that had likely seemed important at the time. A question about a song. A conversation about an upcoming appearance. Some minor detail neither could recall now. Somewhere along the way, the original subject had disappeared entirely, replaced by the sort of aimless discussion that only seemed possible after midnight, when the rest of the world had gone quiet (Name) sat on her bed painting her toe nails, a mess of different colors of polished, acetone and cotton balls spread out on her silky comforter. Outside her bedroom window, the city stretched into darkness with a pretty skyline and the hallway beyond her bedroom remained still.

Across Los Angeles, Michael was awake too. That part hardly surprised her anymore. Artists seemed to exist on entirely different schedules than everyone else.

The conversation drifted lazily between subjects. Music. His upcoming tour. Childhood. Movies. Family. Stories neither had planned on telling when the call began. There was no urgency to any of it, or destination they appeared determined to reach, just the comfort of two people who genuinely enjoyed speaking to one another. The thing was, neither had expected this. Not the friendship and certainly not the ease of it. When they had first met nearly a year ago, both had assumed the interaction would be brief. Another industry introduction. Another polite conversation destined to disappear among countless others. Instead, somehow, they kept finding reasons to talk. Then reasons to call. Then reasons to stay on the phone long after they should have said goodnight.

Michael understood loneliness in ways most people didn’t. And it wasn’t because he lacked company—quite the opposite. His entire life existed beneath constant observation. Crowds. Interviews. Audiences. Fans. Managers. Family. There were always people nearby. Yet very few of them knew him. Really knew him. And the older he became, the more difficult that distinction seemed to grow.

“I think people have a strange idea about what this is like.” His voice arrived unexpectedly through the receiver.

(Name) glanced up from her polish. “What?”

A brief pause followed. “Everything.” The answer sounded almost sheepish, as though he was aware of how vague it was. “This stuff.”

She smiled despite herself. “Very specific.”

Michael laughed softly. “You know what I mean, Dumbo.”

She did. At least enough to answer. “The music thing?”

“The fame thing.”

Something in his voice had changed slightly. The difference was subtle, but she had spent enough time around him to notice it. Most people spoke about fame as though it were a reward, a finish line, something achieved. Michael always sounded as though he were describing weather. Something that simply existed. Something unavoidable.

“I think people imagine it’s.. exciting all the time,” He said. “They think you’re constantly doing something. They think you’re happy because you’re successful.”

(Name) looked down at her toes. For some reason, she found herself listening more carefully. “Are you not happy?”

The question slipped out before she could stop it and silence followed. A thoughtful silence.

Then Michael laughed quietly. “I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you didn’t answer either.” That earned another laugh, slightly louder this time. For a moment she wondered whether he’d change the subject. Instead, his voice returned softer than before.

“I think sometimes people get confused.”

“About what?”

“Being loved.”

The words settled heavily between them—they sounded like something he’d spent a very long time thinking about.

“They think being loved by millions of people means you never feel alone. But most of those people don’t know you.” A brief pause followed. “They know who they think you are.”

Something tightened unexpectedly in her chest because she understood exactly what he meant. Not entirely on his scale, but enough. Enough to know what it felt like when strangers decided things about you. Enough to know what it felt like to become a version of yourself people preferred over the real thing.

The line remained silent for several moments. Neither seemed in any hurry to fill it.

Eventually Michael spoke again. “You know what I mean?”

His voice carried something unusual now, hope. The kind people rarely admitted to.

“Yeah,” She answered quietly. “I do.”

When Michael spoke again, his voice had softened even further. “That’s why I like talking to you, girl.”

The confession arrived casually, absentmindedly and (Name) forgot how to respond. Her eyes shot immediately toward the window looking at the city, toward anything except the warmth suddenly spreading through her chest.

“Why?” She asked quietly.

A brief pause followed long enough for her to wonder whether he'd answer at all. “Because you talk to me like I’m Michael.”

His voice carried the faintest trace of amusement. The faintest trace of gratitude. “Just Michael.”

Neither of them realized it then or understood that something had shifted. A shift into something infinitely more dangerous than romance.

Trust.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ ㅤㅤAugust, 1987.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Motown Records Summer Party - Los Angeles.

The thing that unsettled (Name) most was not that Michael was speaking to Diana Ross. It was that she seemed incapable of treating the sight with the level of indifference it deserved. Rationally, there was nothing remarkable about it. If anything, the opposite was true. So why.. why is she feeling like this? Michael and Diana occupied such a permanent fixture in one another’s lives that seeing them together should have registered as background noise. Expected. The sort of thing a person acknowledged before moving on, like fork found in kitchen. Yet for reasons she could not seem to control, her attention continued returning to them. Like.. often enough for her to notice and often enough for the realization to become uncomfortable.

The problem was that the feeling refused to cooperate with any explanation she attempted to give it. Jealousy implied desire, and desire implied a level of honesty with herself she had no intention of entertaining. Besides, jealousy suggested competition. A rival. An obstacle. Something to overcome. Diana Ross was none of those things. Diana belonged to an entirely different category of person. She represented history. Foundation. Permanence. The part of Michael’s life that existed before (Name) and would almost certainly continue existing long after her.

There was something deeply humbling about the realization. Entire chapters of him remained inaccessible to her. Entire versions of him and his life she would never know. The young boy Diana had met. The young man she had enough influence on to shape at least some way in his thinking whether it be his music preferences or.. his type in women. The memories they shared had nothing to do with her at all. It shouldn’t have mattered. Yet standing there, watching them laugh together across the room, she found herself confronted by an uncomfortable awareness of just how thoroughly Michael existed outside of her.

Perhaps that was the true source of her discomfort. Not the conversation itself, but what it revealed. Somewhere over the past year, Michael had ceased being a person she knew and quietly become a point of orientation. The distinction was subtle enough that she had failed to notice it occurring. Yet now, under the harsh spotlight of self awareness, evidence of it seemed to surface everywhere. He had become the person she saved stories for. The person whose opinion she sought before fully trusting her own. The person she instinctively imagined beside her during moments of success, disappointment, boredom, excitement. And not because she was in love with him. At least.. she didn’t think that was the reason. The truth felt simultaneously smaller and more alarming. Michael had simply become woven into the architecture of her daily life. So gradually, so naturally, that she had mistaken his presence for part of herself.

And that was what made the feeling ugly. If this was romance, it would have been easy. Romance was flattering. Romance transformed emotional dependency into something poetic! and socially acceptable!

This felt.. less noble than that. More selfish. More childlike.

It was deeply embarrassing about realizing how accustomed she had become to occupying a certain place in another person’s world. More embarrassing still was discovering the small sense of entitlement that accompanied it. Not entitlement to Michael himself, she wasn’t foolish enough to believe she possessed any claim over him. Rather, entitlement to access. To attention. To significance. The assumption that she would always occupy the same space she occupied yesterday. The assumption that their friendship existed as a fixed point rather than a living thing capable of shifting beyond her control.

The realization left her feeling strangely exposed. As though she had stumbled upon a private truth about herself she had never intended to examine. Because if Michael had become this important to her without her noticing, what else had changed without her permission? How many decisions had begun orbiting him? How many thoughts ended with his name? How much of her emotional equilibrium depended upon a friendship she had spent months insisting was perfectly normal? The questions arrived one after another, unwelcome and impossible to dismiss. By the time she finally set her drink aside and decided to leave, it had very little to do with Diana Ross. Diana merely happened to be standing in the place where the realization occurred.

The truth was that (Name) no longer wanted to remain in the room because she had become increasingly uncomfortable with the person she was discovering herself to be within it.

She offered a few quick goodbyes to people near the exit, accepted a handful of distracted farewells in return, and disappeared into the Los Angeles night feeling vaguely irritated with herself.

The feeling followed her home.

That was perhaps the most frustrating part.

Because by the time she arrived home, kicked off her shoes, and changed into something more comfortable, she had fully expected the discomfort to dissolve beneath the practical demands of ordinary life. Instead it lingered stubbornly at the edges of her thoughts, refusing to loosen its grip no matter how thoroughly she attempted to dismiss it. She washed her face. Brushed her teeth. Wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water she didn’t particularly want. The entire time, some small part of her remained trapped inside that ballroom, replaying a feeling she had already decided was ridiculous.

The thing was, embarrassment has a way of prolonging emotions long after they’re deserved.

Had she been genuinely angry, she could have justified it.

Had she been hurt, she could have examined it.

Instead she found herself confronted by something far more difficult to defend: self awareness.

Because the longer she sat with the evening, the less interested she became in Diana Ross and the more interested she became in herself. Specifically, in the version of herself that had stood across a crowded room behaving in ways she would have found deeply embarrassing had she witnessed them in someone else. The version of herself who had lingered. Waited. Watched. The version who had discovered, quite accidentally, that Michael’s attention mattered more to her than she had previously understood.

By the time she settled onto the edge of her bed, she had almost convinced herself she was overreacting. That the entire thing had been inflated beyond reason. That she’d imagined it.

Almost.

Then the phone rang, and (Name) stared at it for half a second before reaching for the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Hi, ladybug.”

Michael.

Immediately she smiled and the reaction was such an automatic response she nearly laughed at herself. Of course.

“Hi, apple.”

The conversation began the way it always did. Easily. Comfortably. They spoke about the event. About people they’d seen. Gossip. About nothing in particular. The familiarity of it settled around her almost immediately, smoothing over the sharpest pricklies of whatever had been bothering her. This was the version of their relationship she understood. This part was simple, it was safe. There was a reason she found herself reaching for the phone whenever something happened. A reason conversations with Michael never seemed to require effort in the way conversations with other people sometimes did. Being around him had become easy.

Then, after a brief pause, Michael spoke again. “You know..” Something in his tone caused her grip on the receiver to tighten slightly.

“Hm?”

“It’s not like you to leave without saying goodbye.”

The smile disappeared instantly and her pulse jumped. The thing was, she hadn’t considered the possibility that he would notice. The room had been crowded. The event had been busy. People had been coming and going all evening. In her mind, her departure had occupied the same category as every other insignificant thing she’d been trying to forget since arriving home.

Apparently not.

Apparently Michael had noticed.

“At least not saying goodbye to me,” He added gently. “..Is everything okay?”

Heat rushed into her face with alarming speed. Suddenly she became acutely aware of herself sitting alone in her bedroom, staring at the floor as though he might somehow see the expression she was making through the telephone line.

“Oh.” Brilliant. An excellent response. “I—”

She looked down at the blanket gathered around her legs, the embarrassment arrived all at once.

There was something uniquely humiliating about being known by someone observant enough to notice deviations in your behavior before you noticed them yourself. Most people would not have thought twice about an early exit. Most people would have assumed she was tired, distracted, busy. Michael, had noticed she hadn’t said goodbye.

Specifically to him.

“I’m sorry,” She said quickly. “I just.. wasn’t feeling well..”

The lie sounded flimsy even to her own ears but it wasn’t entirely false. She had felt unwell.. just not physically.

Silence settled briefly between them, the sort of silence that suggested Michael was considering the answer rather than accepting it.

Then: “Really?” One word.

Nothing else, yet somehow it managed to unravel every ounce of confidence she’d possessed in the explanation.

Because she couldn’t tell whether the question made her feel relieved or mortified. For the first time all evening, she found herself confronted by a realization every bit as unsettling as the one she’d fled from earlier.

Michael had become important enough to her that his attention could alter the course of an entire evening. And she had become familiar enough to him that he could hear dishonesty in a single sentence.

Neither realization felt particularly great.

ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤSeptember, 1987.

ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤD-1 Bad Tour - The (Surname) Residence, Los Angeles, California.

Michael wasn’t supposed to come. He wasn’t supposed to be there. She didn’t want to look at him or even say goodbye because she knew she’d cry! She had spent the entire day surviving on the fragile, pathetic agreement she made with herself that if she didn’t see it, it didn’t happen.

It would make it easier to cope, she thought.

But by the time she realized what was happening, the door was already open. It wasn’t knock she could prepare for.

It was him, standing there.

He was smiling. Shyly, the way he often did. It rested somewhere between hopeful and apologetic as his sunglasses hid his eyes, those oversized dark lenses he’d developed a habit of retreating behind, but somehow they only made him more unmistakably Michael. His curls fell carelessly across his forehead, disturbed by the breeze outside, and for one absurd, fleeting moment she found herself resenting how beautiful he looked standing there. It was unfair. Unfair that he could come here carrying something as painful as a goodbye and still somehow look so impossibly gentle, so effortlessly beautiful.

He had spent the drive rehearsing this visit in his head, wondering whether he should have listened to her when she’d insisted she didn’t want to say goodbye at all. In the end, he hadn’t been able to. The thought of boarding a plane the next morning without seeing her one last time had settled somewhere beneath his ribs and refused to leave. So he had come anyway, with only the softest version of himself to her doorstep, hoping that if he spoke sweet enough, smiled gently enough would grant him some level of mercy.

“I know you didn’t want to say goodbye,” He said, voice calm which only made it worse, “But I just couldn’t bring myself to not see you before I go.”

That was all it took.

Something in her face gave way the instant she heard his voice. It was imperceptible at first, the slightest tremor beneath the fake composure she spent the entire day constructing, but once the first crack appeared there was no gathering it back together. Her expression folded inward on itself with startling speed, her mouth pulling tight as if she could physically keep the emotion from escaping if she held it there long enough. She couldn’t. Her breathing hitched once, then again, each inhale shallower than the last until even that simple act seemed to betray her. She had been waiting for permission to stop pretending she was fine. He had unknowingly given it to her the moment he knocked on the door.

The sound that left her wasn’t graceful or even recognizable as a word. Just a small, fractured noise that seemed to tear itself free from somewhere deep inside her chest before she had the chance to swallow it back down. It embarrassed her almost immediately, but embarrassment had already become irrelevant. There are certain kinds of grief that strip dignity away before you have the opportunity to protect it.

“..Michael..!” His name left her in a trembling exhale. She hadn’t intended to say it like that. She hadn't intended to sound as though she’d been carrying those seven letters inside her all day, letting them grow heavier with every passing hour until speaking them became less of a choice than a release.

Then she moved.

The distance between them suddenly felt intolerable, something instinct refused to negotiate with any longer. She crossed it in two uneven steps, stumbling in her haste, and collided with him before either of them had time to think about what was happening. Her hands found the fabric of his plaid first, gripping it with desperate certainty, fingers twisting into the material as though she needed proof that he was solid, that he hadn’t already become another goodbye she was remembering instead of living.

The moment she felt his arms come around her, whatever fragile structure had been holding her together dissolved completely.

She collapsed into him.

Every ounce of resistance she’d spent days maintaining abandoned her all at once, her forehead finding the space beneath his chin, her weight settling against him with complete involuntary trust. Her shoulders shook violently against his chest, each breath catching so hard it bordered on painful, her fingers tightening almost helplessly against his back every time she tried and failed to steady herself.

It wasn’t only crying. It was relief—relief that she didn’t have to pretend for one more second. Relief that he had come despite her asking him not to. Relief that, for one impossibly brief moment before tomorrow morning arrived and an ocean separated them, she was exactly where she wanted to be all day.

With him.

Michael spoke softer, close to her hair, he said, “Hey now.. you’re gonna make me cry, silly girl.”

He had seen her cry before.

Artists cried. After bad performances. Long rehearsals. Brutal criticism. Creative exhaustion. She had cried in frustration over lyrics that refused to come, over mistakes she believed were unforgivable, over expectations she placed upon herself that no one else ever would. He knew those tears. He knew how to sit beside them, how to remind her that tomorrow would arrive and the music would still be there waiting. This wasn’t that.

This frightened him because whatever this was wasn’t coming from disappointment or failure or exhaustion.

It was coming from him, not something he had done to her—but something he represented as her mentor.

As she shook against him, the realization unfolded slowly. Somewhere over the last year, without either of them ever acknowledging it, he had become the place she returned to. The first person to hear a new melody. The one she called before bed because conversations with him never seemed to have endings. The familiar face waiting in the studio. Her mentor. He had mistaken it for routine. For a simple friendship. Because it had become routine for him too, don’t get him wrong.

But routines are dangerous things.

You don’t notice how necessary they’ve become until someone asks you to live without them.

His hand moved slowly across her back, trying to soothe something that suddenly felt much larger than either of them. She wasn’t simply crying because he was leaving. She was grieving the sudden absence of the person she’d learned to organize parts of herself around. The thought hollowed him. She never asked for that. He had never asked for it either. It had happened the way the most consequential things often do. Gradually.. one ordinary afternoon at a time.

And now he was leaving.

An ocean.

Sixteen months.

Different time zones. Concerts. Hotel rooms. Crowds so large they’d swallow him whole every night.

Michael had always imagined the tour would be difficult because he would miss home. He hadn’t considered that somewhere along the way he had become part of someone else’s.

A strange guilt settled over him.. because he couldn’t remember the moment he’d stopped making sure she would be all right without him. He had spent so long trying to protect her from the industry, from disappointment, from people who wanted too much of her, that he had never stopped to wonder whether she had begun depending on him in ways neither of them understood.

And if she had..

Then leaving no longer felt like boarding a plane.

It felt like walking away from something fragile he’d been trusted to keep safe.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ May, 1988.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ The Bad Tour - The World.

