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　　　IT'S THE FALLING IN

　　LOVE ━━ M. JACKSON.

༉‧ FRAGMENT 𝑰. ╱ ⲱⲥ. 𝟯𝟱𝟬𝟬.

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘. ━━ ༉‧ 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑚𝑦𝑠. 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑡-𝑛𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑟 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑎𝑦. 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆. ━━ ༉‧ 𝖳𝖧𝖱𝖠𝖣!𝖬𝖨𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖤𝖫 x 𝖯𝖮𝖯𝖲𝖳𝖠𝖱!𝖱𝖤𝖠𝖣𝖤𝖱. 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒. ━━ ༉‧ 𝗦𝗟𝗢𝗪 𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗡. 𝗠𝗨𝗟𝗧𝗜𝗣𝗟𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗦. 𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦. ╱ 𝖥𝖨𝖱𝖲𝖳 𝖬𝖤𝖤𝖳𝖨𝖭𝖦 ╱ 𝖱𝖤𝖠𝖣𝖤𝖱 𝖨𝖲 𝖨𝖭𝖳𝖮 𝖠𝖲𝖳𝖱𝖮𝖫𝖮𝖦𝖸 ╱ 𝖲𝖧𝖸!𝖬𝖨𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖤𝖫 ╱ 𝖠𝖶𝖪𝖶𝖠𝖱𝖣!𝖬𝖨𝖢𝖧𝖠𝖤𝖫 ╱ 𝖥𝖫𝖨𝖱𝖳𝖨𝖭𝖦. 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆. ━━ ༉‧ @alohaluz @thedoggonegirl @cowboysnvodka @vannie-world @laetasolis @veraberaxx @jinxtheplanet @kayybaereads @rosiiee3 @mtcloudsworld @rubyistired36 @reystarkf1 @daemontargaryenwhore @whyxo @keshakim @midnightsunkissssed masterpost ⋮ next

#🎙️𝗜𝗦𝗔𝗨𝗥𝗔. ━━ 𝗙𝗜𝗖.#michael jackson x you #michael jackson x reader #michael jackson ff #michael jackson fanfic #michael jackson #mj #first meeting #awkward flirting #meet cute #grammys #slow burn #singer reader #michael is a gentleman

Hello! I know this may sound too complicated or something like that but I really really love your work and was thinking about Michael in his bad era x singer reader who is also his enemy maybe....She's probably just as famous as him,always taking his spotlight and fans! And reader who lovessss pissing him off because she has a crush on him (and Mike has also). It would be so perfect if you'd consider it ending with them sleeping together🫣(if you prefer to keep it, just fluff is fine lol it will be a masterpiece anyway)

A/N - Oh my ! Thank you for the request darling <3. Enemies to lovers ft. MJ is something I can definitely get behind, I love your style @minavsdracula. Hope you enjoy sweetness, along with all my other lovely readers. P.S. I personally get hand cramps when I'm anxious, so . . you'll see what I mean.

| Michael Jackson has reached King of Pop status with his new Bad Album. But he's not the only one chasing the throne. . .

ᯓ‎♪ ⚡︎ ' The Marlboro King ' Michael Jackson

This is a Michael Jackson x Singer! Reader. Reader is Female as requested. Enemies to Lovers, Bad Era 1989, NO Y/N.

SMUT(with plot), Checkpoint provided. (18+ towards the end). Vulgar talk, consensual groping, praise, p.I.v, freaky Michael. NSFW Michael based off @michaelsfavgirl 's headcanons. (soo lovely, mayyybee slight foot fetish. . ? don't quote me. . .) Reader climbs to the top quicker than Michael reached it. Fiery, Sarcastic Michael. Envious Michael. Confident, 'Man-Eater'-ish Reader. Christian Louboutin. HARD-CORE SLOWBURN/ BUILD-UP. Work of Fiction.

Back and Forth Bickering. Not angst, just conflictive flirting. Confrontative , combative press appearances. Reader drags him around on a leash. . . and he likes it.

Fully and utterly obsessed with you Michael. Despite the 'fighting' , he can't stand keeping himself away from you. . .

