| The Night We Met
| Pairing: Off the wall! Micheal Jackson x Time Traveler fem!reader
| A/N: Hello y'all! This is genuinely my first time ever writing a fanfiction, so not too much on me, I'm still learning. I decided my first professional one is going to be about MJ because I've, no troll, been stuck in michosis since watching the film. I am open to any feedback, and if this something that y'all would like to continue to see, I'm open to creating a second or even third part. Also obviously, this is just something I made up. I do not claim to know any of the people stated in this story personally and it is all just fiction.
| Genres: Just Fluff
| Summary: The year is 1979, not that you find that out anytime soon, and you are thrown into an alternate timeline, where everyone is funky fresh and ready to party thanks to your not-so-nifty time travel abilities. As per usual, you are lost and sick of the whole ordeal, hoping to figure out where/when you landed in the space time continuum. Micheal at the time, a buzzingly fresh rebranded star, riding the high of his recent solo album release, is wandering the streets of the same neighborhood in search for fresh ideas. You two our bound to cross paths, and when you do, it's sure to be a night both of y'all will remember.
| Warnings: Reader is kind of a smart ass, cussing, some mental health themes (not explained in depth), Oh and you get spit on by Micheal's llama, Louis Lmao.
| WC: 3.0K~ (I got in the zone)
________________________________________________________________
Time travel was rough. Nothing like the pretty stuff people see in movies.
It has always been that way, and you fear it'll remain that way as long as you remain acquainted with it.
You could never remember when it first started....
One day it just happened, and it had been happening ever since.
This particular occasion was intense.
Head aching like the beat of a thousand drums. Vision blurry and burned, as if you decided it’d be a good idea to take a dip into the dead sea. And a stomach that had twisted and turned scarier than any beast's you might walk into.
Yeah…this time was bad and you'd be lying if you said you weren't afraid of where it might take you.
When your vision began to focus again followed by the numerous other unsavory side effects that subsided, you found yourself thrown harshly against the ground. Limbs heavy and aching.
You pulled yourself up slowly and lethargically, as if gravity itself made it its own mission to keep you down.
It wouldn't surprise you if there was any modicum of truth to that. You were a freak of nature and had been so for quite some time.
You came to terms with it, a while ago.
Leaning back against your palms, with your legs outstretched in front of you, you begin the age-old sequence of trying to figure out where the fuck you were.
Or rather When.
Maybe both, if you are being honest.
You begin by noting the hard asphalt underneath your fingertips.
You were on some sort of road…Interesting.
Pieces of said road crumbled and are currently being toyed with under your weight.
Looking up, you are hit with a sort of suburban scenery. Most importantly, a painfully wealthy one. Homes grander than anything you've ever seen, let alone lived in. The extravagance of it all surprisingly reminds you of your own abode, as humble as it is.
Weird how you're beginning to miss the dingy apartment you could barely afford in college. While at the same time, not being able to tell whether the bitterness in your mouth was from envy or the blood that seeped into it while biting your cheek in awe.
Snapping yourself out of that daze, your eyes sweep the surrounding area, and you quickly decide that wherever you are, you’d rather not stay for long.
After all this seemed like a tight knit community, it would be bad if people started to notice you.
Or worse, ask questions.
That alone is enough encouragement to push yourself off of the ground and when you do, you are met with the sky. It is evening now, and a of gradient pink and orange decorate the world above as the sun sets.
Almost mesmerized, your gazing is abruptly interrupted by ambiguous noises in a bush near you. It confirms your belief that not staying on the road remains the best idea and you opt to traverse the surrounding area instead.
As you start your journey, you begin to play a familiar game with yourself, hoping it will distract you from the encroaching night.
Where or When in the world are we?
In a lot of weird ways, time travel was a packaged deal. Obviously, it could take you to any timeline, that one summer spent surviving the ice age, spoke for itself. But it also had a funny teleportation corollary.
Anywhere in the world at any time.
That was the name of the game and generally made said game pretty difficult to enjoy. It’s not like you're not used to it though, so looking for clues becomes second nature.
For instance,
The architecture around you is large but has some obvious Mexican influence. You walk past a street sign saying to pick your dog’s poop in bold and It's in English.
Narrows that down to the US, pretty fast. Likely a state near South America, which probably leads you to anywhere between Texas and California and so on.
As you continue your detective work, the hum of night begins to dawn, and you still haven't figured out where you are exactly. Panic begins to seek in, but you try not to let it concern you and continue on. You begin to read street signs more intensely, listening into neighbors' yards more attentively, and secretly praying to the same higher power, preferably the one that gave you such a god forsaken gift, for any sign.
They’d owe you at least that much.
Your pity party had slowly come to a stop once you noticed the sparsity of stacked suburban houses, when continuing down the road. The trees began to thin out as well, exposing the sky, now dark, and large city below you.
This is when you realize the road and the community you had been aimlessly wandering was on a mountain.
You were starting to get sick of this game and nightfall was already here.
Tired and truth be told, scared you find a fenced off clearing near the edge of the elevation with a bench to rest. And as you sit, you can't help but wonder how things ended up like this?
