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electricbitterness · 1 day ago

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°.🎼🏆Take Your Time🏆🎼.°

•*. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁- A Michael Jackson X gender neutral reader fanfic… because I’m allowed to have fun on my blog…. -݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁°.•

📀Part 1📀

The auditorium is expansive, and packed full. You feel a vague sense of importance from merely attending the event. The crux of the universe, some kind of grand gravity centralized on the stage. It felt, despite your opinions regarding the Grammy’s itself, like everyone had come together for something important. Huge and cultural. Chatter before the show filled the air so palpably it felt like it was bouncing against your skin, and electricity cracked through the air like a whip.

All of the many lights were warm like sunshine, or maybe the sheer number of bodies was the reason behind that. When the show started, the lights dimmed and voices hushed, it becomes clear the warmth is actually your keen over-awareness of the man sparkling on your left.

You sit next to Michael Jackson.

You’re his date for the evening.

One after another, there is a stream of, in your opinion, great performances. Each one of them wows you to your core, even the ones you can acknowledge aren’t your favorite. You watch each one rapt with appreciation for the artistry and confidence of the musicians present.

Michael… is respectful. He claps when songs are over, though the sound is muffled by his glove. He sits up to show attention.

But… if he wasn’t doing those two things, you wouldn’t be able to tell if he was sleeping under there, or not. His shades are impenetrable, he is totally expressionless for maybe… 85% of the night. The only thing you can tell he’s actually paying attention to at all, is what you’re doing. It makes you so nervous, sometimes you forget to breathe.

You can tell he’s watching you, he turns his head to watch you clap. He tilts his chin up when you lean forward in your seat in interest. His head even twitched marginally your way when you fidgeted with your hair.

It’s making you anxious. For sure. Being watched so acutely. By someone who, by all means, should be paying attention. You’d hazard to think the man with the most important record of the year would be more present in the ceremony of it all.

The way his mouth goes from a resting frown, to something more ambiguous when he’s watching you— it tells you he isn’t judging you. A gut feeling, like a sixth sense for his aura. He’s just… looking at you. A lot. More than the performers. It’s… weirdly flattering? Mostly nerve-wracking.

You wonder why he does it, actually. Why he invited you in the first place. You send him side-long glances, shift in your seat on purpose to try and catch him looking. You’ve picked the impression that he’s simply unreadable like that sometimes. He doesn’t take your bait, you never do meet each other’s glances.

You were just his concept artist, really. You think about that with a glance at your shoes. Somebody he hired to visualize his auditory ideas.

You’d bought them, the shoes, just for this, may or may not ever wear them again. But you liked them, they were stylish in a way that made your heart tug with pride, and they made you feel a little less dressed-down next to Michael.

You start to bounce your leg, tap that expensive shiny black shoe on the ground as quietly as you can. You know for a fact Michael’s watching you do it, too. If you look a certain way, you can make it out in your periphery. The corner of his eye gets dark.

If it weren’t for his scrutiny, you’d be rapt with attention for all the performances, bits, speeches. But he’s making it difficult. He doesn’t realize how much he gets under your skin, probably, but that reasoning doesn’t make the goosebumps go away.

It makes you retreat into your thoughts, ponder on how you were asked to be his date in the first place. It takes you to the back of your mind, out of the show. The only thing keeping you really there at any capacity, is the fog of hairspray and expensive perfumes…

One evening, about two weeks onto easy working and bouncing ideas off of eachother, he had taken a seat next to you, on the couch in his home studio. For a silent beat and a half, he only watched you draw.

You switched between different markers, holding them in various ways to get the right angle. You drew with you pad a ways away from your face, but you could still smell the chemicals from the pens.

You barely noticed Michael spectating, if you recall correctly. It was just something you knew he was doing, but you didn’t care. You’d gotten used to it. He payed you to draw his ideas so he could hang them up. For inspiration, he said.

The target on the forefront of your mind was drawing out the look of the song Michael had described, based on how he sang it to you. You replayed the sound of his voice in your head, could almost feel it in your ears still. Assigning colors to each of them based on vision and instinct alone.

To him, you must’ve seemed calculated. Like you were doing some kind of reasoning, like math.. To yourself, it was as natural as organizing alphabetically. Still, he watched you. You’re starting to realize he does a lot of staring.

“Now, I need you to hear me out for a second,” he said, in his careful voice cutting through the sound of your markings. Your hand froze in the middle of the page, mid-stroke. You eyeballed the aborted line with some dissatisfaction, but figured you’ll fix it in a minute.

“Alright. Go for it,” you told him, your mind lagging still in the art space. You answer automatically, before you have the chance to get queasy about his tone.

You fold the marker and sketchbook into your lap, and sit up from your typical artistic slouch.

Michael smiled wide, and twisted his big hands together. “Now, I just want you know I’ve really enjoyed our time workin’ together...” he looks you in the eye. He means it.

Your heart beats painfully in your chest. Hearing him say those words startled you like a balloon popping right by your ear. In that moment, you were absolutely positive he was firing you. Not a doubt in your mind, really. It was blatantly obvious. Something you did, you weren’t sure what. Or something you could’ve been doing.

You thought it was a damn shame, at the time, because it was probably the most fufilling job you’d ever had. Using your passionately honed skills to aid someone as magical as Michael Jackson. It was motivating like no other work you’d done, especially in this field.

In his own, kind way, he was firing you. And you had to accept that. His voice was so, so soft. It sugarcoats it, you think.

You sat up straighter, and cast the sketchpad off your lap. “Okay.”