By the time Michael got to London, the tour didn’t really feel like traveling anymore. It just felt like doing the same thing in different buildings.

Wembley Stadium was huge, overwhelming in a way that never really stopped being overwhelming, even after soundcheck. Even after everything was set up perfectly. The lights, the sound, all of it technically correct. He moved through it on autopilot now. The same routine every day and every night. The same dressing rooms that blurred together no matter what country they were in. The same faces orbiting him with clipboards, headsets, schedules, questions. He was never physically alone, that had become impossible years ago. There was always someone opening a door for him before he reached it, someone asking what he needed before he’d decided whether he needed anything at all. And somehow that constant proximity had only made solitude he felt internally feel stranger. Conversation had become increasingly transactional, every interaction serving the machinery of the tour.

People spoke to Michael Jackson constantly. Very few spoke to Michael.

There was a show that night. Then more shows after that. Then another one after a short break that didn’t even feel like rest, just a pause before the next thing started again.

Everything started to blur together a bit.

Hotel. Stadium. Hotel. Repeat.

By the time he got back to the hotel, he could feel the tiredness sitting somewhere behind his eyes. Worn down. The kind that came after weeks of answering questions, making decisions, shaking hands, smiling for photographs, stepping onto stages where thousands of people wanted something from him all at once. He loved performing. He always would. But..

At some point in all of it, he reached for the telephone without really deciding to. The gesture felt so, so familiar, muscle memory from a life a year ago that had become increasingly difficult to return to. The receiver rested in his hand while he sat there for a moment, waiting for his thoughts to catch up with what his body had already done.

Then he stopped.

Because he realized there wasn’t really a correct time anymore. Either it was too late there or too early there, or she was probably doing something, or he was probably about to do something, or it just didn’t line up in any way that felt simple.

So he just didn’t call.

He put the phone back down and just kind of looked at it for a second like it was going to give him a better answer if he stared long enough. But it didn’t.

So Michael moved on with his days.

Because everything always kept moving anyway.

The thing about absence is that it rarely announces itself all at once. It reveals itself through instinct. Through the split second after something happens, before reason has time to intervene. He’d hear a melody and think, She’d like that. Someone would say something ridiculous and for one unconscious moment, he’d already be turning to tell her before remembering she was an ocean and a continent away. The feeling wasn’t that she had left his every day, she was still very much built into it. Every instinct still assumed she was only a phone call away.

Reality was simply taking longer and longer to catch up.

He went to more shows.

Hundreds of thousands people. Noise everywhere. Lights. Movement. Everything loud enough to fill his whole body. And somewhere in the middle of it he thought, kind of randomly, that he heard her laugh in his head. It felt like she was right there saying something to him during a conversation that didn’t actually happen.

It was so quick he almost missed it.

And then it was gone.

The weeks became months so gradually that neither of them could have pointed to the moment things changed. There wasn’t one. No falling out or misunderstanding. No conscious decision to stop calling. Life simply grew larger around them. The tour kept moving. London. Paris. Rome. Cologne. Every city arrived with another airport, another hotel room, another stadium large enough to swallow him whole before sending him somewhere else to do it all again. Days stopped existing as individual memories and became pieces of a routine so rehearsed he barely needed to think anymore.

Wake up. Rehearse. Interviews. Soundcheck. Perform. Sleep. Repeat. Sometimes he’d wake in the middle of the night and have to pull back the curtains just to remember what country he was in.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, her own life refused to slow down either. The album she’d spent months pouring herself into was finally becoming real. Recording sessions gave way to rehearsals. Rehearsals, wardrobe fittings, choreography meetings, photo shoots, interviews. Suddenly there were people everywhere, each responsible for a different need of her. Stylists discussing image. Executives discussing singles. Publicists deciding how the world would meet her before she’d fully figured it out herself.

Success had a strange way of convincing everyone they knew what came next. (Name) was simply trying to keep up.

The distance stopped feeling temporary when it became increasingly difficult to find a spot of the day that belonged only to them. He still thought about calling. She still thought about calling. But the thoughts always seemed to arrive at inconvenient hours. He’d reach for the telephone only to remember she was probably asleep. She’d hear something that reminded her of him, glance at the clock, and realize he was probably somewhere beneath stadium lights on the other side of the world. “Tomorrow” quietly became next week. Next week became another country. Months passed before either of them realized how long it had actually been.

And somehow, despite all of it, neither of them doubted the other was still there. That was almost the cruelest part. The closeness itself hadn’t disappeared in their hearts, it had only lost its place in the day. Every instinct remained like when she still found herself collecting little stories to tell him before remembering there was no guarantee she’d reach him that week and when he would pick up little trinkets that reminded him of her.

The pluse was still beating with no place to put it.

Then one afternoon in a random European city, she found him—not in person or through a phone call, if course.

But through a television.

Someone had left it playing in the dressing room while the crew reset equipment between rehearsals. Conversations drifted lazily through the room, a production assistant crossed in front of the screen carrying schedules while a few dancers watched the screen with excited smiles.

Michael wasn’t paying attention until he heard her name leave one of their mouths and his attention lifted almost involuntarily. The screen changed and there she was—he recognized her immediately, his heart skipping a beat as he crossed his arms over his chest.

It was her. Right there on the screen. And she looked so.. different since the last time he saw her. Granted, she was sobbing but in his memory she looked more girlish—childish and juvinile in a way. Always a pretty girl but.

Her eyes were the first thing that got him.

He’d always believed eyes were the only part of a person incapable of lying. Smiles could be mimicked and voices could soften. Hands learned where to rest. But eyes always surrendered something, whether their owner meant them to or not. They were the closest thing people had to a window into the soul, it’s why he enjoyed wearing sunglasses so much.

Hers had always been impossibly easy to read. Open in a way that almost nobody was anymore. Honest. Curious. Entirely without calculation. It had been one of the first things he’s noticed about her, and one of the reasons he’d trusted her long before he’d understood why.

But this..

This was different.

Goodness.. she was pretty—beautiful even.

Her eyes seemed to draw him in, leaving him strangely defenseless. He couldn’t have looked away if he’d wanted to. They were hypnotic now, a kind of beauty that didn’t demand attention so much as command it. Like standing too close to the ocean, knowing full well the tide was pulling at your ankles and realizing too late, that you weren’t interested in resisting.

Michael found himself staring longer than he meant to, then unexpectedly, something sharp twisted beneath the admiration.

Because he knew other people would see them too. Her eyes.

They’d look into those same eyes and find exactly what he had always found there: sincerity so complete it bordered on vulnerable, a warmth that invited trust before a single word was spoken. The thought settled uncomfortably in his chest. He had spent nearly two years selfishly treasuring that openness, foolishly imagining it belonged to the private spaces they shared. Seeing it framed beneath studio lights made him realize it had never belonged to him.

Anyone willing to look closely would have access to the same unguarded soul he’d been lucky enough to know. The realization left him with the peculiar ache of jealousy, irrational as it was. The rest of the world was finally being allowed to see what he’d been quietly protecting in his heart all along.

Then her smile came in and that was worse.

When she smiled, her face softened. Her mouth curved easily, warm and unguarded. It caught him instantly, sitting heavy in his throat. A stupid and immediate response. He didn’t even realize he was smiling until it was already happening.

And the way she moved—

It was just.

The way she shifted her weight, the way her hips carried the rhythm. The camera lingers on a small strip of bare skin peeking above her low slung jeans. The lighting is soft with golden halos from stage lights that catch on her skin just right, a thin silver chain glints around her hipbone as she moves

Close up shots follow every sway and tilt—the way fabric stretches tight over curves when she pivots sharply, then how a breathy laugh parts her lips mid dance before she rolls back into rhythm. Every frame shows movement: one second showing only fingertips brushing that exposed waistline as choreography demands; next frame zooming out to capture full body.

Michael couldn’t stop watching, and beneath the admiration sat something quieter. The realization that this hadn’t happened overnight. This version of her had been forming little by little through weeks, through choices and experiences and conversations he hadn’t been there to witness. Somewhere between hotel rooms and sold out stadiums, she’d continued growing without him.

Someone behind him smiled toward the television.

“She’s got a hit on her hands.”

Another voice agreed.

The room moved on but Michael didn’t. He watched until the video ended, until another artist replaced her on the screen. Only then did he quietly leave the area, thinking about her.

Hours later back in his hotel, he reached for the telephone before he’d fully realized he’d made the decision. His fingers rested around the receiver for a moment. Then he dialed her number. Once. Twice. Three times. The line rang.

“Hello?”

He closed his eyes. It was strange how familiar her voice still sounded after all this time. “..Hi, Tink.”

There was beat of silence, then he heard her smile before she spoke. “Michael?”

“Yes, it’s Michael..” He smiled himself a bit.

She laughed softly, almost disbelieving. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten my number.” She teased.

“I could never, my girl.” Another small silence settled between them, awkward only because it had been so long since they’d heard each other’s voices that they seemed to be readjusting to the reality of them.

It was surprisingly easy.

Within minutes, the months between them began collapsing under the weight of ordinary conversation. They spoke about nothing at first. The tour. Her recording schedule. London weather. Los Angeles heat. It felt strangely miraculous how quickly they found the old rhythm again, as though it had simply been waiting patiently for both of them to return.

Then Michael said, almost casually, “I saw your new video today.”

The other end of the line went unexpectedly quiet. “..You did?”

“Mhm.”

“What’d you think..?”

He smiled to himself. “I loved it a lot.”

When she spoke again, her voice had changed ever so slightly. Smaller and shyer. “I’m glad..”

“I mean it.” He could almost picture her looking down at the floor, suddenly unsure what to do with the compliment.

“You seem different,” He said carefully.

She laughed once through her nose. “Different?”

“Yeah,” He searched for the right word. “Confident, happier..”

She didn’t answer immediately, thinking about how to respond. It’s been hard without his guidance. “I’m trying to be.”

Something about that stayed with him. He leaned back against the headboard, looking absently out toward the London skyline beyond the window. Then, gently he spoke.

“Are they taking good care of you out there?”

The question hung between them. It wasn’t about the video. She knew that. “I think so,” She answered after a moment. “Everybody’s been nice.”

Michael nodded even though she couldn’t see him. “Good.”

He realized that the faint ache he couldn’t quite place wasn’t the video that had made him call after all. It was wanting to hear, beneath all the music and interviews and heavily managed appearances, that she was still there.

Just as herself, as his Tinkerbell.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ January 27, 1989.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Final Night, The Bad Tour - Los Angeles, California.

(Name)’s body gets ahead of her thoughts and at this point, refuses to wait for permission as she moves through people. She manages to cast a few polite but rushed smiles when she hears someone recognize her.

“Is that (Name)..?”

“Oh my god, I love her..”

Backstage is alive with the chao that usually comes after shows. People moving too fast, voices stacking over each other, the smell of sweat and heat and stage lights still clinging to everything. The energy manages to give her a second hand high as she’s walking through it. She doesn’t even fully register where she’s going, just that she’s checking faces as she passes them because she already knows the one she actually wants to see. But it feels like she’s already passed a thousand people, and she hasn’t found him yet. He couldn’t have left yet, she knows that much.

But then she sees him. And everything stops, she feels like she might just collapse because she feels weak in the knees.

He’s not even doing anything special, he’s just standing there in the middle of it all, still half caught in the post performance state where everything feels like an in between, where it feels like you’re coming down from a high. But it’s a high that only entertainers could get off on. His hair is damp with sweat, curls falling forward in soft and uneven pieces that stick slightly to his forehead and temples. A few strands are clinging near his cheekbone, darker from moisture and framing his face in a way that makes him look more masculine in nature. He takes a little sip of his orange juice, and she nearly giggles at him.

His skin still has that warm sheen from the lights, luminous under backstage fluorescents. There’s a faint flush at his cheeks, exhaustion sure, but there’s something alive in it like his body is still running a little faster than normal. His lips are slightly parted as he breathes, still regulating himself, still coming down from the energy of being in front of thousands of people. He looks.. he looks good.

Michael looks up, and sees her.

It hits him in a very visible shift, that small pause where recognition lands before anything else can follow. His expression changes subtly but immediately as soon as he drinks her in, and the entire room narrows down to just her and suddenly nothing else really matters anymore.

She doesn’t think before she’s moving to him. It’s fast and uncontained, the instinct inside her has been building pressure for too long and finally stops caring about control. The space between them disappears in seconds as she runs straight into him.

It isn’t graceful, it’s full on impact. Her body forgets how to be gentle about it. Her hands land on him first, gripping whatever she can reach, his jacket, his shirt, it doesn’t even matter. She needs something. Her mind hasn’t actually caught up to the fact that he’s here, in front of her. She can’t be sure if this isn’t some cruel dream she’s going to wake up from.

Michael catches her instantly with no hesitation at all.

His arms are around her in the same breath she hits him, pulling her in because that’s the most natural response in the world right now, there was never going to be any other outcome once she got close enough. One hand settles at the back of her neck, fingers spreading there and steadying her that same way he used to. Before work and fame so selfishly separated them sixteen months ago.

Up close, he still smells like the stage. Sweat, heat, fabric and his perfume warmed from movement. His shirt is slightly damp where she’s pressed into it, curls brushing lightly against her temple when she leans in. It’s still soft despite being flattened in places by sweat and movement.

She can feel him breathing, slightly uneven. His heart his pounding against his chest and she isn’t sure if it’s because he’s just gotten done working or if it’s because of her.

(Name) presses closer without thinking, her body trying to confirm he won’t disappear if she holds on hard enough and his hand at her neck tightens just slightly, anchoring her there without question.

And she doesn’t let go, not even a little.

“I missed you so much..”

“I missed you too..”

The cameras are waiting before the doors even open, a loose cluster gathered near the waiting vans, flashes already firing the second movement appears backstage. Security steps out first, then members of the crew, then managers talking over one another as they funnel everyone toward the vehicles.

The lens keeps searching.

Then it finds them.

They’re walking side by side through the middle of the entourage with their pinkies linked. He stays half a step behind, letting her weave through the narrow path security has made. Their fingers never separate. Every few feet someone calls his name, another voice shouts hers, cameras clicking relentlessly from behind the barricades.

When they reach the waiting van, Michael opens the sliding door himself and instinctively steps aside.

“You first.”

She ducks inside with a small smile, still holding his hand until the last possible second before climbing into the back seat. Only then does he let go, following her inside. The cameras don’t stop, the tinted windows are dark enough to hide most of the interior but the open doorway has already given them more than enough.

Michael drops back into the seat with the exhaustion of someone who’s just finished the final show of a world tour. His hair has mostly escaped the ponytail he’d started the night with, damp curls clinging to the back of his neck and temples. A faint line of eyeliner has smudged beneath both eyes, evidence of two hours beneath stage lights that had long since melted away any attempt at perfection.

He exhales through a tired little smile and reaches up automatically, trying to gather his hair back with one hand while fumbling for the elastic still hanging loosely around his wrist.

It catches almost immediately.

He makes a soft face of mild annoyance, trying again. The elastic twists into a knot somewhere in the curls near the nape of his neck.

She watches him for all of three seconds before smiling to herself. “Come here.”

Without a word, he turns slightly in his seat until his back is angled toward her, surrendering the problem without protest. Her fingers disappear gently into his hair.

“Hold still.” A quiet laugh slips out of her as she carefully works the tangled elastic free, taking her time so she doesn’t pull. Every now and then he winces ever so slightly when a curl catches, and she immediately softens her touch.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

The camera keeps rolling through the open door, the others around unable to hear more than muffled fragments through the glass. By the time she slips the elastic free, a few loose curls have fallen into his face again.

“There.”

He reaches up, gathering his hair into another ponytail while she smooths one stubborn curl behind his ear absentmindedly .

He looks toward the open door toward the camera, his tired eyes meet the lens. A warm smile spreads across his face despite the exhaustion still written across it.

He lifts his fingers in the smallest wave. “Hiii.” It’s quiet and sweet, a greeting that feels less like an acknowledgment of fame and more like someone politely noticing another person in the room.

Beside him, she catches the expression before turning toward the windshield herself. So cute!

She can’t help smiling. After months on the road, after the final show and the noise and the exhaustion, he still somehow had enough gentleness left to greet strangers with the same sweetness he greeted everyone else.

A second later the door closes and driver eases the van into motion and the entourage follows behind.

The footage ends there.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ March, 1989.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ The Children’s Arts Benefit - Manhatten, New York City.

It’s a charity event. Cameras everywhere, flashes going off in little bursts that aren’t really capturing anything interesting, just people standing in groups chatting about anything from business to personal life.

(Name) sees him across the room and her heels click against the marble as she moves to him, steady in rhythm and cutting through the softer noise of the room. One hand gathers her dress slightly, keeping it lifted just enough to move properly through the crowd without it catching as she walks. She’s not really listening to anything people say to her as she passes, only offering small nods and polite smiles when needed.

And Michael sees her before she gets there.

He’s mid conversation, still doing the polite thing and engaging enough so that anyone watching would think he’s fully engaged. But admittedly, his attention shifts the second he spots her coming through the room. And he does something simple.

He reaches out. Not fully stopping what he’s doing nor turning his whole body away from the conversation, he simply extends a hand slightly in her direction because he’s already expected she’ll end up there. This is just how it goes. ESP or something?

