Scared Of The Moon @appleheads-friend - Tumblr Blog

𓂃 his controversially younger girlfriend.

⋮ ⌗ ┆ mature era michael.

⋮ ⌗ ┆ summary: everybody thinks they know why michael jackson is dating you. unfortunately for them, they’re completely wrong.

⋮ ⌗ ┆ no serious warnings, female reader, age gap relationship. user michaeldiary writing angst, fork found in kitchen. 🙄

Nobody expected Michael to meet her in a nightclub.

Even years later, the story sounded almost strange coming from him. People preferred imagining his relationships beginning somewhere private and secluded, not in the middle of flashing lights and bass heavy enough to vibrate through the floorboards. By that point in his life, Michael barely existed publicly without layers of protection around him. Security teams. Private entrances. Controlled environments. Fame had turned spontaneity into a logistical nightmare years ago.

But clubs were one of the few places where he could briefly disappear. Not literally, of course. There was no such thing as anonymity for Michael Jackson anymore.

But still, nightclubs created this illusion of normalcy he secretly liked. The darkness helped and the music helped more. Everything blurred together inside clubs. Sweat, noise, lights, bodies moving without thought. People looked absolutely ridiculous there in the best possible way. Human. And Michael, who spent most of his adult life feeling observed down to microscopic detail, liked environments where perfection stopped mattering.

That night he sat tucked into a private section partially hidden from the rest of the crowd, one leg bouncing restlessly beneath the table while security hovered nearby pretending not to watch him people watch.

Because that’s what he mostly did in clubs. Observed. The thing is, Michael loved people quietly. Their energy. Their confidence. Their weirdness. He liked seeing how others interacted when they weren’t performing for cameras or for other people.

And then he noticed her, she was trying to get his attention either. She wasn’t hovering near his section pretending not to stare like everybody else had been all night. Wasn’t sending drinks over. Wasn’t whispering frantically to friends while sneaking pictures.

She was dancing.

Actually dancing.

Laughing openly with her friends without checking every thirty seconds to see if Michael Jackson was still watching her. Which of course immediately made him watch her. There was something so wonderfully magical about people who didn’t seem consumed by his presence. Michael spent so much of his life being treated like an event instead of a person that confidence fascinated him instantly. Especially in women.

At one point she glanced toward his section briefly.

Just once.

And instead of freezing or acting shocked, she held eye contact for maybe two seconds too long before smiling slightly like she’d privately decided something.

Then she started walking toward him.

One of the security guards shifted immediately, preparing to intercept her before she got too close to the section.

But Michael quietly stopped him first.

“I like that one,” he murmured casually without taking his eyes off her. The guard looked over and Michael leaned back slightly in his seat, amused already. “That’s some good fish right there.”

The guard barked out a startled laugh while Michael grinned to himself beneath the brim of his hat. And just like that, security stepped aside enough to let her approach.

That tiny moment probably changed everything.

Because most people never got close enough to Michael organically anymore. Access to him had become curated by layers of protection and paranoia. Entire teams existed specifically to filter human interaction before it ever reached him.

But Michael chose her immediately, not fully consciously maybe. Just instinctively, curiosity more than anything at first.

She stepped near the table, close enough now that he could properly see her expression beneath the club lights.

Still not nervous.

That fascinated him too.

Most women became visibly affected once they actually stood in front of him. Either intimidated or performative. But she looked almost entertained instead.

Then she leaned down slightly so he could hear her over the music and asked: “Do you wanna dance or are you just gonna sit here lookin’ mysterious all night?”

Michael laughed instantly. A real laugh too—bright and unguarded enough that even security glanced over surprised because people rarely tickled him like that anymore.

And Michael loved teasing. Loved boldness. Loved people willing to pull him out of himself instead of carefully orbiting around his fame.

“Do you always walk up to strangers like this?” he asked her.

“Only the pretty ones.”

Ough. That got him again. He ducked his head immediately smiling into his hand in that shy embarrassed way he still had despite decades of global fame.

“What’s your name?” Oh, he’s so, so tickled by her. He hasn’t been asked that in.. decades but he likes how it feels.

“Michael.” He says shyly.

“I’m (Name).”

And from there, everything happened strangely naturally.

She slid into the booth beside him like she belonged there already while Michael found himself more relaxed within ten minutes than he’d been all night. They talked between music and flashing lights while he kept catching himself staring at her whenever she wasn’t looking. She was beautiful, yes. But she interacted with him normally and that was rare enough to feel intoxicating.

She interrupted him. Challenged him. Rolled her eyes when he got dramatic. At one point she grabbed his restless hands off the table and told him to stop fidgeting so much.

Michael stared at her afterward completely thrown by the casual touch. Nobody touched him casually anymore either. Everything in his life had become loaded and handled carefully, filtered through status and fear and fame.

But her hand around his felt easy somehow, so.. natural.

And maybe that was the real reason he got attached so quickly afterward. Because for one night inside a loud crowded nightclub, she made him feel reachable again.

At first, almost nobody knew and that was intentional.

Michael had become deeply protective over the private parts of his life by then because experience had taught him what public attention did to anything soft. Fame didn’t just observe relationships. It distorted them. Pulled them apart at the seams. Turned ordinary affection into spectacle.

So for the first couple months, their relationship existed mostly behind tinted windows and locked gates.