Word Count: 3,483

Number one-best-selling album globally for the entirety of 1988.

Number five on the Billboard 200.

The Bad Solo Album achieved everything Michael had hoped, and more. He was the King of Pop, a household name whispered between friends and family on the streets of every corner of the world.

No one could take his spotlight, no one even stood a chance. He could sit comfortably atop his throne for as long as he needed, without worrying about a single threat.

Or so he thought.

You had completely overtaken the kingdom he had built, crushing down the iron walls and dominating his stage within a fortnight. Every Newspaper, every television outlet—before they broadcasted his songs or placed him on the cover, they always prioritized you.

Your image would dominate the front articles, gaze unwavering with a ferocity that had drawn in millions, if not billions of fans.

His fans.

Yandere batfam x Singer!Reader x baby bro

You were just trying to sing.

Nothing special. Not a concert, not a performance, just… humming to yourself in the hallway. Soft. Quiet. Fragile.

“Maybe don’t do that,” Dick’s voice broke your moment. You turned, wide-eyed.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Singing’s not really your thing, y’know? Steph might get upset if you’re trying to take the spotlight. Just trying to help.”

You stopped singing after that.

The gala came next. You weren’t sure why you tried.

The dress was your favorite. Black with a deep green sheen under light, sleek and regal — something you picked without anyone else’s opinion. It made you feel powerful.

“You’re wearing that?” Dick said, adjusting his cufflinks. “Maybe something simpler? You don’t want to outshine Cass. Or make Barbara uncomfortable.”

You changed into something plain. Beige. Forgettable.

He smiled at you when you did.

Every little thing you did was met with a quiet sigh. A deflection. A dismissal.

Your ideas? “Too much work.” Your dreams? “Not realistic.” Your emotions? “Too dramatic.”

You started eating dinner late so you wouldn’t interrupt their laughter. You trained alone in silence. You stopped talking about your day — because no one asked.

You stopped being loud. You stopped being you.

Eventually, they forgot your birthday. Then the room you used to decorate went back to white. Your favorite mug was taken. Your training slot was given to Tim.

Even Alfred started calling you “Miss” instead of your name.

You became a shadow.

Then you met Eli.

Just a kid, wide-eyed and alone at the park. Scraped knees. Bruised soul.

You saw yourself in him instantly. And when you gave him your sandwich, he looked at you like you gave him a home.

You started seeing him every day. Teaching him how to fight — not just punches, but how to protect his heart. You let him paint your nails, pick your outfits, watch horror movies with popcorn and no judgment. You sang again — badly, but Eli didn’t care. He howled with laughter and joined in.

For the first time, someone loved you back.

“Can I call you sis?” he asked one day.

You cried in his hoodie.

Years passed. You went to college. Eli followed, a grade below you. He bragged about you to everyone — his sister, the smartest, the bravest, the coolest girl alive.

You started singing at open mics. Wearing dresses that made heads turn. You wrote poems. Painted street walls. Helped abused kids. Got awards. Built a life.

But Gotham has long claws. And they don’t let go.

Bruce showed up first. His voice low and calculated.

“You’ve been seen with a minor. That boy — Eli — we can’t verify his background. You should come home. We’re worried.”

You smiled coldly. “He’s not a weapon. He’s my brother.”

Next came Dick.

“We’re your family.”

“You buried me,” you snapped. “Family doesn’t kill dreams and call it protection.”

Tim hacked your emails. Jason threatened Eli’s classmates. Steph cried on stream. Babs accused you of manipulation. Cass wouldn’t even look at you.

Then came the lie: “She groomed him.”

They said you took advantage of a younger boy. That your love was obsessive, controlling, toxic. That you used him to fill a void.

They never realized it was them who hollowed you out in the first place.

But Eli? He never doubted.

He stood on a podium at a youth gala, grabbed the mic, and told the world:

“She raised me when no one else would. When I had nothing, she gave me dignity.”

You were investigated. Cleared. The world moved on.

The Batfamily didn’t.

They stalked. Whispered. Watched you from rooftops like you were still theirs.