(Name) takes it immediately when she reaches him, her hand slipping into his. She’s done it too many times for it to ever feel like a question at this point. His fingers close around hers and squeeze for a quick second in a silent acknowledgement before his hand naturally moves to the small of her back, still half listening to the person he was speaking to like nothing.

That’s the part that would look normal if you weren’t paying attention. But there’s a camera nearby, drifting through the room and catching moments without any real intent. It lands on them right as it happens.

At first, it just looks like a greeting. Two close friends acknowledging each other in a crowded event, nothing unusual.

But the footage holds them longer than that.

It catches her as she leans in to say something to him over the noise. Without thinking her free hand goes up, brushing lightly against his arm and to his collar as she talks, just a small little touch. But she doesn’t fully settle until she’s physically anchored for a moment, her hand resting on the nape of his neck.

He tilts his head down to hear her better, still half in the conversation he was already in, but not really leaving her side either. His hand at her back doesn’t move, and then his expression changes slightly. A small smile caught on camera because of something that sat exactly right in his ear. A joke maybe?

She sees it and laughs a little, quick and soft, still standing close instead of stepping away like most people would after interrupting a conversation. They had the tendency to get caught up in their own world when they were together.

The camera keeps rolling, lingering on them.

The hand still there at her back is rubbing now, and they don’t fully separate even while he turns his attention back to the conversation beside him. (Name) finally walks away

And from the outside, it looks a bit intimate.

All hugged up on each other like that looks too comfortable to be accidental and too natural to question.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ ㅤㅤOctober, 1989.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Media Speculating.

By this point in his career, Michael has stopped functioning in the public eye as a person who is simply “famous.” Fame is too small a word for what he has become. He exists instead as a cultural constant—something closer to an event than an individual. Even people who have never seen him in person still recognize his presence through media alone. He's become a shared reference point across the globe.

Her fame doesn’t build in the same explosive, global rupture that defines his. It arrived gradually at first, through structure—an album cycle, organized, styled, and deliberately positioned to place her at the center of pop culture without ambiguity. But what happens after her latest release is what changes her entirely.

The record doesn’t just perform well. It defines her. It gives the public a version of her that feels fully formed, not developing. There is no “breakthrough artist” period that lingers in perception for long. Instead, there is a quick shift in language: she is no longer introduced as emerging but established. No longer “upcoming,” but “leading.”

And then the media assigns her a title.

“Princess of pop” becomes shorthand because it simplifies what people think they are seeing. Her image is polished enough to feel the intention and she's likable. Sweet, funny, humble, which makes her highly legible to the public in a way that spreads quickly across magazines, television segments, and early entertainment coverage culture. The public does not just consume her music; it feeds off her presence as well.

So, no one can quite agree on when it started. Hell, Michael and (Name) are still dancing around it themselves.

The first few times, it’s easy to dismiss. They’re musicians. Award shows are small worlds dressed up as enormous ones, the same artists orbiting the same ceremonies, after parties, and backstage hallways until everyone’s paths blur together. A photograph of them talking after an awards show earns a few inches in the entertainment pages before disappearing beneath the next week’s headlines. Then it happens again. Another ceremony. Another charity gala. Another industry party where someone swears they arrived separately but somehow spend most of the evening within sight of one another. Cameras keep finding them laughing during commercial breaks, leaning close enough to hear each other over the music, slipping into conversations that seem to shut the rest of the room out without either of them realizing it.

At first, reporters treat it like harmless fun. Two of the biggest young stars in music spending time together is easy copy, and the headlines stay playful.

“Music’s golden pair?” “Just friends, or music’s newest power duo?” “The King and Princess of Pop share another memorable evening.”

Neither of them acknowledges any of it. There’s nothing to deny and nothing to confirm. Their publicists call them friends, stating that they’ve always shared a close relationship before (Name) even blew up. A mentor and mentee type of relationship. Their managers smile politely through interviews, explaining that successful artists naturally cross paths. For a little while, people accept that answer. The stories begin growing longer than the events they’re supposedly covering, with journalists comparing guest lists before premieres have even happened, noticing that if one of them is expected somewhere, the other usually isn’t far behind.

Then the photographs change.

They stop coming from red carpets and heavily staged press lines. Someone catches them leaving the same recording studio long after midnight, her laughing at something he’s said while he holds the door open behind her. A week later another photographer spots them slipping through a hotel’s side entrance after an industry dinner, heads lowered more out of habit than secrecy. Neither notices the cameras until a flash suddenly lights the sidewalk. The pictures run everywhere the next morning, and nothing scandalous happened. It was just based off the simple fact that they’re together. Comfortable. As though neither of them considers sharing the same space remarkable enough to.. hide. That’s the thing, it didn’t seem like they were attempting to hide anything which made the story more interesting as it progressed.

Then comes the photograph everyone remembers.

It appears on the cover of three magazines before the week is over. (Name) steps out of his private residence just after sunrise wearing a wool coat hastily thrown over last night’s clothes, her hair only half pinned back with sunglasses pushed onto the top of her head despite the overcast morning. She looks like a time was had, no shade. Five seconds later, Michael follows, fastening the cuff of his shirt as he steps through the doorway, pausing only long enough to hold the door open before letting it swing shut behind him. There isn’t any visible attempt to create distance between them.

The captions practically write themselves.

“Breakfast together?” “Early morning depature raises questions.” “Friends don't usually leave the same house at dawn.”

Again, neither of them responds.

Their silence becomes part of the story.

A few weeks later a video replaces the photo. This one is grainy, taken beneath streetlights outside a restaurant after what had supposedly been a private dinner with friends. They’re stepping off the curb when someone suddenly shouts their names. Without thinking, she reaches toward him and his hand finds hers. The photographer catches the exact second their fingers intertwine. It isn’t posed or even particularly romantic. It’s the instinct. The unconscious movement of two people who have long since stopped wondering whether reaching for each other is appropriate. By the time either of them realizes cameras are there, the moment has already happened.

The video spreads faster than any interview ever could.

Television hosts spend entire segments analyzing it frame by frame. Magazine covers become bolder.

“Hollywood’s worst-kept secret?” “More than friends?” “Inside music's most talked-about relationship.”

Soon, columnists begin noticing details no one had paid attention to before. The way she instinctively looks toward him before answering questions on shared red carpets. The way he visibly relaxes whenever she walks into a crowded room. The fact that they no longer bother introducing one another because everyone around them already assumes they’ll arrive together. It becomes impossible to mention one without acknowledging the other, their names slowly merging into a single narrative that neither of them ever agreed to create.

The speculation eventually takes on a life of its own. They become fixtures in gossip columns because they keep appearing in spaces between public obligations. Leaving bookstores. Walking through airports without entourages separating them. Slipping into restaurants through side entrances. Visiting recording studios on days neither has publicly scheduled sessions. Always ordinary places. Always ordinary moments. Ironically, it’s the ordinariness that convinces people. If it were publicity, surely, they’d choose grander stages. Instead, every photograph feels stolen from a real life the public wasn't meant to witness.

The press develops its own language around them.

“Close friends.” “Constant companions.” “Frequent collaborators.” “Reportedly inseparable.” “Spotted together once again.”

Every headline performs uncertainty while quietly arriving at the same conclusion that there’s an elephant in the room. Award shows become dinners. Dinners become weekends. Weekends become early mornings leaving the same address. The explanations grow thinner while the photographs grow more intimate, yet neither of them offers the world anything concrete. No announcement. No exclusive interview. No carefully crafted statement. But no denial, either.

They simply continue living their lives, refusing to reshape something deeply personal into a story the public can neatly consume. Eventually people stop asking whether they're together and begin asking why they just won’t admit it. The truth, of course, is that whatever exists between them has never belonged to the headlines. The magazines can stitch together timelines from grainy photographs and whispered sightings, but the life they’re trying to explain is unfolding somewhere the cameras never quite reach, in the ordinary hours between performances, where love quietly becomes routine long before the world ever manages to give it a name.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ ㅤㅤNovember, 1989.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ BET Soul Music Awards - Los Angeles, California.

The BET Soul Music Awards had become one of the biggest nights of the year, but this one felt different before it had even begun.

For weeks it had dominated every entertainment headline. Television hosts spent entire segments speculating about surprise performances, fashion magazines ran prediction pieces on who would wear what, and columnists had somehow managed to turn the seating chart into front page news. The biggest names in music had all arrived beneath the same roof, filling the theater with enough talent, influence, and ego to power an entire city. Diamonds flashed beneath the chandeliers. Satin caught the light every time someone crossed the aisle. Velvet tuxedos, shimmering gowns, polished shoes, expensive perfume, camera flashes. Everywhere she looked was another familiar face, another legend she’d grown up watching, another artist she’d once only dreamed of meeting.

And somehow..

She was the one standing at the center of all of it.

Hosting.

At twenty-three years old, the woman who was declared by the public as the Princess of Pop.

The title still caught her off guard whenever someone else said it aloud. She’d never introduced herself that way and she never would. Yet tonight it seemed impossible to escape. It was printed across rehearsal schedules and cue cards, spoken proudly by producers introducing her to executives she’d already met three times that afternoon, repeated by reporters camped outside on the carpet as though saying it enough would somehow make it feel less surreal.

“Our host for the evening...”

“One of music’s brightest stars...”

“The Princess of Pop herself...”

Every introduction was met with another smile from her, gracious and practiced, even as a small part of her still wanted to turn around to see if they were talking about someone else.

Backstage was its own world entirely.

The polished glamour visible to millions at home dissolved into organized chaos the second someone stepped behind the curtain. Production assistants darted through narrow hallways carrying clipboards thick with revised schedules. Stage managers spoke rapid fire into headsets, pointing toward lighting rigs and camera operators without ever slowing their pace. Stylists hurried after artists armed with garment steamers, lint rollers, powder brushes, safety pins, and enough hairspray to survive a hurricane. Someone sprinted past carrying an entire rack of wardrobe changes. Somewhere farther down the corridor, someone was arguing over a missing microphone.

She barely had time to stand still.

A stylist appeared to smooth the fabric over her hips before disappearing just as quickly. Another adjusted the clasp of a diamond bracelet she’d somehow managed to twist backwards. Someone gently tucked a loose curl back into place before another production assistant slid fresh cue cards into her hands, apologizing because one category had been reordered less than sixty seconds ago.

Everything moved with the frantic precision of people who’d done this a hundred times before.

She inhaled carefully, then exhaled. Ignored the way her pulse refused to settle and then someone counted her down. They were back from commercial break.

Five.

The conversations around her immediately faded beneath the growing roar of the audience on the other side of the curtain.

Four.

The house lights dimmed until only thin strips of blue glowed backstage.

Three.

She rolled her shoulders once, flexing her fingers around the cue cards as the opening music swelled through the auditorium.

Two.

The stage manager pointed toward the entrance.

One.

The curtain lifted and the sound hit her before the light did.

The applause, cheers and screams rolled across the theater like a wave breaking against stone, thousands of people rising to their feet almost instantly. It was loud enough that she felt it vibrate through the floor beneath her heels. Cameras swung toward her from every angle, red recording lights blinking on one after another as she stepped into the spotlight wearing the kind of smile that almost convinced even herself she wasn’t nervous.

Her heart hammered against her ribs anyway.

(Name) welcomed everyone with effortless warmth, delivering the opening monologue exactly as rehearsed, though somehow better than rehearsal ever managed. Every joke landed cleaner once there was a real audience in front of her. Laughter rolled through the theater in waves, interrupted by applause so often she had to pause and let people finish before continuing. She improvised once when a teleprompter skipped a line, earning an even bigger laugh than the scripted joke had been meant to receive.

By the second hour she’d stopped thinking about where the cameras were.

She moved across the stage without thinking about tripping, transitioning seamlessly between presenters, teasing performers with affectionate humor, exchanging quick conversations with artists seated near the front rows that had the audience laughing as though everyone inside the building were old friends. Even backstage, producers were beginning to relax. She could hear snippets of relieved conversations every time she stepped behind the curtain between segments.

“She’s killing it.”

“Best decision we made.”

“She's carrying the whole show.”

Every time the camera found her, she seemed brighter. More comfortable. More confident. The audience adored her, and she returned every ounce of that energy effortlessly, making one of the biggest nights in music somehow feel intimate despite the thousands of people packed into the theater. It was getting closer to towards the end of the show, she had one last award to present.

She glanced down at the next cue card and smile on her face shifted almost imperceptibly. Not smaller, just softer.

Best Male R&B/Pop Artist.

Her french tip adorned fingers tightened slightly around the card.

Michael.

She swallowed before she could think too much about it.

Artists presented awards to other artists all the time. There was nothing unusual about that. It happened every awards season.

But nothing involving the two of them had felt ordinary in months.

Entertainment magazines had practically built an industry around trying to define whatever existed between them. Every charity gala became another cover story. Every award show became another excuse to analyze who looked at whom first. Every blurry photograph of them leaving the same venue within minutes of each other somehow turned into three weeks of speculation.

“Friends?” “More than friends?” “Hollywood's biggest couple?”

The headlines changed but the question never did.

(Name) drew one slow, careful breath, lifting her eyes back toward the camera as though there weren’t thousands of people watching and millions more at home. Her smile returned with a sweet ease.

“..And the Soul Music Award goes to..”

She slipped one finger beneath the envelope’s seal; the paper gave way with a quiet tear and the card was unfolded.

The moment she read the name, a grin escaped before professionalism could catch it.

“Michael Jackson.”

The reaction was instantaneous.

The theater exploded.

Applause thundered through the auditorium so loudly it nearly drowned out the orchestra beginning his walk up music. People were already pushing themselves to their feet before the cameras even found him, cheers echoing from every balcony as the entire room seemed to brighten with anticipation. It wasn’t simply applause for another winner.

It was for him.

She turned toward the aisle, the applause still surging through the theater in thick waves that didn’t seem interested in fading anytime soon. The entire room was on its feet, a standing ovation that felt physical force pressing through the air. Cameras tracked the movement instantly, lenses shifting in perfect sync as Michael stood from his seat.

He rose slowly, even with stadiums and decades of history behind him, there was still a flicker of shyness in the way he adjusted his jacket, a subtle dip of his head that softened the image of him. The smile that formed on his face arrived gently and then stayed, warm and unguarded, only growing the second his eyes found hers.

He began walking toward the stage and the crowd only got louder for him, but his attention didn’t shift. Not even once. He moved with his gentle rhythm and then just before he reached the steps, he caught his bottom lip lightly between his teeth, a nervous little habit that always betrayed him. It’s by far the most attractive tick anyone has seen. When he looked up again, his gaze was straight on her as she stood there standing so pretty in her hair, makeup and dress holding his award.

She felt it immediately. That pull in her expression she didn’t have to think about. The smile came before she could stop it, softer than anything she had given the cameras all night, and suddenly she wasn’t hosting anymore, not in any way that mattered.

He climbed the steps and reached her, stopping close enough that the air between them felt charged and uncomfortably aware. The audience was still roaring, but it was fading into something distant. They looked at each other for a moment that stretched just a fraction too long to be stage timing. They’re both blushing, terribly.

She lifted the trophy between them, hands steady in the way she had trained them to be, even though nothing else about her felt steady at all.

“Congratulations.” She smiles shyly.

His gaze softened as it dropped briefly to the award, then returned to her face. “Thank you.”

Their fingers met as he took it, and for a second neither of them let go properly. An unintentional pause where contact lingered longer than necessary and neither of them had decided who was supposed to move first.

Then he did.

Not backward.

Not toward the microphone.

Toward her.

It was small at first, just the shift of his shoulders and the way the trophy lowered slightly between them, but his eyes stayed locked on hers the entire time and whatever instinct normally governed distance simply didn’t show up to do its job.

She realized what was happening a second too late to stop it from mattering.

He leaned in.

Slow enough that it couldn’t be mistaken for anything else, intentional enough that her mind had time to register every stage of it before it actually happened. The space between them narrowed until there was almost none left, and her breath caught somewhere useless in her chest.

For a brief, suspended moment, he stopped just short, so close that she could feel the warmth of him and that the entire stadium might as well have disappeared if it weren’t for the fact that it absolutely hadn’t.

Then he closed the distance.

The kiss was gentle, certain, and startlingly soft as their lips moved against one another in a slow, intimate movement. She froze for the smallest fraction of a second out of sheer disbelief, and then instinct caught up, and she leaned into it before thought could interfere any further. Her hand covered their mouths from the camera as he smiled into the kiss.

Everything outside them dropped away completely. The audience, the lights, the cameras, all of it vanished into something irrelevant and far away. There was only the feeling of it, brief and unreal in the way moments like that tend to be when they shouldn’t be happening at all, especially not here, especially not like this.

Then it ended almost as soon as it fully registered, the two of them separating with the same stunned awareness, like neither of them had fully decided how they had gotten there or how they were supposed to return to reality afterward.

The theater was nuts.

The sound hit like a physical shockwave, screams and applause colliding into something deafening enough to shake the space itself. People were on their feet instantly, cameras flashing so rapidly the stage flickered in bursts of white light. It felt less like applause and more like chaos given permission to exist.