“What?” Michael looked up, confused. Something about the way you said that one word. He started twisting the hem of his pink Mickey Mouse shirt, eyebrows furrowed together.

“No, no, it’s okay! Don’t worry about it, I’m not taking it personally.” You told him. Even though on the inside, you had felt the heavy weight of mediocrity settle in the deepest abyss of your stomach.

Absolutely nauseating.

Your insecurity in your art, which has lessened during your time working for Michael, reared its ugly head. It told you that your work— just wasn’t cut out for someone as explosively creative as him. You started picking up your things.

You decided you would handle this with decorum. professionalism, and class. Even though you had considered you and Michael’s work relationship turning into something friendlier, and maybe it had, he needed somebody better than you. Or something entirely different. That’s okay.

You collected your line of markers.

Michael stood up.

“Wait,” he insisted, and he grabbed your arm so quickly, you didn’t see him reach. You wince, and open your mouth to say something gently dismissive.

“Wait!” He said again, brighter. When you stopped to actually look him, he started laughing so hard his shoulders shook. He let go of you, and covered his mouth with his long fingers, embarrassed. He was just so taken aback by your reaction, when he really shouldn’t have been. He really did word that horrendously.

You smile right now, thinking about it.

You waited, eyebrows raised in a silent question. His laughter, though extremely cute- the way he hoots— it was exasperating you.

“I’m not firing you, silly!” He shook his head. You recall the feeling of being utterly upheaved by how he called you ‘Silly’, how strangely sweet. Like, as if that’s just something grown adults call eachother. Your whole posture fell in relief.

“Thank god…” You groaned, and he just laughed harder, covering up his mouth completely. You dropped your things back on the couch, not finding it as funny. What was funnier was him, how bodily he laughed, and how he seemed so bashful about. The way he covered his face and shook his head was endearing, despite you wanting to be at least a little sore with him. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and he stomped his foot.

“No! No! I’m sorry for laughin’ I just-“ He shook his head. “You’re just crazy! You’re the best artist I’ve ever met. I’m not firin’ you. No.”

You started to smile too, then.

Michael sat back down, lanky and relaxed. More comfortable now that he knows he hasn’t upset you too bad. He gestured with his long fingers for you to do the same. You do.

“Okay. Now I’m kinda nervous. You got me all off track,” he hid his face in his palms as he said this, and snickered some more. Giggles bubbled from inside your chest and toppled over your lips, you couldn’t help it, if you even wanted to. You crossed your legs and sunk back into the black leather sofa.

“It’s alright, Michael. Go ahead,” you assure him.

He sighs.

“You know, the Grammy’s are coming up.” He doesn’t bother phrasing it like a question, you definitely knew. You had previously given him a tip for his outfit, when he had been discussing what to wear with his wardrobe designer. Helped him narrow his vision down, like you always do.

He continued. At first, he was looking everywhere infront of him except for at you.

“Well- well I’ve been wonderin’… I dunno… If maybe you’d be interested in coming as my date that night?”

That’s when he looked up at you, with the biggest, darkest eyes and the longest eyelashes you’d ever seen on a man. To just say he looked like a doll, or a doe, it would be cheap. He looked so openly and totally Michael in that moment. He looked like an angel. He looked better than an angel, because somehow, he was real.

Now, if you had been a little smoother, you might’ve said “Yes” without even thinking. But you could barely wrap your head around the concept of what was happening to you, let alone agree with it.

“Me?” You asked timidly. He nodded.

“Yeah, I wanna take you as my date. Tell me you’ll go?”

“Aren’t you performing?” You asked softly.

You truly didn’t know. The Pepsi disaster was so recent, he was still healing. You knew so, you don’t heal and grow your hair back that fast. Whatever he was doing to hide it, you knew he was still hurt. But, he’d definitely been practicing, that’s for sure. He couldn’t help but practice off to the side during your long drawing sessions.

“No.” He told you, flat out. It meant he was sure of it, how quickly he answered. You wondered how that refusal might seem in the eyes of the people running the Grammy’s. You also… didn’t really care. If Michael wasn’t performing, he had good reason not to. You nodded once, to show you weren’t going to press on that.

He knocks your knee with his.

“I’ll be bored as a house cat sittin’ down there. You really just have to come with me.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you do…” he trails off.

“…I’m just kidding,” he adds, for safe measure. “But I really would like you to. Very much.”

There was a brief period of just… processing it. Your brain was churning with a million and one reasons why this couldn’t be happening. Dream, nightmare, prank, hallucination from marker fumes. None of them were right.

“Alright, then.” You said with a ringing uncertainty in your voice.

You didn’t really have anything to wear to an event like that. Michael knew. You’re not the award show type. A flashy piece here and there, absolutely, but nothing formal.

“I’ll have to get you something cool to wear, huh?” he asked with a charm to him, a smile that was just on the dangerous side of flirtatious.

That set off alarm bells in your head. You’d really rather not accept any gifts from a date, in the case of somehow disappointing them. Especially not when your date is Michael Jackson. Not wanting him to get used to doing you favors, you shook your head vehemently.

“I’ll put something together. Er- I’ll go shopping. Don’t worry about it.”

Michael pouted, seeming a bit put-out.

“What if I wanted to help you pick it out?” he practically whined.

You raised your eyebrows at him in disbelief.

“…Okay? But I’m paying for it.” You said.

“Deal!” He chirped.

…Interactions appreciated for Part 2, thank you for reading

#michael jackson #king of pop #mjforever #applehead #moonwalker #mjj #michael jackson x reader #michael jackson fanfic

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