No, you're not thinking about time travel.
You know well enough how that happened
You meant your life in general; you are sitting there staring at a view you barely recognize somewhere in space and time; and you can admit, in more than one way, you're lost.
As you stare into the city, the bustling noise below sends you into a haze. Wanting to let the buzz of the city swallow you whole.
Your mind won't let you though, it's still playing the game and soon enough, you begin to notice something in the mountain range across from you.
A speck of white is a sea of darkening brown, but from here even you can tell that the structure in question is a lot larger than the distance accounts for. A stark contrast to the smudge of brown the mountains possess…it encourages you to look closer.
Standing up now, you are practically leaning over the railing. Squinting and jumping to get any glimpse of what may be on the other side.
It is not until your vision focuses and you can begin to read the lettering clearly, when you have finally figured out what state you are in.
"HOLLYWOOD"
California… of course that checks out!
You honestly don’t know why you're so excited. It's not like you found food or warm housing to crash at until this finally wears off. But you guess it's something; the last bit of encouragement you need to continue the journey down the road and hopefully to shelter.
You jolt up! convincing yourself that you are ready to take on the night, and likely a couple of other days. Maybe a little too eagerly though, because the next thing you know, you're slamming into something broad.
It happens hard, fast, and it sort of feels like when a movable object meets an unstoppable force.
And at that point you had no clue whether it was darkness arriving or the lack of food and sleep obscuring your clarity, but you sure you heard whatever you ran into squeal.
Your hands immediately fly to your nose and your eyes squeeze shut before you begin to groan. A string of profanities leaving your lips.
“Fuck, shit. Shitttt” you grimace.
Honestly if the unstoppable force in question didn’t make any sound, you might’ve thought you ran into a wall instead of a man.
“Jeez, are you okay?? So sorry, so, so, so sorry truly. Let me help you up. Oh lord, is that blood???”
Wincing away the sudden pain, you try pulling yourself together at least enough to shoo him off. After all it’s always best when in an episode to keep minimal contact with people in their correct time zone. However, despite your best efforts the guy just won’t let up. His hands are reaching toward you in polite and remorseful concern, and he won't stop spewing his regrets.
You begin to grow sick of hearing it, feeling guilty for such a short temperament, but knowing yourself, nonetheless.
It has already been a long day. You just want to find a place to rest.
“Oh gosh I am seriously such a clutz! I had been humming to myself earlier and, I guess I just got kind of lost in it. I should have seriously been paying better att-”
“It's fine” you interrupt, not being able to shake off the feeling that if you hadn’t, he'd go on for ages.
Your eyes are still knitted shut, but they have begun to recover from the encounter and when they had finally opened though you were face to face with some sort of zoo animal.
If you had to guess it was either an alpaca? llama? You could never really tell the difference anyways.
Whatever it was though, in that very moment, it had scared the SHIT out of you.
The scream that erupted from your mouth soon after was evidence enough of it.
Definitely not your brightest Idea though, because you were met with some information, you never thought you’d have the "pleasure" of being personally reminded of. A book you had read a while ago about how these sorts of animals behave. Characteristically they were easily irritable, and when so, they’d spit. Finding that fact quirky and a little silly then, but not so much not now, landing you on the receiving end of said irritation.
Right in the eye too...again.
You hope when you can open them, you'll find yourself in your bed and this…some odd nightmare.
That hope however is quickly crushed when you still hear the stranger's voice, an overstimulating constant.
He is still apologizing, if anything more profusely now and you don’t know how he could possibly take responsibility over something like this.
You're not sure if you even want to hear him try.
But of course, he tries regardless. His remorse beginning to drown out into something incoherent, but at the same time laced with a bit of amusement.
You heard it in the way his breath shook from a sequestered chuckle before ultimately being overcome by his concern.
For some reason you found it hard to stop yourself from laughing as well. You had no clue why; this wasn’t exactly your idea of a good time.
What you did know though, is that you needed to get this spit off your face asap. Jesus you were drowning in it. The more you wiped the less progress you thought you had made.
And the stranger definitely noticed because the next thing you felt through whispered apologies were two large warm palms wipe down your face gently.
You don’t bother to protest; you're officially tired and helpless all at once.
There is a brief pause before the hands are on your face again, this time cupping your cheeks. He begins to use his thumb as a makeshift windshield wiper for your eyes.
Once he sees your face easy up from the tense expression you held from under his hands, he allows himself to laugh more openly and feels a suprising warmth when it's reciprocated from you.
At this point you can open your eyes, and when you do, you are met with a confusing sight.
Young male, maybe about your age. Caramel skin and a jerry curl you only ever heard elders rave about, when talking about the “good old days”. He was decently taller than you and lean. With a smile, that flashed so sweet towards you and eyes so soft with curiosity and something else you can’t quite place, it almost made you feel exposed.
You quickly look down, then to the left before you are met with his...pet.
You think you must have been just staring at it for a solid 15 seconds, because his grip on the leash tightens and he gently nudges the animal back towards him.
“Oh uh... This is Louis. He’s a llama.”