(Name) stared at him for a second too long, completely unfiltered, eyes wide with disbelief as the reality of what he had just done caught up with her all at once.

Then she laughed to herself, just pure shock breaking through and she lifted her hand and smacked his chest lightly, more out of instinct than anger.

“You—“ The word fell apart into laughter before she could finish it. Her cheeks were already burning, and she looked genuinely overwhelmed the way people only do when something insane happens in front of them and they’re expected to continue functioning anyway.

He immediately dropped his gaze for half a second, laughing under his breath, clearly just as thrown by his own decision as everyone else in the building.

The applause refused to settle. Even as he raised the award slightly and leaned toward the mic, “Thank you,” he said quietly, sheepish and grinning at the same time.

She shook her head, smiling too hard to pretend she was anything close to composed, and stepped back just enough to give him space. He took a breath, still grinning himself, then glanced down at the trophy for a second before speaking.

“I.. I wanna thank the creator above,” He began softly, and the room finally started to quiet in response, the energy shifting from chaos into attention. “My family.. everyone who believed in me, who continues to believe in me and everyone who’s supported me over the years.”

He paused, thumb brushing lightly over the edge of the award as if grounding himself, then looked up again. Straight at her.

(Name) was still standing just off to the side of the stage, trying very hard to look like she wasn’t still recovering from what had just happened. His smile returned, smaller now, more personal.

“And.. I’d like to thank the lady in my life.” A ripple of laughter moved through the audience instantly, followed by cheers that started building again like they were just waiting for permission.

“You all might know her.” That earned louder reactions, people already laughing as if the answer wasn’t obvious enough. “She’s been doing a wonderful job hosting tonight. Don’t you think?” His question is followed by cheers of agreement. Oh, she was going to kill him. “You know, when she told me that BET had contacted her for the role, she said she was honored to even be considered but she was afraid that she was going to trip and fall.” He said, earning more laughs and endeared awes.

“She’s very special to me, and she takes good care of me.” He looks over at her and eyes never left hers, even as the noise swelled again around him. “And I can’t see myself without her.” He held the look for a beat longer than necessary, like he wasn’t speaking to the room anymore at all.

Then he softened into a final smile before raising the trophy to the lights and audience. “Thank you.”

The applause came crashing back harder than before, the kind that didn’t just fill space but swallowed it completely, while she stood there shaking her head like she still couldn’t decide whether to laugh or disappear.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ 1990.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California.

By 1990, they’d been boyfriend and girlfriend for a good bit of time. This year was a year of firsts for them, the start of a new and exciting relationship that that been growing from a seed that mad been planted nearly four years ago.

There wasn’t a formal conversation where they decided to spend every spare moment together. It just happened. She found herself leaving more clothes at Neverland because it became easier than packing another overnight bag. Her favorite skincare and hygiene products appeared in his master bathroom right beside his own. A drawer became her own walk-in closet. Her books started collecting on the bedside table, her records found their way onto shelves that hadn’t belonged to her a few months earlier, and somehow half the flowers in the gardens had been planted because she’d once mentioned liking them in passing. She still technically had her own place, but she spent so many nights at Neverland that the staff had stopped asking whether she’d be staying for dinner.

One evening, while they wandered through the house discussing furniture he absolutely didn’t need, Michael glanced at her almost absentmindedly.

“You know…” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “I think you should spend more time here.”

(Name) smiled without looking up from the lamp she’d been pretending to consider. “I practically live here already, silly.”

“I know.”

She laughed softly. “So what are you talking about?”

He looked at her then, wearing that shy and gentle smile that always seemed to appear whenever he was about to admit something. “I mean..” He shrugged one shoulder, suddenly fascinated by the hardwood floor. “..Move in.”

She blinked. “..What?”

He finally looked back up, the corners of his mouth lifting just enough to betray the fact that he’d been rehearsing those two words in his head for days. “Move in., with me. Your boyfriend.”

For a long moment, she simply stared at him. The thought had never occurred to her that he could ask so simply, as though sharing a home with her was the most obvious thing in the world.

A smile slowly found its way onto her face. “I think,” She murmured, taking the last few steps until she was standing directly in front of him, “I’d like that very much, boyfriend.”

Michael’s shoulders visibly relaxed, the quiet relief written all over his face before he leaned down to steal a quick kiss.

Things were good that year.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ January, 1991.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ ‘92 Grammys - Los Angeles, California.

“Michael, (Name). You’re both queued next.”

The event manager’s voice drifted in through the open limousine door, nearly drowned out by the wall of sound waiting outside. Camera flashes poured through the opening in uneven bursts, briefly illuminating the dark interior before fading again. Beyond the barricades, photographers were already calling their names, their voices overlapping into an indistinct chorus that rose and fell with each arriving guest.

She blinked.

The ring.

She’d been staring at it again.

Her hand rested in her lap, fingers lightly curled, the diamond catching every stray flash that reached inside the car. It scattered little pieces of light across the satin of her gown, dazzling one second and soft the next. She turned her wrist almost absentmindedly, watching it shimmer. It was beautiful, and expensive. She knows that much. Everything beyond that point dissolved into the background.

She still couldn’t quite believe it belonged there. On her finger.

She was someone’s fiancé? What in the world? She remembers being only twenty years old trying to break into this industry. Love was the last thing on her mind.

The proposal returned to her in fragments. Michael’s hands trembling so badly he nearly dropped the ring before he’d even asked. The way he’d stumbled over words he’d clearly spent days rehearsing until they both fell into nervous laughter. The tears she’d never managed to stop before she’d interrupted him with an answer he hadn’t even finished asking for. In retrospect, she probably should have suspected something was up when he brought out the entire Disney park for the day, even more so when her friends acted like it was so urgent to get their nails done the day before.

Sometimes she looked at the ring and remembered that night.

The soft click of the limousine door opening wider pulled her back.

Michael was already moving as he stepped out first, greeted immediately by another explosion of camera flashes and cheers from behind the barricades. For a moment, all she could see was his pretty silhouette against the sea of white light as he straightened his jacket beneath the photographers’ relentless attention.

Then he turned.

Without hesitation, he reached one hand back into the limousine.

Waiting.

She smiled to herself and her hand slipped into his.

The diamond caught the light the instant their fingers met, sparkling brilliantly beneath the flashes as he helped her toward the door with the same sweet care he’d always shown her when no one was looking. Only this time, everyone was looking.

She stepped carefully onto the pavement, her gown falling neatly into place as she straightened beside him. Their hands remained linked between them, the ring resting perfectly where the cameras couldn’t help but find it. Flash after flash reflected across the stone until it glittered almost as brightly as the lights pointed at them.

She looked around for a second then back up at him but he was already watching her. Not the photographers or the crowd.

Her.

That impossibly gentle smile spread across his face, softening everything about him. It was the same smile she’d seen across breakfast tables, in empty hotel hallways after concerts, during quiet evenings when the rest of the world had finally disappeared.

Without thinking, she smiled back and he leaned toward her just slightly, enough to silently ask for a kiss.

(Name) closed the remaining distance herself, brushing a quick, tender kiss against his lips. When they separated, he was still smiling, his forehead almost touching hers for the briefest second before he let out a quiet, breathy laugh that only she could hear beneath the chaos surrounding them.

His thumb brushed once across the back of her hand, and she gave his fingers the smallest squeeze in return before they turned toward the waiting carpet together.

The photographers erupted all over again, calling their names from every direction as flashes exploded like fireworks around them. Tomorrow’s headlines would talk about the kiss, the ring, the glamour, the fashion, every polished detail the cameras had managed to capture.

Neither of them seemed particularly concerned with any of it.

They simply smiled at one another one last time before facing forward, their joined hands swinging naturally between them as they took their first steps onto the red carpet.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤMay, 1991.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ A private estate - Temecula Valley, California.⠀ ⠀ ⠀

It was strange how quickly a wedding day disappeared.

They had spent months planning it, changing little details, choosing flowers, tasting cakes, arguing over songs, finalizing seating charts. Then the day arrived, and suddenly.. it was evening. A bittersweet feeling, really.

The ceremony had passed in a blur of music, sunlight, trembling hands, and promises neither of them had struggled to make. (Name) remembered seeing him at the end of the aisle, looking happier than she’d ever seen him—crying when he saw her. In that moment she remembered thinking, “you are the love of my life.” Everything after that had unfolded was exactly as it was meant to. A perfect day.

Now they were husband and wife. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

The ceremony had been held on the grounds of a sprawling private estate tucked far enough away from the nearest road that the world might as well not have existed beyond its gates. White roses lined the aisle beneath towering oak trees, their branches stretching overhead as though they had grown there specifically to shelter the occasion. Hundreds of candles waited to be lit for the evening reception, and every path through the gardens had been woven with flowers that looked as though they’d bloomed there naturally.

It had been a large wedding by any measure. Family, lifelong friends, musicians, actors, producers, dancers, people who had watched them grow from children into artists, and others who had become part of the life they’d built together. Nearly every seat had been filled, yet somehow it had never felt crowded. The guest list had been expansive without becoming impersonal, each invitation sent to someone who mattered for reasons beyond status or headlines.

The press, for once, had been left outside.

Security had begun preparing weeks in advance, making sure every entrance to the estate remained private, every road carefully monitored, every helicopter route restricted as much as legally possible. The tabloids had guessed at locations, published fabricated schedules, and parked photographers miles away on the chance they might catch a glimpse of something through the trees.

They hadn’t.

The only cameras inside belonged to people Michael and she had chosen themselves. A handful of trusted professional photographers moved through the celebration, documenting the day without interrupting it, capturing laughter instead of spectacle and stolen glances instead of performances. They weren’t there to chase a headline. They were there to preserve memories. Every photograph would remain theirs before it belonged to anyone else.

And for the first time in years, they had been allowed something astonishingly rare. Privacy.

Not complete anonymity—that would never truly exist for either of them. But peace was achievable.

The vows had been spoken without the click of paparazzi shutters competing against every word. They had slipped rings onto one another’s fingers beneath birdsong instead of shouted questions from behind barricades. When the officiant had finally pronounced them husband and wife, the applause had come only from the people who loved them both, echoing warmly through the gardens before disappearing into the afternoon air.

It had been everything they’d hoped for.

Nothing extravagant for extravagance’s sake, despite how magnificent it all appeared. Every flower, every song, every place setting, every handwritten menu, every candle burning across the reception had been chosen because it meant something to one of them. The elegance wasn’t there to impress anyone. It simply reflected the life they had spent years building together, thoughtful in every detail and beautiful.

As daylight faded into evening, the celebration moved beneath a canopy of lights strung through the trees, casting a warm golden glow over the reception. Music drifted across the gardens while conversations blended into soft laughter, crystal glasses caught the candlelight with every toast, and somewhere beyond the estate walls the rest of the world continued searching for a wedding it would never witness.

Inside, hidden from every telephoto lens and gossip column, they were exactly where they wanted to be. Together and finally, husband and wife.

That same night of course they consummated their marriage.

Her hair is soft, slightly messy from the humidity of the suite as her veil fanned out beneath her like a halo against white silk pillowcases. They were tangled in missionary position: Michael braced above her on his forearms, moving with slow but deep thrusts that made every slide inside her feel endless. She held him close; one hand cradling the back of his neck while fingers threaded through sweat damp strands at his temples.

The wedding dress was long gone—discarded somewhere near their feet—but she still wore that delicate garter belt under sheer stockings, and it drove him wild knowing she’d kept something bridal on for this exact moment. Her heat clenched around him like a vise; the drag of his cock against slick walls made every withdrawal feel like torture before plunging back in even deeper than before. 

He slowed, stopped entirely before he pressed their foreheads together instead as they caught breathless air between kisses. The space where their bodies joined glistened—an obscene, beautiful mess of frothy white clinging to the base of his cock like liquid pearls. Precum mixed with her arousal; a thin ring that stretched and snapped every time he pulled back just slightly before surging forward again in those slow, deep rolls. And each time he pushed deeper, that slick little ring got thicker. More abundant. 

Then losing himself all over again when she arched up for another kiss mid thrust.

“Lovey—I wanna be a daddy..” A pause where he just stared into her eyes, pupils blown with pleasure as he whispered: “Can I give you my baby? Please?” A kiss. “Please, please, let me—lemme make you a mommy, give you a beautiful baby..” He’s babbling at this point, and she watches him above her with a dazed smile hidden behind a bitten bottom lip. She nods at him, lip popping back into place.

“Fill me up, Michael..” She whispered—soft but insistent, her fingers threading through his sweat damp hair as she coaxed him down against her chest. Her heartbeat pounded beneath his ear; a frantic drum of sound matching the stuttering rhythm of his hips now. Each thrust turned sharper, needier—chasing something neither could name anymore beyond more. She came rather suddenly, her body wasn’t cooperating with her plans of wanting to finish together but he just felt so good.

Then she felt it. A gush so sudden and deep inside that it punched a gasp from her throat—wonder.

“That’s it.. give me your baby,” She breathed out raggedly while cradling him closer like he might vanish if she let go even an inch. Her hands stroked over trembling muscles on back as aftershocks wracked through his body. 

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ August 1992.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California.

A lamp in the corner cast a warm honeyed glow across the living room, softening everything it seemed to touch. It was around 11 PM when she moved through the space, slowly and graciously as she picked up the mess from the day and straightened out things like pillows and throw blankets for the couch all barefoot on the polished floor. Her movement that had become second nature without her even noticing. She had long since had her baby, but her sense of urgency remained the same. There was a gentleness to everything she did now, motherhood had recalibrated her brain around something so small and precious that existed just a few feet away. She paused near the baby holder, lowering her gaze.

Aladdin was asleep inside it bundled neatly, his tiny face relaxed and completely unguarded the way babies only ever managed when they were fully gone into sleep. One hand had slipped free of the blanket and rested near his cheek. The sight made something in her expression soften even further. She reached down carefully, adjusting the edge of the blanket without disturbing him. Her fingers lingered for a second before she straightened again, exhaling quietly.

The estate still felt like Michael, even when he wasn’t there yet. That was the thing she hadn’t gotten used to and she doesn’t think she ever will, the way his absence didn’t feel empty so much as.. incomplete. He’s been coming home late these past few days, recording for a new album.

The front door clicked open and there was a pause, followed by the sound of him stepping inside and the faint shift of movement as he closed the door behind him. Then his voice, already softer than it probably needed to be, careful in the way it always was when he came home late and knew she’d notice.

“Tink? You were supposed to be in bed by now..” He set something down just out of sight before she finally looked at him.

“You’re late..” Her tone carried enough disappointment to make the point without raising her voice, not that she ever felt the need to even raise her voice at him.

Michael stepped further into the room, loosening his jacket as he looked at her. His expression shifted immediately, whatever exhaustion he had softened the second he saw her standing there in the cozy light, hair loose and her face calm but tired the usual way it was after she had a long day with the baby. His beautiful wife.

“I know, pretty mama. I’m sorry.” He crossed the space between them without hesitation and leaned in to press a gentle kiss against her cheek. “Forgive me.”

She tried to hold the expression for another second, the small pout still lingering like she wanted to stay mildly annoyed long enough for it to count but it didn’t last. Her shoulders relaxed, and she gave him a look that was half warning and half surrender before she leaned in and kissed him properly, soft and brief as her hand rested lightly against his chest.

When she pulled back, her gaze flicked past him for a second toward the baby holder, instinctively checking again.

Michael followed her eyes, then back to her, the smallest smile forming as if he already understood everything she wasn’t saying out loud.

He lowered his voice without thinking. “How’s he been?”

She lingered near Michael without moving away from him properly, the space between them had become something her body naturally refused to widen. Her fingers reached up first, adjusting his collar with an absent tenderness, smoothing the fabric where it sat slightly uneven against his neck. Her hand lingered there before sliding down over his chest in a slow, grounding motion.

“Good, but we missed you today..” Her voice came out soft, already slipping into that tired half sleepy tone that followed long days and late nights. There wasn’t accusation in it, just honesty that came from someone who had spent the day stretching herself between routines and small responsibilities and the demand of caring for a newborn.

Michael looked at her warm and apologetic as he leaned closer, the sound of her voice alone gave him a tingly feeling. His hand came up lightly, resting at her waist anchoring himself there. She had him wrapped around her finger, he hoped she knew.

“I missed you too—you both.”

She let out a small breath that almost turned into a sigh, her hand still resting against his chest for a moment before she finally let it fall, only to look up at him properly.

“Where were you today?” Tired curiosity.

For a brief second, something flickered across his expression. Not guilt exactly.. or anything that could be named easily for that matter. It was more like calculation, as if he was deciding how much of the day belonged in this conversation and how much should stay outside it. He shifted slightly, loosening his shoulders trying to make the answer sound simpler than it was.

“Just meetings. A few things came up—met a couple friends.”

It was vague enough that it didn’t invite more questions unless someone was looking for them. But she honestly wasn’t.

(Name) nodded a little, accepting it the way people accept small absences they assume will make sense later, then let her attention drift back to him instead of the explanation. Whatever part of her had briefly reached for curiosity dissolved quickly under the familiar pull of him being close again.

Michael exhaled quietly, tension easing from his posture as he stepped closer, his hand sliding up from her waist to her back. The conversation stopped being about answers and became softer and more physical. Something she desperately needed after the day she had.