You didn’t stop living.

But you never forgave.

Years later, at another gala — this time your gala — Dick watched you walk in with Eli on your arm.

You wore that green-black dress again.

You looked like fire.

And for the first time, he realized: Paper dolls don’t bleed. But you were never paper.

You were steel wrapped in silk.

And they had lost you forever. A/N: req by @zealousgoldcollective

#yandere batfam x reader #yandere batfam #yandere bruce wayne #yandere damian wayne #yandere richard grayson #yandere jason todd #yandere barbara gordon #yandere tim wayne #gifs #singer reader

is it over now? | carlos sainz

pairing: singer!reader x carlos sainz

summary: you decide to release a breakup song on your ex boyfriend’s birthday, one year after the break up

fc: riley keough

warning: some grammatical errors in the tweets that i was too lazy to fix sorryyy

a/n: me??? writing a carlos fic??? the stars must’ve aligned

—

liked by ynupdates, f1wags and others

f1gossip it’s been officially one year since carlos sainz and y/n y/l/n broke up

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Winner winner, chicken dinner || Michael x Singer! Reader ||

Synopsis: You and Michael both released albums around the same time. He released Bad, while you released Twilight. Now you're sitting side by side at the Grammys, waiting for the winners to be announced. (Please I'm not creative enough to make an album name 😔)

Theme: fluff

Gener: short one-shot

Pairing: Michael x Reader in a established relationship

Inspired by a moment that happened with Beyoncé (the queen) and Jay-z. (,; ⩌ ;,)!

You and Michael were sitting next to each other at the Grammy Awards. The two of you had been dating publicly for about a year and a half, and everyone knew you loved each other deeply. Paparazzi often spotted you out on many dates and at countless events. Some had even managed to capture more intimate photos of the two of you when you thought you were completely alone in your car.

That being said, when you and Michael arrived at the Grammys, everyone was ecstatic. Michael had released Bad, and you had released Twilight, both of which were nominated that evening.

Sitting beside you, Michael rested a hand on your knee while the two of you talked quietly, occasionally waving to the cameras whenever they panned over to you.

Soon, the award announcements began.

The announcers, a man in a suit and a woman in a beautiful red dress, walked up to the microphone. Your name, Michael's, and two other artists appeared on the big screen.

"And the Grammy for Album of the Year goes to..." the woman announced as she carefully opened the envelope.

The man took the opportunity to make a joke.

"Looks like we might have an argument at home after this," he laughed. "We'll finally find out who really wears the pants in the relationship!"

The audience erupted into laughter.

Michael looked over at you, laughing just as hard. You grinned and playfully punched his shoulder. He dramatically clutched it as if he'd been seriously injured, earning another round of laughter from the crowd.

Once the room quieted again, the woman smiled down at the card.

"Twilight!"

The audience burst into applause.

Both you and Michael stood immediately. He wrapped you in a tight hug, kissing your cheek before taking your hand. He walked you up the stairs like a gentleman and kept a gentle hand against the small of your back.

When you reached the microphone, you adjusted your dress while Michael respectfully stepped back a few paces, giving you your moment.

"Thank you, everybody. This is truly wonderful," you began, smiling through your emotions. "I'd like to thank all of you so, so much from the bottom of my heart."

Before continuing, you glanced back at Michael.

He was already smiling at you.

"And before I go," you said softly, "I want to thank you, Michael. You are my muse... and my love. Thank you for coming into my life."

His smile only grew warmer as he visibly melted at your words. You gave the audience one final wave before turning back toward him.

Michael reached out without hesitation, intertwining your fingers with his. He stepped down from the stage first, helping you descend carefully in your heels. Once you reached the bottom, you thanked him quietly.

Instead of answering, he simply smiled and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of your mouth.

Just a fun little short because I havnt posted a fic in a while!