You just stare back at him.
You think your lack of response sparked his nerves because he quickly follows the statement with "Yes... a very sorry llama, isn’t that right Louis?"
The animal replies with a languid noise and with the way the man stares at you, you realized he probably wants you to say something. Anything.
So, you opt for the more lighthearted reply.
“Oh yeah, It's no problem really.” You say trying to wipe off any remnants of the saliva on your face, recalling the events that had transpired just moments ago.
“It’s not every day you get to meet a llama, even if it's an agitated one” you joke.
He cracks a smile at that.
The most genuine one you’ve seen in a while. You wouldn’t be opposed to getting a few more out of him before the interaction ends.
“Oh yeah? Well, you got any other exotic animals you plan on upsetting tonight or am I just lucky.”
“Cool it. You're the one that bumped into me.” You half laughed. At this point, he pulls something out of his pocket, a small white cloth you think? Then he hands it over.
“Yeah... I guess Louis' owner has some apologies he needs to give too,”
“Oh, I've heard enough of those from you” You jest as you take the handkerchief and do one last wipe over your face and neck before stuffing it in your back pocket.
"Were even” you say looking up at him.
He just stares back when your eyes meet, you take it as a sign that your interaction hand ended and turn swiftly on your heel to walk the other direction.
Then he calls out. “You from round here?”
it stops you in your tracks. You then slowly pivot back towards him.
"Uhhh no, not exactly?”
“Not exactly” he replies back daringly. It contrasts interestingly with his particularly soft voice.
“What’s it to you? You checking for me or something?”
“Nah, just never seen you before.” You nod slowly at his response before replying back more hesitantly.
“I’m sort of lost...”
You wince at your admission.
“Couldn’t tell”
That earns a genuine laugh out of you, but he doesn't let it sit in the air for long though before he's back to interrogating you. A little curiosity and mostly worry driving his intrigue.
“so, what kind of lost?? You got a car?”
“Ahh... Not exactly.” you say as you rub the back of your neck. You're starting to sound like a broken record. You had never really spent this much time talking to someone in an alternate timeline. You were trying to keep it vague.
“What ?! So you mean to tell me you walked all the way up here? The nearest bus stop is like 4 miles away!”
You are beginning to sweat now. You think with all the times this has happened to you, you'd get better at lying about your situation.
“I-Uh you see…It’s a long story”
He stops himself from pressing on once he takes a moment to fully look at you. I mean really looked at you. You had no shoes on, just white socks whose soles were darkening from walking on the street. You had shorts on; they sort of resembled boxers and a light, breathable sweater that fell just above the hem of said shorts.
He had never seen a woman wear things like that unless it was to bed, but the more he questioned your attire, the more worn they appeared to look.
Then he allowed himself to look at your face, and tiredness that had befallen it was hard to ignore.
Right then and there was when the concern flooded back in all at once.
“You got a place to stay tonight?” He questioned immediately, stopping your stammering in your tracks.
You should probably say yes, send him on his way, but something about his eyes scream genuine.
You sigh before replying back “Not...exactly.”
He cracks a polite and sympathetic smile before turning and walking away.
“Okay then...Come with me.”
“What?! Where are we going?” you scream in response, him already a couple feet in front of you.
“To my house, I live not too far from here.”
You can't help but scoff at his matter-factness.
“Well, I could've guessed that!” you reply back “but like, h-how could you be sure that you can even trust me huh? I don’t even know what the date is?”
You can tell he’s ignoring you with the way he keeps his back facing you, walking leisurely towards the direction you can only assume to be where he lives, and thus forcing you to aimlessly follow.
You speak up again.
“I mean come on, we are practically strangers, you told me your llama's name before you told me yours."
This stops him dead in his tracts.
When he turns to face you, his expression is clouded with playful disbelief but the longer he stares at your puzzled reaction, the more surprised he becomes. He turns swiftly back towards you before, making his way to you with a purpose. The man now stands only a few inches away, any closer and you think you’d be able to breathe in the air he exhaled. His hand extends in the space between you before he speaks.
“You’re right, how rude of me, I’m Micheal, Micheal Jackson.”
The realization hits you fast, and the world narrows around just as quickly. You had been talking to THE Micheal Jackson the whole time. How could you not realize? Maybe something about seeing him so young must have completely thrown you off? Your mind is racing with what feels like a million thoughts a second and you're honestly staring up at him barely able to speak.
It is easy to see that you are star struck, but he chooses not to dwell on it. Micheal grabs your hand at your side and gives it a quick shake before releasing it, then he turns back around to continue walking. Meanwhile, you're practically stuck to the ground, not because you don’t want to follow.
You do! GOD you really do, but it’s all too much.
Perhaps he sensed your absence because he turned once more beckoning you to follow with his hands, effectively snapping you back to reality. Your legs move before you can think and you find yourself stumbling over shortly behind him. Your silent and still very much processing, when he then suddenly whips his head back towards you, causing you to jump.
“ Oh….. and it’ s September 8th…1979?” he stated with a bright smile and a wink, "since you were wondering” before continuing to lead the way.