“You look tired,” He murmured, brushing his thumb gently along her side as if checking for it himself.

“I am, baby..” She admitted quietly.

He smiled faintly at that, then he leaned in and kissed her forehead first, before letting his hand slide up to cradle the side of her face.

Her eyes softened almost immediately and whatever trace of curiosity she had, let go without resistance. She leaned into him slightly, her earlier concern dissolving into clinginess, folding back into his touch.

Behind them, the baby slept on, untouched by anything beyond his own small world of warmth and baby breath.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ September, 1992.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California.

Today had been a fun day for their little family! A cute day out that started with a shopping spree and ended with a nice dinner at their favorite restaurant. But all good things must come to an end. The bathroom was quiet the way it usually was after a certain time. One of the vanity lights had been left on because she always forgets to do something before she leaves the house. The light reflected softly against the marble countertop and beyond the cracked door, the rest of the house had gone almost completely silent.

She stood at the sink, humming a little melody as she searched through the medicine cabinet for a small bottle of ibuprofen. Her shoulders ached from carrying the baby for most of the afternoon, and she promised herself she would take something before bed.

Michael was only a few feet away, standing in front of the mirror with his sleeves rolled to his forearms, carefully unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt after the long day. She moved a few things aside before her fingers settled around an orange prescription bottle.

Then another.

She frowned slightly and tilted her head. The first one was nearly empty and she picked up the second without thinking, turning it over to read the label.

Her eyes lingered on it for a second. “..Baby?”

Michael looked up from the mirror. “Hm?”

She glanced between the two bottles in her hands. “I thought you just refilled this prescription...” Her voice was gentle, more puzzled than anything else.

She held up the second bottle a little. “..You have another?” The room seemed to pause, and it was so brief she almost convinced herself she’d imagined it.

Michael’s eyes settled on the bottles before returning to her, his expression remaining calm, though something behind it had tightened ever so slightly. “My doctor wanted me to have another one.”

His answer came easily enough. “You know, just in case.”

She looked back down at the label, her thumb brushing across the plastic cap. “Oh.”

A small silence settled between them. “..Have you had them look at it recently?” She looked up again, concern softening her features. “The burns, I mean. Because baby, you shouldn’t be dealing with this kind of pain..”

He gave the smallest shrug, eyes drifting toward the sink instead of meeting hers immediately. “Yes, of course. But they give me the same answers every time.” There wasn’t any bitterness in his voice, just genuine fatigue.

She nodded slowly and accepted the answer without another thought.

She’d seen the scars; it was the very first thing he showed her before they got really serious about one another. She knew how severe the accident had been. Of course, there were days it still hurt but she just hates the idea that he suffers through this. For God’s sake it happened in ’84, it’s currently ’92 now.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Ignore me.”

He looked back at her then, offering a faint smile that was warm enough to ease the concern from her face. "It's okay."

She smiled back and without another word, she placed the second prescription bottle exactly where she found it, closed the cabinet, and crossed the room toward him. Her hands found the front of his shirt first, smoothing the fabric before they settled lightly against his chest.

“You work too hard.”

A quiet laugh escaped him. “So I’ve been told.”

She leaned up and pressed a gentle kiss beneath his jaw, lingering there for just a moment before resting her forehead against his shoulder. “You should let yourself rest more.”

His arms slipped naturally around her waist. “I know..”

Neither of them spoke again for a while.

The bathroom returned to its comfortable silence, broken only by the faint hum of the lights overhead and the distant creak of the house settling around them.

The prescription bottles remained tucked away inside the cabinet, unnoticed now.

By morning, she wouldn't think about them again. To her, they were simply another reminder that the man she loved still carried pain from injuries the world had long since forgotten.

A year later, she would remember the conversation with an unsettling clarity and wonder if that had been the first time something quietly slipped beyond her reach. At the time, though, it was nothing more than an ordinary night between a husband and wife, ending the same way most of their nights did, wrapped in each other’s arms while the rest of the house slept.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ October, 1992.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California.

Steam lingered in the bathroom, fogging the edges of the mirror until only blurred reflections remained. The room smelled faintly of eucalyptus and shampoo, warm from the shower that had been running for the last several minutes. The baby monitor rested on the counter, its tiny green light glowing steadily beside the sink, carrying nothing but the gentle sound of Aladdin’s giggles and Janet’s coos the hall.

Michael sat on the small stool in front of the tub; a towel draped around his shoulders while she stood behind him with one hand resting lightly against the back of his neck. He was 5’9 but she always sworn he was taller than that, he just looked so awkward and lanky especially in this position,

His hair was damp beneath her fingers as she worked the shampoo through it slowly, taking her time the way she always did. The soft curls slipped easily between her hands until she reached the patch of scar tissue hidden beneath the dark strands. Without thinking, her touch became even lighter, fingertips barely grazing his scalp as she carefully massaged around the area instead of directly over it.

Michael drew the smallest breath through his nose, it wasn’t quite a wince, but she did notice.

Her hands stopped immediately. “..Too much?”

He shook his head. “No.”

She wasn’t convinced. “You always say no.”

A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “’Cause you're always worried.”

“I am worried.” Her voice was quiet, matter of fact.

“It still hurts.” He was silent for a moment before giving the slightest nod. “But I promise, it’s not terrible right now.”

She sighed before she resumed, somehow managing to be even gentler than before. Her fingertips moved with careful patience, and every so often she’d pause just to brush damp curls away from his forehead before continuing.

“I hate that it still bothers you.”

He looked down at his hands resting loosely in his lap. “I’ve gotten used to it, mama.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t mean you should have to, Mi.”

Neither of them spoke after that. The only sounds were the slow trickle of water from the faucet and the quiet rhythm of her hands moving through his hair.

When she finished, she wrapped the towel around his shoulders more securely before leaning down to press a kiss against the top of his head, deliberately avoiding the sensitive places.

“There.”

He smiled to himself. “Thank you, pretty.”

She squeezed his shoulder once before turning toward the sink to rinse her hands. Behind her, she heard the medicine cabinet open.

It barely registered at first. She reached for a hand towel, drying her fingers absentmindedly and she glances up just as Michael tipped two pills into his palm.

He swallowed them with a sip of water and she watched him for a second.

Then her brow knit together ever so slightly.

(Name) crossed the room without another thought, slipping her arms loosely around his waist from behind and he relaxed into the embrace as she rested her cheek against his shoulder, listening to the slow rhythm of his breathing.

But the furrow between her brow never left, lost in thought as her gaze fell into nothing in particular.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ November, 1992.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California.

The afternoon had settled into one of those slow, sleepy hours where the whole house seemed to breathe a little quieter. Sunlight drifted through the living room windows, warming the hardwood floors in long, golden rectangles that shifted almost imperceptibly as the day wore on. Outside, the gardens were still, save for the occasional movement of leaves stirred by a light breeze.

Aladdin had fallen asleep nearly twenty minutes earlier, the occasional sleepy crackle drifting through the baby monitor on the side table. She’d rocked him until his little fingers finally loosened around hers, laid him carefully in his crib, then stood there for another five minutes anyway, just watching his chest rise and fall because some part of her still couldn’t quite believe someone so small was entirely their responsibility.

His stroller rested near the front door where they’d left it after returning from the pediatrician, a tiny knit blanket folded neatly over the handle instead of where it belonged. A bottle sat forgotten on the coffee table beside a stack of music magazines she hadn’t opened in weeks.

Now, she stood at the window, absently twisting the ring on her finger.

Outside, the gardens swayed gently beneath the breeze. Somewhere farther down the property, she could just make out the stable through the trees, the horses moving lazily in the afternoon sun.

It should have been enough.

But lately, she’d been wondering why it didn’t always feel like enough.

Behind her, Michael sat curled into one end of the sofa with a book open in his lap. Every now and then he’d glance toward the hallway without thinking, listening for any sign the baby had woken before returning to the same paragraph he’d already read twice.

He looked comfortable.

Content.

More at home than she’d ever seen him.

“Lovey, I got a call this morning.” Her voice was so quiet that for a moment he wasn’t sure she’d meant to speak aloud.

He lifted his eyes. “From who?”

“The label.” She didn't turn around. “They wanted to know when I'd be ready to come back.” The words settled into the room without either of them rushing to fill the silence that followed.

Michael lowered the book into his lap. “Oh.”

She watched a pair of birds disappear over the trees. “They’re thinkign about starting another album.”

Another pause. “They asked if I’d started writing anything.” Her thumb absently traced the diamond of her ring. “I told them I hadn’t.”

It wasn't entirely true.

There were notebooks tucked away upstairs with pages she’d filled while Aladdin napped. Half-finished melodies hummed into cassette recorders in the middle of the night. Lyrics scribbled onto grocery lists because inspiration had inconvenient timing.

She just hadn’t told anyone. “I miss it, Mi.” The admission was nearly swallowed by the quiet room. “I miss the studio.”

She then let out a slow breath. “I miss recording until two in the morning because I can’t get something right.” A small laugh escaped her. “I even miss arguing with producers.”

“But.. I feel guilty for missing it.” Michael watched her for a long moment before setting the book he’d been reading aside.

“You don’t have to go back.”

She looked over her shoulder. “I know.”

“You could stay home.” His voice remained gentle. “You don’t have to rush.” He stood, crossing the room until he stopped in front of her. “You’ve got everything right here.” His hand rested lightly against her arm.

“You’ve got him.” Then, quieter. “You’ve got me.”

She smiled faintly. “I know.”

“You could take another year.”

“I could.”

“You could take five.”

A tiny laugh escaped her. “I don’t think my record label would like that.”

“I don’t care what your record label likes.” Michael says, too quickly.

She looked down, smiling for only a second before it faded again. “..I do.”

Silence settled between them.

“I love being his mom.” Her voice caught ever so slightly. “I love it more than I ever imagined I would.” She looked toward the nursery down the hall. “But I love making music too.” She shook her head.

“I don’t know how to be both.”

Michael stepped closer and both of his hands rose slowly to her face, cupping her cheeks with familiar tenderness until she had little choice but to stop staring at the floor.

She couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

“My girl..” His thumbs brushed gently beneath her cheekbones. “You don’t have to figure it out today.”

She let out a slow breath. “I’m scared.” She looked down at her hands. “It feels like I’m supposed to be completely happy just staying home.”

“You are happy.” He starts. “Are you not..?” His brows pinch together.

“I am.” She answered so quickly it almost hurt that he would even question that. “I am, Michael.”

She swallowed and her voice softened. “I love waking up with him. I love feeding him. I love putting him to bed. I love every tiny little thing.”

She smiled to herself, remembering. “When he falls asleep on my shoulder..” Her expression melted for just a moment. “..I don’t think there's anywhere else I’d rather be.”

She looked back up. “But I still miss music.” The confession lingered between them. “I don’t know what that says about me.”

“We need you.” Michael says. The words came so naturally that he didn’t even realize what he was admitting until they’d already left him.

Because he did.

He needed this.

He needed mornings that began with sleepy kisses in the kitchen while a baby laughed from a high chair. He needed evenings that ended with all three of them asleep under the same roof. He needed coming home and finding her barefoot in the living room, humming to herself while folding impossibly tiny clothes.

He had spent his entire life being pulled away by schedules, contracts, rehearsals, flights, interviews, people who always needed another piece of him.

This.. this was the first thing that had ever felt entirely his.

Not fame.

Not success.

Home.

And somewhere beneath all the love he carried for her lived a quieter, more frightened truth.

If she went back.. the world would start asking for her again. The studio. The tours. The interviews. The months apart.

Michael knew that world and he hated what it took from people.

A selfish part of him wanted to keep this exactly as it was. To keep her close. To keep the three of them together inside this peaceful little bubble for as long as he possibly could.

“If it were me..” He hesitated as his thumbs slowed against her cheeks. “I think I’d stay.” The moment the words left him, he saw something shift in her face.

She looked away again and he realized quickly that he’d answered the question he wanted answered. Not the one she’d actually asked.

He knows he’s being selfish, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care.

Michael stepped just a little closer, trying to catch her eyes again, his hands still cradling her face. “My girl..”

She finally looked back at him, and her eyes were glossy now. “I’m scared, Michael.” Her voice barely carried. “What if I go back.. and I miss all of this?” She glanced toward the nursery. “What if I blink and he’s suddenly five?”

A tear slipped free before she brushed it away herself. “But what if I don’t go back..” She laughed weakly through the tears. “..And one day I don’t recognize myself anymore?”

There wasn’t a real answer.

Michael searched her face for something he could fix.

Anything.

Instead, all he found was the woman he loved trying to hold two equally important parts of herself without dropping either. His hands slipped from her cheeks just enough to brush her hair back behind her ears.

His expression softened. “What can I do for you, baby?”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

Thinking.

Breathing.

When she opened them again, the tears hadn’t disappeared, but they weren’t falling anymore. Her gaze drifted toward the front door, where Aladdin’s stroller still waited from that morning.

“..Can we go for a walk?” She smiled faintly. “With the baby.”

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, lingering there until she felt some of the tension leave her shoulders.

“Yes,” He whispered. “Of course.”

A few minutes later, they stepped outside together. Michael pushed the stroller with one hand and his other found hers.

The conversation remained unfinished.

It would stay unfinished for months.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ August - December 1993.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California.

(Name) genuinely believes her husband died somewhere in 1993. Not in any literal sense, but his soul did. His essence. The spark and light in his eyes dimmed into something unrecognizable and broken by a cruel fucking world that never really let him breathe to begin with.

There’s no clean break to grieve or any one moment she can point to and say this is when I lost him. It’s a slow, nauseating realization that the version of him she fell in love within her early twenties stopped existing in a place she can still reach—a place where she could still kiss and hold. And the worst part is that he’s still here in the physical realm. Grieving a man who’s still alive made her feel.. sick in ways she couldn’t possibly explain in words. It feels like a hole is in her heart, a large gaping hole that only he could fill. He had been her other half in the way people don’t usually mean literally. But it started to feel like she was holding something inside her chest that had been torn into pieces and rearranged wrong. She could picture it so perfectly, her own bloody, beating heart held in her hands, not intact and wrong in shape, pieces pulled out of it and stolen. And somehow, she was still expected to keep living like this? It felt like there was no possible way, but she was living through this.

(Name) never left his side.

The days became measured by meetings instead of hours. Attorneys came and went through the front door carrying leather briefcases that never seemed any lighter when they left, heavier even. Conference tables disappeared beneath stacks of legal documents, newspaper clippings, witness statements, calendars marked over so many times the ink bled together. Telephones rang before breakfast and long after midnight. There were strategy sessions that lasted entire afternoons led by conversations spoken in careful, clinical language that managed to strip every ounce of humanity from the man they were talking about. Publicists discussed disgusting headlines. Security discussed routes before they left the house. Lawyers argued over words, dates, timelines, and statements until they all blurred into one endless conversation that never truly ended, only paused long enough to begin again the next morning. Somewhere in the middle of it all sat Michael, shoulders a little more slumped than the day before, listening as strangers dissected every corner of his life while she stayed beside him, her hand quietly finding his beneath the table.

She became his wife in every sense of the word she had promised on their wedding day. She never let go of his hand. She rubbed circles into the back of his neck during meetings that lasted hours longer than they should have. She smiled for him when he couldn’t find it in himself. She carried the pieces of him he no longer seemed strong enough to carry alone and never once let him feel ashamed for needing her to.

But no matter how tightly she held him together, she couldn’t stop watching him disappear. Never complaining once.

(Name) reminded him to eat when the day disappeared beneath paperwork. She coaxed him upstairs after nights spent sitting in the same chair until dawn, still wearing yesterday’s clothes because neither of them had realized another day had already begun. When sleep wouldn’t come, she stayed awake beside him. When he finally managed to drift off from pure exhaustion, she stayed awake anyway, afraid that if she looked away for too long, he’d wake up.

If the world insisted on putting him through it, then it would have to put her through it too.

And that had never felt like sacrifice.

It had only felt like marriage.

The allegations did something to him that she couldn’t fight with tenderness alone. They hollowed him out in places she hadn’t known could become empty. At first the changes were so small she convinced herself they belonged to stress. A missed laugh. A smile that disappeared a little too quickly. His attention drifting halfway through conversations before he gently asked her to repeat what she’d just said.

Then the spaces between those moments started growing.

His laughter became quieter until she realized one afternoon she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard it. The brightness that had always lived behind his eyes gave way to a guarded wall, every waking moment for him had become an exercise in bracing for impact. He moved through the house weakly, carrying himself with an invisible weight that seemed to follow him from room to room. Even when nothing was happening, he looked as though he was waiting for something terrible to happen next.

There were days he barely spoke unless someone spoke to him first.

Sometimes she would catch him standing in the middle of a room with no clear reason for being there. One hand resting against the kitchen counter. Eyes fixed on nothing. So still she almost wondered if he’d forgotten why he’d walked in at all. When she’d quietly ask him what he needed, he’d blink once or twice like he’d only just remembered she was there.

“I don’t know,” He’d answer. It broke her every time.

Sleep abandoned him first. Then his appetite, though, he is the first to admit he’s never been a great eater but these past couple years she successfully managed to put a little more weight on him. All of which is gone by now.