Late night phone calls stretching until sunrise (that phone was HOT). Private dinners at hotels rented out entirely for security reasons. Her falling asleep curled against him during movie nights at Neverland while he absentmindedly played with her fingers, he couldn’t stop touching her once he got used to her there.

And the strange thing was how quickly Michael attached emotionally once he realized she was safe. Michael had spent most of his adult life surrounded by people who wanted pieces of him. His fame created this constant uncertainty around human intention. Everybody wanted something eventually. Access. Money. Proximity. Validation. Stories.

But she seemed startlingly uninterested in exploiting him and that sincerity affected him deeply. Probably deeper than he intended.

Within months, she had clothes permanently left in his closets. Her favorite snacks started appearing stocked automatically in his kitchens. Staff learned her routines. Security stopped treating her like a visitor and started treating her like part of Michael’s orbit.

And Michael himself became softer around her in ways even people close to him noticed immediately: lighter. More openly affectionate. He smiled differently when she entered rooms. And that was the first thing people picked up on, not the age gap or even the relationship itself But his happiness, ut radiated off him too obviously.

The problem was that happiness only intensified media obsession once rumors started leaking publicly. At first tabloids framed her like a passing fling. Young nightclub girl catches Michael Jackson’s attention. Something temporary. Disposable. The kind of story gossip magazines churned through weekly.

But then the sightings kept happening.

New York.

Vegas.

Paris.

She appeared beside him consistently enough that speculation hardened into narrative. And suddenly the age difference became the centerpiece of every conversation because it disrupted people’s emotional image of Michael.

The public had always struggled categorizing him properly. He existed in this strange place culturally where people simultaneously infantilized and demonized him. To some, he still seemed emotionally frozen somewhere younger than his actual age. To others, he was mysterious enough to project danger onto automatically.

So dating a significantly younger woman made people deeply uncomfortable in ways that had less to do with the relationship itself and more to do with what Michael represented psychologically to the public.

And the scrutiny became relentless.

Everywhere they went, cameras zoomed in on the difference between them. The way she dressed beside him. The age in her face compared to the exhaustion in his. Reporters started asking subtly cruel questions disguised as curiosity.

“What do you two even talk about?”

“Does the age gap create insecurity?”

“Do her parents approve?”

As if she weren’t a grown woman sitting right there.

Michael hated that part immediately, not criticism directed at him. He’d learned to survive that years ago. But criticism directed at her unsettled him badly because unlike him, she hadn’t spent decades building emotional armor around public cruelty. Michael understood fame as violence already. Understood how dehumanizing it became once millions of strangers decided they owned opinions about your personal life.

She was still learning that and Michael watched it harden her in real time over those months.

The comments online. The tabloid photos.

The headlines reducing her into stereotypes: Gold digger. Groupie. Child. Manipulator. Victim. Just to name a few.

The world couldn’t decide whether she was exploiting him or being exploited by him, so they accused her of both simultaneously.

One night after paparazzi followed them through an airport aggressively enough to leave her visibly shaken, Michael found her crying privately inside the hotel suite afterward. Just silent tears while she sat curled on the edge of the bed staring down at her hands.

Michael’s chest practically caved in seeing it.

Because the thing people misunderstood most about him was how emotionally absorbent he was. Other people’s pain affected him almost too deeply. Especially people he loved.

And by then, he loved her. That was obvious now. Michael loved with frightening intensity once he fully trusted somebody.

He crossed the room immediately and crouched in front of her, hands sliding gently around hers.

“Hey,” he whispered softly.

She wiped at her face quickly. “I’m okay.”

Michael frowned instantly because he recognized the lie for what it was. “No.. you’re not.” The tenderness in his voice nearly made her cry harder.

“I just..” She swallowed shakily. “I didn’t know people could hate somebody they don’t even know this much.”

Michael went very still after that because unfortunately, he did know. Intimately and probably more than almost anybody alive. His thumb brushed slowly across her knuckles while he searched quietly for words.

Then finally: “They don’t know you.”

The simplicity of it made her look up.

Michael’s eyes looked exhausted in the dim hotel lighting. Sad too. But calm in the way people become calm after surviving cruelty too long.

“Not me,” she said softly. “you.”

Then his expression shifted slightly, becoming gentler again as he looked at her. “Me?”

“People are so mean to you, I cannot stand it.”

The room went still, completely still. Michael was used to people crying over what fame did to them. The pressure. The media. The chaos surrounding his life.

But nobody ever cried for him, not really in this way.

She looked genuinely heartbroken on his behalf now, tears slipping down her face while she spoke.

“They treat you like you aren’t human,” she whispered. “Everywhere we go people stare at you and say awful things and you still keep being so kind to everybody anyway and I just..”

Her voice broke apart and Michael couldn’t speak for a second as something in his expression changed completely.

Softened? Opened? Like her words had reached someplace in him untouched for years.

Because admiration wasn’t rare in his life. Love wasn’t even rare.

But this? This.. was different.

She grieved for him.

For the loneliness of his life. For the cruelty surrounding him. For the exhaustion he carried so quietly all the time.

And suddenly Michael realized with terrifying clarity that he wanted this woman beside him forever. She saw the human being underneath all the mythology and loved him with almost painful sincerity.

Michael lifted his hand slowly to her face then, brushing tears beneath her eyes with his thumb while looking at her like she’d just unknowingly handed him something sacred.

“You’re so sweet..” He says with a small smile before he leans over to place a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be okay.. don’t cry, too pretty to cry..”

He went ring shopping the next day.