There were days when she wasn’t sure he remembered how to take care of himself. Because everything else had become so unbearably heavy that the ordinary things were the first to disappear. Eating. Sleeping. Bathing. Changing into clean clothes. Things like that became things she gently coaxed him toward.

She would find him hours later exactly where she’d left him, a cup of coffee gone cold beside him because he’d never made it upstairs from the night before. She’d kneel in front of him without a word, unbutton his jacket while he watched her with tired eyes, and tell him softly, “Come on, baby.” Most of the time, he’d go.

Then the parts of himself that had always reached instinctively toward life. Music no longer drifted absentmindedly from beneath closed doors. The piano downstairs sat untouched for days at a time. He stopped humming while he wandered through the house. Stopped dancing absentmindedly when a song came on the radio. The little pieces of joy that had always escaped him without thinking seemed to retreat somewhere so deep inside him that even he couldn’t find them anymore.

There were mornings she’d find him awake before dawn, sitting in complete darkness with the television on mute because he hadn’t actually been watching it. He would simply sit there, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor while the blue light flickered across his face. She’d kneel in front of him and take his hands into hers because they were always cold lately, rubbing slow circles over his knuckles until he finally looked at her.

“Did you sleep?” She’d whisper.

“I’m okay.” He answered, and it quickly became the sentence she hated most. Because he wasn’t.

He wasn’t okay.

Michael started apologized for everything.

For forgetting what she had just told him. For staring into space when she was talking. For missing dinner because another meeting had run late. For waking her when another phone rang at two in the morning. For snapping at someone and immediately hating himself for it. For crying. For needing medication. For being tired. For existing and feeling like he no longer resembled the man he thought she deserved.

It was as though guilt had rooted itself somewhere deep inside him and started growing in every direction. No matter what she said, no matter how many times she cupped his face and told him she wasn’t going anywhere, he looked at her with the conviction of someone who believed he had already become too much to love.

And that frightened her more than anything else.

Because for the first time since she’d known him, she couldn’t love him out of his pain.

She could only sit beside it, hold his hand through it, and pray that somewhere underneath all that hurt, the man she’d married was still waiting to find his way home.

Elizabeth found her in the sunroom just after sunset.

The house had become strangely still for the first time all day. Most of the staff had retreated to other parts of the estate, the phones had stopped ringing for the moment, and the endless stream of meetings had finally come to an end. Outside, the sky was washed in soft shades of pink and gold, rainwater still clinging to the hedges from an afternoon shower.

(Name) sat curled into the corner of the sofa with a blanket gathered loosely over her legs, though she wasn’t cold. A cup of tea rested untouched on the table beside her, the steam long since gone. She stared through the floor to ceiling windows toward the gardens without really seeing them, her thoughts somewhere much farther away.

Elizabeth lingered in the doorway for a moment before approaching. “There you are, gorgeous girl.”

(Name) turned her head, offering a tired smile that barely reached her eyes. “Hi.”

Elizabeth smiled back, soft and maternal, before lowering herself onto the sofa beside her. She didn’t sit across from her, she sat shoulder to shoulder, close enough that their sleeves brushed. Without saying anything, she reached over and took one of (Name)’s hands into both of hers, warming it between her palms.

“My goodness” Elizabeth murmured, studying her face. “Sweetheart, you look exhausted.”

(Name) let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “I am.”

Elizabeth rubbed slow circles across the back of her hand. “I know.”

For a little while they simply sat together. It was one of the few things (Name) appreciated about the older woman. She understood why Michael was so close to her, how could you not?

Eventually, Elizabeth inhaled softly. “I need to ask you something.”

(Name) looked over at her. The change in Elizabeth’s voice was subtle, but enough that her stomach tightened instinctively. “What is it?”

Elizabeth’s expression remained kind, though there was a seriousness behind it now that hadn’t been there before.

“I think…” she began carefully, choosing each word with obvious care, “,,I think it’s time we talked about having an intervention.”

The room seemed to lose all of its sound and (Name) blinked once, then again.

“No.” The answer came so quickly it surprised even her.

Elizabeth didn’t react, he simply continued holding her hand.

(Name) shook her head, her brows knitting together. “No. Absolutely not.”

She looked away toward the windows again. “He’s exhausted.” Her voice was quiet now, almost pleading. “Everything that’s happened these last few months..” She swallowed. “Anyone would be exhausted.”

“I know,” Elizabeth said gently.

“He’s under more pressure than anybody should ever have to carry--He isn’t..” (Name) searched for the words, shaking her head again. “He isn’t one of those people.”

Elizabeth tilted her head slightly. “What people, sweetheart?”

(Name)’s fingers tightened unconsciously around Elizabeth’s.

“The people you see on television.” Her eyes stayed fixed on the rain-speckled glass. “The ones whose lives completely fall apart.” She laughed once under her breath, though there wasn’t any humor in it. She knew she probably sounded ignorant, but at this point she didn't care. Her husband didn’t.. he didn’t belong in rehab like some addict. That wasn’t a thing, that wasn’t real. Come on, this was her Michael they’re talking about.

Elizabeth waited.

“He has prescriptions,” (Name) said quickly, as though she’d finally found the argument that mattered. “Doctors gave them to him. He’s in pain, Elizabeth.”

“I know.”

“He isn’t buying things off the street.”

“I know.”

“He’s just..” (Name)’s voice faltered. “He’s hurting.”

Elizabeth’s thumb continued its slow, absent circles over the back of her hand. “I know, my love. You don’t have to convince me.” Every answer was the same. Never argumentative or dismissive. Just heartbreakingly understanding.

(Name) felt tears beginning to sting behind her eyes.

“He just needs everything else to stop,” She whispered. “If these allegations had never happened.. if everyone would just leave him the fuck alone!” Her voice cracked. “He’d be okay!”

Elizabeth was quiet for several long seconds then she turned just enough to fully face her. “Sweetheart.”

(Name) looked up.

“Do you believe that?” The question settled between them.

(Name) opened her mouth but nothing came out. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to believe it with every part of herself. Instead, she looked back down at their joined hands.

Elizabeth spoke again, her voice scarcely above a whisper. “When was the last time he slept through the night?”

(Name)’s eyes closed. “..I don’t remember.”

“When was the last time he finished a meal without you reminding him to eat?”

Silence.

Elizabeth wasn’t interrogating her; she was grieving with her. “When was the last time you saw him smile because he felt happy..”

She paused. “..and not because he was trying to convince you he was?”

A tear quietly down (Name)’s cheek and Elizabeth reached up, brushing it away with the back of her fingers. “I’m not asking you to pass judgement on him.”

(Name)’s breathing had begun to shake. “I’m asking you to be honest with yourself.”

“I..” Her voice broke completely. “I don’t want him to think I’ve given up on him.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Elizabeth’s eyes glistened. “This isn’t giving up on him.”

(Name) finally looked at her. “It feels like it.”

“No.” Elizabeth gently squeezed both of her hands. “It feels like you’re admitting that loving him isn’t the same thing as being able to save him.”

Those words struck somewhere so deep that (Name) winced. For months she had convinced herself that if she stayed patient enough, gentle enough, attentive enough, eventually he’d find his way back to himself.

She had loved him harder every single day.. she had stayed awake through the nightmares.

Counted pills.

Run baths.

Held him while he cried.

Sat beside him through meetings.

Reminded him to eat.

Reminded him to sleep.

Reminded him that none of this changed who he was.

If love could have healed him.. he would have been healed months ago. The realization settled over her so quietly she almost didn’t notice herself beginning to cry.

Elizabeth wrapped an arm around her shoulders without another word and (Name) folded into her immediately, burying her face against Elizabeth’s shoulder as months of fear finally caught up with her.

“I just want my husband back,” She sobbed, hiccuping.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, holding her a little tighter.

“I know, sweetheart.” Her own voice trembled. “I want him back too.”

That conversation had been eight weeks ago.

Eight weeks since she’d watched him zip up a suitcase she wished had never needed packing.

Eight weeks since she’d stood in the driveway with one hand tucked into his coat, trying to memorize the feeling of him before he disappeared behind tinted windows and boarded a plane bound for Europe.

Eight weeks he’d been away from home.

Some days she counted them. Other days she tried very hard not to.

The house had settled into a strange quiet without him. His slippers still sat where he’d kicked them off weeks earlier because she couldn’t bring herself to move them. His favorite sweater remained folded over the arm of the sofa. His piano downstairs gathered a thin layer of dust no one dared wipe away. Every room still carried traces of him, little reminders that he belonged there, while the only place he actually was sat thousands of miles across an ocean she couldn’t simply cross whenever she missed him.

She kept herself busy because she had to.

There was still a little boy who needed breakfast every morning. Baths every evening. Stories before bed. Aladdin had begun asking for his daddy in the innocent way only toddlers could, toddling over to the front door some afternoons after hearing a car outside, convinced for one hopeful second that this time it would be him. He was a little over one years old now, she can’t believe how quickly time flies

Each time, she’d scoop him into her arms. “Daddy’s getting better, sweetheart.” The words never became easier to say but she hoped one day they’d become true.

Every afternoon, usually around the same time once Aladdin had gone down for his nap, she’d reach for the telephone. It became part of her routine as naturally as brushing her teeth. She knew the number by heart now.

Sometimes the phone rang long enough that she caught herself holding her breath but when the phone picked up it was never Michael.

The conversations had become painfully familiar.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jackson. He’s unavailable right now.”

Or..

“He’s resting.”

Another day..

“He’s with his doctors at the moment.”

Then..

“It’s not a good time.”

The reasons changed and none of them made much sense. If he was resting yesterday, surely, he’d be awake today. If he was with doctors this afternoon, why couldn’t he call her back that evening? Once, someone told her he’d stepped outside. She found herself staring at the receiver after the call ended, wondering how someone could step outside and somehow stay there for three days.

She never argued or demanded to be put through. Never raised her voice. She simply thanked whoever answered, hung up gently, and told herself she’d try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow always sounded more hopeful than today.

On the days they did manage to connect, she treasured every minute she was given, even when the conversations never lasted very long.

She’d ask if he was sleeping any better.

If he was eating.

If the doctors were kind to him.

If they were taking good care of him.

She’d tell him about Aladdin learning a new word, or how he’d nearly toppled over trying to chase one of the peacocks that wandered the grounds, smiling through tears Michael couldn’t see as she painted little pictures of home she hoped might make him feel less alone.

“I miss you,” She’d tell him softly. “So does your little boy.”

There would almost always be a pause that felt like listening for someone standing at the other end of a long tunnel.

Then his voice would come back, quieter than she remembered.

“I miss you too.”

Or…

“Give him a kiss for me.”

Sometimes that was all. Sometimes before she had the chance to tell him she loved him, another voice would gently explain that their time was up.

She’d thank them, set the receiver back into its cradle.

Then sit there for a little while longer anyway, her fingertips still resting against the telephone as though somehow it remained connected to him. She never once considered that the distance between them wasn’t only measured in miles. It never crossed her mind that the unanswered calls weren’t always because he was asleep, or in treatment, or meeting with doctors.

She believed every explanation they gave her because she wanted to.

Because the alternative was too painful to imagine.

She didn’t know that, somewhere in Europe, the sound of the telephone ringing had become something he sometimes asked not to hear at all.

The phone remained stubbornly silent for another four days.

By the fifth, (Name) had stopped pretending she wasn’t waiting for it.

She carried the cordless handset from room to room without realizing she was doing it, setting it beside her while she folded tiny pairs of Aladdin’s pajamas, balancing it on the bathroom counter while she washed her face, leaving it on the kitchen island while she picked absently at toast that had gone cold long before she’d taken a second bite. Every sound outside made her glance toward the front windows. Every time the phone rang, her heart launched itself into her throat before sinking again when another familiar voice greeted her instead.

By late afternoon, she felt wound so tightly she thought she might snap.

She stared at the telephone for nearly a full minute before finally dialing Elizabeth’s number.

It rang once.

“Hello?” Elizabeth’s warm, unmistakable voice filled the line. “Sweetheart?”

(Name) opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out except an uneven breath. She hadn’t even realized she’d started crying until she tasted salt on her lips. “..Hi.”

“Oh, honey,” Elizabeth said gently. “What’s happened?”

(Name) pressed trembling fingers against her forehead, closing her eyes as she slowly sank into one of the kitchen chairs. The room suddenly felt too bright. “I.. I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“I shouldn’t be calling you like this.”

Elizabeth’s voice softened even further. “You can call me however you need to.” That kindness almost made everything worse.

(Name) laughed weakly through another shaky breath, wiping beneath her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Elizabeth simply asked, “Tell me.”

(Name) looked toward the nursery down the hallway where she could hear the faint hiss of the baby monitor. “I can’t stop thinking about him. I keep telling myself he’s exactly where he needs to be.” She nodded to herself as though trying to make the words feel true. “I know they’re helping him. I know this is supposed to take time. I know all of that.”

Her breathing caught painfully in the middle of the sentence. “But…” She pressed a hand flat against the center of her chest. “I just…” Her voice dropped to almost nothing. “I have this terrible.. terrible feeling.”

Elizabeth remained quiet. “What kind of feeling, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know.” (Name) stood abruptly from the chair and began pacing across the kitchen, one arm wrapped tightly around her waist while the other held the phone against her ear. “That’s what’s scaring me.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what it is.”

Her breathing had become noticeably uneven now. “It feels like..” She searched helplessly for words. “Like something’s wrong.”

Elizabeth listened.

“I know he’s in treatment and I know this isn’t supposed to be easy. But every time I call..” (Name) stopped walking, staring blankly out the kitchen window. “..there’s another reason.”

Her voice trembled. “He’s resting.” She swallowed. “He’s with his doctors.” Another shaky breath. “They’ll let him know I called.”

She laughed once, though it sounded hollow. “It just.. it never makes any sense.”

Elizabeth’s brows furrow in confusion on the other end of the line. “So, you haven’t been able to speak with him much?”

(Name)’s shoulders slowly slumped. “No..”

“How often?”

“I don’t..” She frowned, trying to remember. “I don’t even know anymore.” She rubbed tiredly at one eye. “When I do get him..” She whispered, “It’s only for a few minutes.” Her throat tightened. “He sounds so far away.”

(Name) continued to speak. “I don’t even care if we don’t talk about anything important.” She laughed through another sob. “I’d listen to him tell me what he had for lunch if it meant hearing his voice for five more minutes.”

Elizabeth’s expression shifted and silence settled between them. Then absentmindedly, (Name) asked, “..When was the last time you talked to him?”

Elizabeth sounded genuinely puzzled by the question. “Honey, we’ve been talking fairly regularly.”

(Name) blinked. “What?”

“I’ve been checking in on him. I actually spoke to him today.. which is why I’m so confused to hear this..”

Everything inside (Name) seemed to stop. “…Today?”

“Yes.” Elizabeth nodded. “We had a lovely conversation.”

(Name) didn’t answer.

“It must’ve been..” Elizabeth thought aloud. “Nearly two hours, I suppose.”

Two hours.

The words echoed through her mind and her grip tightened around the receiver until her fingers ached.

Two hours.

She couldn’t remember the last time Michael had spoken to her for longer than ten minutes.

“…He…” Her lips barely moved. “He talked…” Her heartbeat became deafening. “…for two hours?”

Elizabeth’s heart drops a bit. “…(Name)? My love? Let me give him a call, okay? I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding...”

The kitchen blurred around her. The walls suddenly felt too close. Air refused to reach her lungs no matter how deeply she inhaled. Somewhere on the other end of the line, Elizabeth was still speaking, her voice growing increasingly concerned.

“Sweetheart?”

“(Name)?”

“Talk to me.. Please talk to me, I’m on my way.”

She couldn’t hear anything except the blood rushing through her ears. With trembling fingers, she lowered the receiver from her ear, and she stared at it for one long, disbelieving moment. Then she pressed the button.

The line went dead.

The silence that followed was suffocating as she remained standing in the middle of the kitchen, the disconnected phone hanging uselessly at her side while tears slipped silently down her face.

He had spent two hours talking to someone else.

And suddenly, for the first time since he’d left for Europe, a thought entered her mind that she had refused to entertain before.

Maybe the person he was avoiding…

…was her.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤEarly 1994.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤㅤ╰ㅤ Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California.

When Michael was released from treatment, (Name) truly believed the hardest part was finally over. She held onto that belief with both hands because she had to. It was the only thing that had carried her through the endless weeks he’d spent in Europe, through the unanswered phone calls, the sleepless nights, the ache of watching Aladdin toddle around without his dad. She told herself that rehabilitation didn’t end the day someone walked out of the building. He would need time. Space. Patience. She could give him all of those things. God knew she’d already given him everything else. She washed the sheets on their bed before he was due to return. She asked the kitchen staff to stock the pantry with all the little things he’d missed while he was away. She even caught herself smiling one afternoon while folding one of his sweaters, thinking how nice it would feel to complain about finding his socks scattered across the bedroom floor again. For the first time in months, hope felt safe enough to exist. Things would go back to normal.

He never came home.

At first, nothing seemed particularly unusual. A day passed, then another. There were explanations, always reasonable enough that she never questioned them. He was resting. The doctors wanted him to ease back into daily life slowly. Travel would take some time. She accepted every answer with the same quiet understanding she’d carried throughout the last year because that was what loving Michael had often required, faith in circumstances she couldn’t control. Every morning she still called without fail and every evening she called again if she hadn’t heard from him. Nothing changed, it was the same few excuses. She was told he’d stepped out. Other times he’d already gone to bed.

Occasionally she managed to hear his voice, but even those conversations seemed to disappear before they’d properly begun. He sounded distant, exhausted, like every word cost him something to speak to her. She asked the usual, if he was eating. If he was sleeping. If he needed anything from home. She told him she loved him. She told him Aladdin had started stringing little sentences together now, that he’d learned to point at photographs and proudly say, “Daddy.” Michael answered kindly enough, but there was always something absent underneath it all, as though part of him had already drifted somewhere she couldn’t follow. She was afraid of bringing up her concerns about his communication, especially since learning he was present with other people. How could she? He.. he was kind enough to take her call, and besides, she missed him too much to potentially mess up her few chances to talk to him. So, she ignored it. Her time with him couldn't even settle into the comfort of simply hearing him breathe before another voice would gently interrupt, telling him someone needed him, that another appointment was beginning, or something. The line would click dead, and she’d sit there holding the receiver against her ear for another minute anyway, staring into nothing.

Days quietly became weeks. One week became two, then three, until she realized she’d stopped marking the calendar altogether because looking at the dates only made the silence feel heavier. The house had become unbearably still without him. His slippers remained tucked beneath their side of the bed because she couldn’t bear to move them. His piano sat untouched, gathering the thinnest layer of dust no one dared wipe away because wiping it meant they were wiping him away. Even Neverland itself seemed to notice his absence. The laughter that usually drifted across the grounds had disappeared, replaced by long stretches of quiet broken only by the distant carousel or the soft chatter of staff trying not to speak too loudly. Aladdin babbled for him constantly. Every answer she gave grew a little weaker than the last. “Soon,” she’d whisper, kissing the top of his head while silently begging God not to make a liar out of her.

By the fifth week, something inside her had begun to change. Hope unraveled slowly, thread by thread, each unanswered call loosening another piece until she found herself lying awake at three in the morning, staring at the empty space beside her where Michael should have been, unable to silence the dreadful feeling settling deeper into her chest. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even resentment. It was fear. Quiet, instinctive fear. The kind that arrived without explanation and refused to leave. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted while he’d been away, that somehow, she’d lost him without realizing the exact moment it happened. She just didn’t know yet that the silence wasn’t accidental. It was a choice.

By the sixth week, she had stopped asking herself when he was coming home.

Instead, she found herself asking why he wasn’t.

The question followed her everywhere. It lingered while she stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes she hadn’t dirtied, while she folded laundry that still smelled faintly of his cologne, while she rocked Aladdin back to sleep in the middle of the night. She turned every conversation they’d had over and over inside her mind until she could practically recite them from memory, searching for something she’d missed. Had she said something wrong? Had she pushed too hard? Not enough? Had she spent so much time trying to keep him alive that she’d forgotten how to simply be his wife? Every answer only led to another question, each one crueler than the last.

Then, as though the silence itself hadn’t already hollowed her out, the news found her anyway. It wasn’t Michael who told her, not a phone call or even a conversation. It was another headline. Another photograph. Another piece of her life handed to the public before it had ever been offered to her.

Someone had seen him in Las Vegas.

Not alone.

With Lisa.

Eight days.

Eight days that stretched across newspapers and entertainment programs with the same relentless appetite that had consumed every other private moment of their lives. Restaurants. Casinos. Hotel entrances. Smiling. Talking. Walking side by side with their hands held as though the weight of the previous year had somehow become light enough to carry in someone else’s company.

(Name) stared at the photographs until they blurred together.

For eight weeks she’d been told, directly or indirectly, that he was too fragile. Too exhausted. Too unwell to hold a conversation with the woman who had stood beside him through allegations, investigations, lawyers, hospitals, intervention meetings, sleepless nights, withdrawal, and rehabilitation.

Ghosted her for six weeks after his release.

Yet somehow, he’d found eight days for another woman.

Something inside her finally gave way.

The first drink came almost absentmindedly. A glass of wine she poured while dinner sat untouched in front of her, thinking it might finally silence the noise in her head long enough to sleep. But of course, it didn’t.

The second night, she poured another.

By the end of the week, she had stopped bothering with glasses altogether and opted for drinking straight from the bottle. She discovered alcohol did one thing remarkably well. For a little while, it made her numb. It softened the endless loop of unanswered questions. It dulled the image of those photographs long enough that she could breathe without feeling like her chest was caving in. It hushed the instinct that still made her glance toward the front door every time she heard a car outside.

Morning always punished her for it. She’d wake with pounding headaches, swollen eyes, and the same emptiness waiting faithfully beside her the moment she opened them. Nothing had changed. Michael was still gone. The bed was still half empty. The phone still refused to ring.

So every evening, when the house finally grew quiet and Aladdin had fallen asleep upstairs, she’d wander into the kitchen almost without thinking. The bottle had become as much a part of her nightly routine as locking the doors or turning off the lights. She hated herself a little more each time she reached for it.

She drank because it was easier than feeling everything. She drank because the silence was louder sober. She drank because she couldn’t survive every night with the version of him she loved walking endlessly through her memories, while the man still alive somewhere in the world seemed to want nothing to do with her anymore.

It happened on an ordinary afternoon. The moment where she died. If her Michael left her in ’93, then she followed soon after in ’94.

There was no warning. No phone call asking if she was home. No request to meet. No conversation she could cling to afterward and tell herself at least they’d tried.

Just a knock at the front door.

She almost didn’t answer it herself. One of the house staff had been busy with Aladdin, so she crossed the foyer without thinking, smoothing the sleeves of her sweater as she reached for the handle.

The man standing outside wore an apologetic expression she didn’t understand until he asked her name. “Miss (Name)?”

“Yes?”

“I need you to sign for these.”

She accepted the large envelope automatically, thanked him then closed the door.

For several seconds, she simply stood there in the middle of the foyer, turning it over in her hands. Her name was typed neatly across the front in stark black letters. No handwriting. No familiarity. Nothing to suggest it had come from the man who had once traced that same name across birthday cards with hearts and little notes left beside her pillow.

Something deep inside her already knew. Her fingers trembled as she slid the papers free. The first page was enough. She didn’t make it past the title before the packet slipped from her hands, scattering crisp white pages across the polished floor like they weighed nothing at all.

Her knees nearly buckled. “No..”

The word escaped before she’d even realized she’d spoken. “No..”

She shook her head, staring at the papers, hoping they might rearrange themselves into something else if she looked long enough.

This couldn’t be how it happened. Not after everything that’s happened. Not after the allegations. After the meetings. The sleepless nights. Rehab. Not after standing beside him when the entire world had seemed determined to tear him apart.

Not like this.

Her breathing became shallow. Fast. And suddenly she stumbled backward before turning blindly toward the nearest bathroom, one hand clamped over her mouth as panic climbed so violently through her body it made her dizzy. She barely reached the sink.

The first wave came without warning.

A clammy gripped the porcelain so hard her knuckles burned as everything in her stomach came up in painful, emptying heaves. Tears blurred her vision until she couldn’t tell where the sink ended and the room began.

When there was nothing left, her body kept trying anyway.

Again. Again. Again.

She collapsed onto the cold tile floor, coughing so hard her chest hurt, one hand pressed against her sternum as though she could physically hold herself together.

Everything she’d known since twenty. Her mentor. Her protector. Her best friend. Her husband. Her fucking soul.

Her life was seemingly being severed over black and white.

Michael didn’t even give her the respect of a conversation or an explanation. Not even goodbye?

Just a case number.

She curled forward until her forehead rested against the edge of the bathtub, shaking so violently she could hardly catch her breath. Somewhere else in the house she could hear Aladdin laughing at something, blissfully unaware that only a few rooms away, their world had just been split cleanly down the middle.

(Name) had survived watching the world try to destroy her husband.

But she wasn’t sure she would survive discovering he had chosen to leave her himself.

The room was large and bright with lighting equipment. Rows and rows of chairs and the monotonous hum of camera equipment and its crew bustling about filled the room. Journalists murmured to each other quietly, discussing Michael Jackson’s newest project. 

You were seated off to the left side in a small press section. Eyes roaming the room as you tapped your pen on your notepad, legs crossed one over the other. The room smelled of coffee and faint cigarette smoke, and something sickly sweet like hairspray. 

Patiently, you waited for your turn to interview Michael. He was in the process of completing his previous one, and then you’d be next. Your eyes wandered over his physique. He was dressed down more than usual today. But in a way that only Michael Jackson could manage to make look polished. A cobalt blue overshirt hung open over a soft white V-neck t-shirt. The bright color made his complexion glow under the studio lights. His sleeves were rolled up just enough to expose the veins in his forearms. Loose black slacks draped cleanly over his long legs, cutting neatly above his signature loafers.

No matter how hard you tried to ignore it, you kept feeling the thrumming heat of his gaze fall on you. He was trying to focus on the interviewer in front of him. He really was. But he couldn’t help the way his wandering eyes kept gravitating in your direction.

“So, Michael,” The interviewer started, leaning in close as if he was about to share a scandalous secret.” “A young woman says to you, “Come over, I’m gonna make love to you,”

Instantly, Michael visibly cringed, shoulders drawing in slightly. He was a bashful man. Then— a look so quick that almost anyone would have missed it. Michael’s eyes flickered over to you, and a faint knowing smile ghosted over his lips. Just as quickly as you saw it, it vanished. 

He was about to start his shit. You shifted in your seat, preparing for the show. 

In a dead pan tone, Michael responded “Yes, I’m scared”. Immediately, the interviewer was roped in. His eyes lit up as he leaned in even further.

“Really? That’s fascinating. Tell me more—” the interviewer continued to prod at Michael’s answer.

He was such a smug asshole. He knows that isn’t true. And he looked right at you while he said it, because you knew better than anyone in the room just how untrue it was. 

Your eyes fell to his fingers that were tapping against idly his knee. A nervous habit you’d observed a hundred times before. Intrusively, an unwanted memory slammed into you.

“Just like that—p-please don’t stop”

Michael’s hand was fisted in your hair, gaze holding yours intensely in the mirror as he stroked into you deep and deliberate, cock stroking your overstimulated walls and making you see stars. A sharp crack of his palm came down on your ass.

A sharp voice startled you from your daydream.

“You’re on in 5, ready?” 

“Always” You stood smoothly, shoulders back and radiating unshakeable confidence that had come from years of practice. You made your way to the powder room, praying that it wasn’t obvious you were flustered. Inside, you brushed your hair away from your face before touching up your lip combo, studying your reflection. You took a deep breath. Showtime.

Michael’s amusement was evident from the time you came back in the room. Hips swaying to an invisible rhythm as you made your way to the seat across from him. He stood up, adjusting his collar. He extended his hand outward to you. He didn’t offer a standard, business-like grip. Instead, his large hand closed gently over your fingers. Thumb tracing a slow, agonizing circle over your knuckles before he allowed your fingers to slide away.

He said your name softly, teasing the syllables. It rolled off his tongue like a familiar melody he’d been humming in the dark. His doe eyes were bright, studying you.

“Good to see you again. It’s been a while”

Pulling your hand away, you sat down as if unphased by the soothing gesture. You settled into the seat before replying,

“Mhm, what’s it been? 3 or 4 months?” You pretended not to remember the last time you had crossed paths with the popstar. Truthfully, you remembered the exact date. Michael continued observing you with quiet curiosity.

“Something like that.” He sat back down; eyes fixated on you. He glazed over your features with warm scrutiny. Your eyes, your hair, your lips. Like an art collector confirming every detail of a priceless painting is exactly as he remembered. He lingered on your lips for a moment. A grin made its way across his features as he realized you’d worn it. A specific lip combo you only wore for him. Michael was certain. He’d watched plenty of your interviews, and this specific combo was a rarity for you. However, you always seemed to adorn the look when he encountered you. 

The scent of Michael’s cologne enveloped you as you tried to gather your question cards. It was warm and smelled expensive. He waited patiently, seemingly enjoying how you seemed to be fumbling with them, nearly dropping them at one point.

Aw. She’s flustered. Michael thought to himself.

After a final sound check, cameras started rolling. And instantly, you stepped into your persona.

“Michael, it’s good to be here with you today. We’re celebrating the start of the second leg of your Bad world tour for those who don’t know. Congratulations.”

Michael nodded humbly, “Thank you”. His hand rested against his knees, long fingers relaxed. His shirt fell open at the collar, exposing the smooth skin of his chest. You hated that you noticed.

“The album has been doing excellent, five hit singles from one album is an incredible feat. I have to ask. When you’re creating a visual piece for an album like this, do you hear the music first or see the details of the visual?”

There it was. The reason Michael always picked you to do his interviews whenever he did a press run. His face lit up and he began explaining his creative process, talking with his hands and making expressive faces. You tried to ignore the flutter you felt in your tummy as the passion continued to build in his tone.

“Sometimes it’s a sound I’ll hear. Other times it may be a color. Sometimes… it’s a face I can’t stop seeing.” The words settled between you two, crossing an unspoken barrier. 

You had been scribbling notes down for the article you planned to write until that last sentence. Recovering quickly like the professional you were, you cleared your throat and moved to the next question. A little too quickly, and unfortunately for you Michael noticed. 

“You’ve often said you think of your music videos as short films. How much creative control do you have over the final product?”

Questions about his craftsmanship. That was your angle. While other interviewers focused on salacious, invasive details, you focused on what was important. 

Michael pondered the question for a moment before answering. 

“Usually, the idea comes to me and immediately I can see it playing out in my head. The music comes to me, and I see it come to life, it’s a gift really.”

Foreplay. That’s what this was for you and Michael.  

As the interview continued, Michael became more detailed with his answers. His posture became more relaxed, and the flow of the conversation became a tennis match of sorts. Not competitive. But steady in rhythm. You were picking his brain, and he loved it. 

Behind the scenes, a producer leaned over to an executive.

“He never usually gives this much. This girl’s really lucky.”

Michael found his gaze wandering down to your lips as you spoke, flowing effortlessly from question to question. They were lined with a chocolate brown and filled in with a blush-colored gloss. So pretty. And distracting. 

“Sometimes,” he said, “the smallest thing changes the whole picture.” His eyes dropped to your lips again. Your cheeks warmed. You hated that your next question came out a fraction softer than you intended.

“That sounds like a lot of control,” you said. “Do you ever get tired of paying attention to everything?”

Michael’s smile turned up slowly.

“No,” he said. “Not when it’s worth looking at.”

He’s doing this on purpose, reading me in front of everyone. you thought. 

After your last question, you’d stood to shake Michael’s hand. This time, he pulled you in for a hug by the small of your waist, lips brushing your cheek as a departure greeting. Despite the heat you felt creeping up your neck, you allowed the gesture. Gotta be professional, right?

When it was all over, you packed your things. Quickly. Usually, you were in control of your interviews. No one phased you. And you did not like being out of your element. Your get away was made clean by Michael’s manager pulling him aside as soon as the two of you had finished your polite departure.

Making your way through the rows of chairs and still cramming your things into your purse, you tried to tune out your assistant editor.

“That was amazing. How did you get him to open up to you like that? I know you’ve interviewed him before, but wow.” The editor continued bumbling about the best parts of the interview as you made your way to an empty lounge area.

“Thanks. Did you make sure to get extra candids at the end? I need a cover for the article.” The editor nodded eagerly, chirping about how natural the chemistry between you and Michael had been. Her rambling was interrupted by the door of the lounge opening slowly. 

Michael’s eyes had trailed you from the moment the interview ended. He heard his manger talking, but every word went in one ear and out the other. There was no chance he was letting you get away that clean. And that was why he knew exactly where you’d gone in an effort to escape him. 

“Hi…” He spoke softly, hoping he wasn’t intruding on your conversation. The editor squeaked in response, literally. She glanced between the two of you, and sensing the change in air in the room, quickly dismissed herself. 

The lighting in the room was dim, and it was silent, with the exception of the hum of the press suite which was only a few feet away. 

“Why you runnin’ from me?” He teased, stepping closer and working to close the gap between the two of you. “You know I can’t let you get away that easy.”

“I’m not running. Just got a busy day, that’s all.” Your fingers fidgeted at your sides, having nothing to do.

Michael tutted, a smirk gracing his lips. “Don’t tell me you got plans more important than me”

His smugness both irritated you and stirred something in the pool of your stomach. You rolled your eyes, arms crossing over your chest.

“Don’t you have another interviewer to play with? Scared when you get a booty call? Really? You know damn well you’ve been gettin’ panties thrown at you since you were 17.” You were all too aware of the enjoyment Michael got out of toying with journalists. Most were leeches who would latch on to the most salacious detail they could find to make a dollar. And Michael knew it. Honestly, he thought it was funny to troll them.

Michael’s lips shifted to one side, trying and failing to hide a laugh. 

“You didn’t like that one, huh?” He stepped closer again, further decreasing the gap. “I had to find some way to keep myself entertained 'til I could get to you. The only reason I agree to do these things is so I have an excuse to see you. You’re hard to get a hold of, girl.”

Another step.

“What do I gotta do? Drop another album for you to agree to see me?” His eyes stayed on you, tender and containing something else you couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe yearning. Maybe lust.

Michael was no fool. You were about your business. Initially, you despised interviewing him. But no journalist in their right mind would ever turn down the opportunity to interview Michael Jackson. Besides that, Michael genuinely enjoyed your interviewing style. Before he had ever met you, he’d watched a plethora of your interviews. You were truly a credible journalist. A rarity in your field. And this— was why you were his top pick whenever he decided to give the press the time of day.

“I haven’t seen you since that awards show out in Vegas. And you barely gave me the time of day.”

“Michael, you said you wouldn’t do this.” Bottom lip caught between your teeth, you continued to keep your arms crossed tightly. “Last press run was just that. Last press run.”

Something dark flickered in Michael’s eyes that resembled disappointment. 

“Don’t tell me that baby, you quittin’ me already?” He was right in front of you now. One hand rose to rest on the wall on the side of your head. “Is there somebody else? You can tell me” He eyes wandered over your features, lingering on your lips before flickering back up to your eyes.

With a pointed finger at his chest, you began your tirade. “I’m not the one traveling the world and disappearing for months at a time, Mr. Fishes. What do you want me to do? Sit around waiting until you call? I have a career and a life too, Michael.”

Michael’s eyebrows rose at your directness, still maintaining closeness. Enough that the sweet scent of your perfume could invade his sense, taking him back to his last encounter with you.

“Hey, I write you. You never write me back. And tour has been non-stop lately...” You rolled your eyes again, this time looking away from his intense stare. Then, softer, “You’re the one who told me you didn’t want anything serious. You basically avoided me for weeks when I asked you to go steady. I thought this was what you wanted. Space.”

That, you couldn’t deny. You had outwardly rejected the idea of anything legitimate with Michael. Mostly due to a desire to protect your career. You worried about what the title of "Michael Jackson’s girlfriend" would do to your credibility, especially amongst your peers. Most of whom were men. Who you definitely didn't want to say you got the best gigs because of your relationship with him. For that reason, you’d refused Michael.

Stubbornly, you held his stare. Refusing to admit, and refusing to secede. God, you were so stubborn. Michael didn’t know if it was just your professional training or a trait you’d honed over the years, but he just couldn’t get you to give in to him. For anything. 

“Okay how about this. You’re here. I’m here. Come see me tonight. Spend some time with me. My chef’s making dinner. It’ll be quiet, just us.” His doe eyes searched yours, hope dancing in them. You continued to stare, raising an eyebrow. Still unimpressed. Michael rolled his eyes. Shaking his head at your refusal to submit, even when he was putting his best foot forward. “Please, come see me tonight? I miss you.” The hand next to your head came down to your face, backs of his fingers caressing your cheek. At this, your lips turned upward.

“That’s right papa, talk to me nice” And with that, you slipped out of his grasp, hips sashaying as you exited, a sweet trail of perfume following you. 

Michael felt a stir in his pants as he watched you leave. He loved to watch you coming, but damn, he really loved to watch you leave. Michael swallowed thickly, adjusting himself subtly before taking a deep breath.

That was good, right?

That night, Michael changed his outfit three times. He was standing in front of the mirror in a burgundy silk button up he wasn’t sure about. Catching the time on a nearby clock, Michael mumbled a curse under his breath. He ran his hands over the material, and looked in the mirror, fixing his curls one last time. He sprayed the lightest touch of cologne at his throat just as the knock came at the door.

Everything was perfect. His private chef had made your favorite cuisine, and he made sure someone picked up your favorite candles. He was wise not to make a fuss. He knew the more extravagant he went, the more he would inadvertently push you away. So, this was good.

When he opened the door and saw you standing there, his whole face lit up like a Christmas tree. A rare, unguarded smile. 

“You came” He breathed, voice soft with relief. “I wasn’t sure you would… after the letters. And with how we left things on tour, I thought maybe you’d change your mind”.

You stepped inside, allowing him to close the door behind you. The suite smelled like garlic and herbs, and something rich and buttery from the chef. A small table by the window was set for two, candles flickering and two glasses of red wine. Your fingers trailed gently over the tablecloth as you noticed what type of candles were lit.

“Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna come either….” a small smile touched your lips at his thoughtfulness. Cashmere and vanilla candles were one of the small comforts you always tried to bring with you on the road. “Told myself I was only coming to clear the air. Not because you asked.”

There it is. That unrelenting stubbornness. Michael shook his head, laughing to himself at your refusal to soften. His hand hovered near the small of your back as he pulled your chair out for you. “Still glad you’re here”.

Dinner started off easy. The chef had gone all out; seared salmon, roasted vegetables, and a dish of pasta that tasted suspiciously like the one you’d mentioned once in passing. Michael watched you take the first bite, something quietly pleased in his eyes. 

“You remembered my favorite pasta too?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I remember the important things” He admitted shyly.

You nodded, deep in thought. You took another bite and then set your fork down.

“Michael, this is nice. The dinner, the suite. All of it. But I meant what I said on tour. I’m not looking to go steady. Not when it could mess with my job. I’m a woman and I’m one of the top earners in my field. I don’t need people saying I only get the good assignments because I’m sleeping with Michael Jackson.”

Michael set his fork down to now. He nodded slowly, eyes not leaving yours. “I know,” he said softly. “I hate that you felt like you had to choose. That’s why I wrote you instead of pushing. I was scared you’d leave, but you did that anyway…” he trailed off, thumb tracing the stem of his wine glass. 

You felt your guard lowering for half a second from the guilt. Recovering quickly, you responded,

“Distance was safer. For both of us. I’m not some girl who’s gonna drop everything because you’re looking at me like…”

Michael’s eyes raised to yours, mischief twinkling in them. “Like what?” his tongue trailed his bottom lip lightly. Eyes trailing from your rose petal lips up to your eyes.

“Like that, Michael.” You give him an agitated look, but your lips twitched. “Don’t push it.”

The conversation stayed charged after that. Both of you had relaxed into it, flowing from topic to topic naturally. He asked about the cities you’d done stories in since the first leg of tour ended. You asked him about his new songs from Bad that were added to his setlist for the second leg. Every time his fingers brushed yours reaching for the wine, the air got a little heavier. Every time he licked a drop from his lower lip, your eyes followed.

By the time the plates were mostly cleared, the tension had become a living thing between you two. 

Michael leaned forward slightly, lacing his fingers through yours. “I missed this. Missed you. The way you argue with me even when your eyes are telling me something else”. 

You met his gaze, allowing him to stroke his thumb over the hand that was currently laced with yours.

“I’m not giving in just because you made my favorite pasta and wore that shirt.”

At this, Michael was genuinely tickled. You hated how your tummy flipped when he tilted his head back and covered his face, erupting into giggles. He stood and came around the table, still laughing. He pulled your chair out and held his hand out to you. Reluctantly, you stood. His hands settled at your waist and drew you in until your bodies were flush against each other. 

“Tell me to stop” he murmured. Voice low and raspy. “And I will. But if you don’t, I’m not letting you walk out of here tonight without reminding you how good we are together. How good I am for you.”

You opened your mouth, trying to think of something to say to push back. Some type of quip about boundaries and your career. But then, his lips were against yours before words could form. It started slow and deep, almost like he was testing to see if you’d pull away. You didn’t. You kissed back harder, tongue sliding against his. 

He walked you backwards into the next room. The backs of your calves made contact with the bed, and that’s when your palms raised to his chest, fingers curling in the silky marerial.

“Michael— we shouldn’t. This is what I was afraid—” He kissed you again, swallowing the protest. One of his hands slid under your dress to grip your thigh, thumb brushing it gently. 

“Then tell me to stop” He whispered against your mouth. His fingers found the edge of your panties, gently pushing them aside. The pads of his fingers slid through your folds, already slick with your arousal. Your head tipped back with a gasp,

“I—fuck — I’m not giving in to you Michael. This doesn’t mean I’m giving in.” But your hips rolled toward his hand anyway. Michael groaned softly, fingers finding the bundle of nerves between your legs that made your thighs shake.

“There she is,” he cooed, voice warm. He brushed his lips over your cheek near your ear as his fingers continued to toy with the bundle of nerves. “My stubborn girl. Still fighting me even when you’re this soaked.” You tried to glare at him, but it melted into a moan when his fingers began teasing your entrance.

“Michael—I’m serious. My job—”

“I know baby,” he breathed. “Let me have you tonight. Just tonight. Please?” His kisses grew needy and desperate, trailing from your jaw to your lips. His opposite hand cradled the back of your neck.

“Just tonight.” You gasped and his fingers continued their torment.

The bedroom was bathed in soft, amber light. A tall mirror rested against the wall, catching your every movement. A soul record hummed lowly from the corner of the room as Michael guided you onto the bed. He stripped you completely bare with slow, deliberate hands until there was nothing left between his skin and yours. 

He turned you gently, kissed down your spine, and murmured against the back of your neck, “On your knees, baby. Face down. Arch that pretty back for me… right here where we can both see everything.” You moved into position without hesitation — cheek and breasts pressed to the cool sheets, knees spread wide, back arched deep so your ass lifted high and presented. The mirror gave you both the perfect view: your body open and vulnerable, glistening already from how badly you wanted him.

Michael knelt behind you, large hands smoothing over your hips before gently spreading you apart so he could see every glistening inch of you. He leaned in without warning and buried his face right between your thighs from behind. His tongue dragged flat and slow through your slick folds, from your clit to your entrance. He tasted you deep before he sealed his mouth over your clit and sucked. 

A low, cracked groan tore from his throat as he buried his face deeper, nose pressing against you, tongue working your swollen clit in relentless circles while he sucked like he was starving for you.

The sounds were obscene in the quiet room — the wetness of his tongue against your sopping folds, his muffled groans vibrating straight through your clit. The slick noises every time his tongue fucked shallowly into you. 

Your pussy drooled fresh arousal onto his tongue and he lapped it up greedily, sucking your clit back into his mouth with another hungry moan that made your thighs shake. You couldn’t keep yourself from pushing your hips backward against him. His hand roamed over your ass, squeezing gently.

He rasped against you, voice wrecked and muffled. “Taste so good like this… I missed you so much.”

Only after he had you shaking and leaking did he finally pull away, lips shiny and chin wet. He dragged two fingers through your soaked folds first, spreading you open, then gently pushed just his thumb inside. A soft moan, almost a whimper escaped his throat the second your walls fluttered around the digit, immediately suckling and clenching like they were trying to pull him deeper. “Oh baby…” he breathed, thumb stroking slow and shallow, feeling every tiny ripple and squeeze. “Already so needy for me, princess.”

He withdrew his thumb slowly, watching the way it glistened, then lined up the thick head of his cock with your entrance, pushing inside you with one long, steady glide that stretched you open around him. Your walls welcomed him with the same fluttering, rippling grip that he remembered, and a helpless whimper slipped from your lips as you stared into the mirror.

Michael’s hand wrapped around your ankle, thumb brushing the heel of your foot. The delicate gold anklet you wore caught the light with every movement. He held you steady as he started to stroke. Long, deep strokes that dragged every inch of him along your sensitive walls. His eyebrows furrowed in concentration, jaw tight, eyes flicking between the mirror and where you were joined.

You couldn’t look away. In the reflection you watched everything: the way his cock disappeared into your soaked pussy over and over, the sticky strings of your essence mixed with his pre-cum stretching and snapping between your bodies every time he pulled back. Filthy and glistening. Your pussy looked puffy and greedy around him, clenching visibly with every thrust.

He kept stroking, rolling his hips smoothly with immense control from years of dancing, making every grind deep and precise. Then he looked up in the mirror, dark eyes heavy-lidded, and found your gaze already locked intensely on him.

He continued rocking his hips into you, drawing the prettiest moans from you. The cockiest grin slowly spreading across his lips as the thought hit him. 

She’s enjoying watching herself like this — all submissive and spread open for me in the mirror. 

He kissed his lips at you in the reflection, slow and sensual, and winked, never breaking the rhythm of his hips. Then he brought his hand down in a sharp smack to your ass, the sound cracking through the room as pleasure jolted straight through your cunt.

Your tummy fluttered hard at the way he looked at you — that slow, heated stare like he could devour you whole, and your pussy creamed around him in response. You were hypnotized by the way he rolled his body into you, sinking deep with a smooth, wave-like grind that made every inch of him fill you up in a way that made your eyes flutter and roll back.

“Look at you, baby,” he rasped, voice low and rough as he kept those long, deep strokes going. “Watching yourself get fucked like this. So pretty, mama.” 

"T-thank you. J-just like that" You squeaked through your moans.

He glanced down at where you were connected in the mirror, admiring the mess. The way your pussy clenched and leaked around his cock, creamy and slick, painting his abdomen with your arousal. He was stroking you so deep your walls were milking him, a glossy white ring formed at the base of his cock with every thrust.

“Fuck, baby… look at how deep I’m buried in this pretty pussy,” he groaned, eyes coming back up to meet yours in the mirror. “Filling you up so good... making you cream all over me. You getting off on watching yourself give in to me like this? Watching me fuck you open… good girl.”

You couldn’t talk if you wanted to. Non-sensical babble fell from your lips as he continued to dig deeper into your walls.

The filthy words and the sight of him, eyebrows furrowed, bottom lip caught between his teeth now as he watched himself stroke your arched body in the reflection — pushed you right to the edge. 

Your eyes rolled back in the mirror as the first orgasm crashed over you. Your cunt clamped down hard, gushing around him while you sobbed into the sheets, drool soaking the fabric under your cheek. Your thighs shook violently, walls fluttering and milking him through every wave.

Michael didn’t stop. One hand stayed wrapped around your ankle while the other slid under your belly, palm pressing firm and steady against the lower swell where he was buried so deep. He kept stroking, long, deep, relentless. Even as you came.

“Please— Michael, you’re gonna make me squirt,” you whimpered, voice broken and desperate, thighs already quaking.

His mouth fell open at your vulgarity, eyes darkening with raw hunger in the mirror. For a split second he just stared at you, lips parted, like the words had short-circuited something in him. Then he pressed his palm a little firmer against your belly and kept stroking. He ignored your pleas, grinding his thick cock so deep the head kissed your cervix and brushed over the sensitive ridge of nerves deep inside you. 

The combination was intoxicating. Your second release hit like a wave breaking. You squirted hard around him, a hot, messy rush that soaked his thighs and the sheets beneath you. Your whole body jerked, thighs shaking involuntarily as you gushed and clenched. 

Overstimulation crashed into you hard and you tried to bury your face in the sheets to hide from it. But of course, Michael’s hand left your belly and slid up, wrapping firmly around your throat just under your chin. He held your head up, forcing you to keep your eyes on the mirror.

“Be a good girl and watch yourself cum for me,” he growled, voice thick with lust as he watched the way your face melted into raw, helpless ecstasy. Your features softened and twisted in pure overwhelming pleasure, eyes fluttering and rolling back as it completely took you. 

“That’s it. Give it to me. Good girl, baby. Don’t you dare look away. Look at how pretty you are when you’re taking it— mouth fallin’ open every time I hit that spot. I want you to see exactly how needy you look when I’m buried this deep inside you... How pretty you are with that fucked out look on your face”

You whimpered helplessly, voice stuttering, “M-Michael— I-I can’t— oh fuck, I’m— please—”

“I know, baby,” he rasped, never loosening his grip under your chin, still rolling his hips deep and steady while you squirted and clenched around him. “Watch yourself. Watch how perfect you look cumming like this for me. Say thank you, baby.”

Your voice came out wrecked and stuttering as another wave hit, “T-Thank you— fuck, thank you, Michael— thank you for fucking me like this—”

The sound of you thanking him while he held your throat and forced you to watch yourself come undone pushed him over the edge. Michael groaned deep and filthy, hips stuttering as he started pumping thick ropes of cum inside you, still holding your throat and forcing you to watch both of you come undone together in the reflection. His cum mixed with your squirt in messy, creamy pulses that leaked out around his cock with every thrust while he kept stroking through it.

You were completely overstimulated — thighs quaking violently, body twitching, broken little pleas spilling from your lips as another weak, shattering wave hit you while he filled you. Only when the last pulses faded did he finally ease his hand from your throat, both palms smoothing over your trembling hips and lower back as he slowed to lazy, shallow grinds.

When he pulled out, a thick, messy flood of cum and your squirt poured from you onto the sheets. He cooed contently at the sight, turning you carefully onto your side and pulling you into his chest. Immediately he wrapped both arms around you. One big hand found your lower back again, rubbing slow, soothing circles while he pressed soft kisses to your temple, your jaw, the corner of your drool-slicked mouth.

“I got you, princess,” he whispered, voice hoarse and full of awe, nose nuzzling against your cheek. “My good girl… You were so perfect. Looked so pretty squirting all over me like that.”

You were still floaty and twitching with aftershocks, voice small and wrecked. “Maybe I need to reconsider this "just one time" thing…”

He smiled against your skin, pulling the sheet over both of you and keeping that steady hand on your lower back. Mission accomplished. Make you cum so hard for him that you wouldn’t wanna leave him.

“Just rest, baby. We’ll talk about it later. I’m right here.”