You’re On Your Own, Kid

Matthew Schaefer x brother!reader

summary: after years of distance, resentment, grief, and misunderstanding, matthew is finally forced to confront everything that went wrong between him and his brother. as old wounds resurface and painful truths come to light, the two of them are left standing in the aftermath of everything they lost — and everything they still might be able to save.

author’s note: hi <3 this fic is very much for the plot and the angst, and i just wanted to clarify that i’m not trying to disrespect any players at all. i’m also not trying to insinuate that the way i wrote any of these characters is realistic or representative of who they are irl. this is purely fictional and dramatized for the story! basically: it is angst and all for the sake of the fic ALSO: i 100% used AI to help me edit this and clean it up, but i did write it all myself. so please keep in mind that while i did write it all on my own, chatgpt did save me when it came to the grammatical errors and the format of the fic and the scene spacing (so there are things like “just” used too often)

warnings: slightly toxic family environment, trauma, sexual assault mention, cancer/loss of parent(s), mentions of unhealthy eating habits, depression, mentions of homophobia, overall just sad shit bro

word count: 7.5k (i know. its a lot. bare with me)

Matthew sat in front of his stall with one elbow on his knee and his phone in his hand, half dressed for warmups, while your voice poured tinny and soft through one AirPod.

The Islanders’ room was loud in the usual ways. Tape ripping. Sticks knocking against the floor. Someone on the far side laughing too hard at something not that funny. The music overhead. The low hum of pregame routine.

But Matthew barely heard any of it.

He just stared at your album cover on his screen and listened.

You’re On Your Own, Kid.

Then Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Boy.

Then Summer Child.

By the time I Can Do It With a Broken Heart came on, his face had gone still in that way it always did when he was feeling too much and refusing to show any of it. His heart squeezing when you sang She said She’d love me all her life/But that life was too short, breaking down, I hit the floor. The direct nod at your mom’s death shooting a fiery blow straight to his heart.

Mat Barzal looked over while he was retying one of his skates and snorted.

“Why do you look like someone just kicked your puppy?”

A couple heads turned.

Matthew didn’t answer.

Barzal nudged his shin with the blade guard on his skate. “Seriously. You look miserable. What is that? Breakup music?”

Matthew pulled the AirPod out slowly, thumb still resting on the screen. He looked down at the tracklist again. mirrorball was next.

“No,” he said.

Mat waited.

Matthew inhaled through his nose. “It’s my brother’s album.”

Barzal blinked. “Your brother?”

“Yeah.”

There was an awkward quiet pause, when Gatcomb was standing nearby, already taping his stick, frowned. “Wait. Your brother as in….”

Matthew gave one short nod. “Y/n L/n.”

That got more attention than he wanted.

A couple of the guys looked up fully now.

“No way,” Barzal said, eyebrows up. “Like popstar Y/n L/n?”

Matthew’s mouth tightened. “There’s only one, so.”

Barzal stared at him for a second. “Why have you never said that before?”

Matthew shrugged, but it wasn’t casual. It was defensive. “Never came up.”

Horvat sat across from him, lacing up one of his skates and said, “That’s wild.”

Mayfield leaned back against his stall. “So you guys close?”

Matthew looked back down at the phone.

Your name sat there on the screen, bright and impossible to ignore.

“No,” he said.

Something in his voice made the room go a little quieter around them.

“We don’t talk.”

Barzal’s expression shifted. Less teasing now. “Why not?”

Matthew let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, except there was nothing amused in it.

“Because he’s my brother,” he said, “and somehow that made things worse.”

Barzal tilted his head. “That doesn’t answer anything.”

Matthew rubbed his thumb across the edge of his phone. He could already feel the old ache building under his ribs, the familiar one. The one with your name on it.

He looked up at the ceiling once, then back at Barzal.

“It started when we were kids.”

And all at once he was gone.

⸻

You were thirteen and nearing the end of eighth grade the first time the house made you feel like there was no room in it for you.

Johnny was in a mood. He was being mean in that casual big brother way that felt like intentional cruelty disguised as innocent, brotherly love.

The fight had started over nothing, which is how the worst ones always start.

You had said something sharp back to him after he’d knocked over one of your notebooks and laughed at the pages full of lyrics and crossed-out lines and badly drawn melodies written in margins.

He’d shoved your shoulder. You’d shoved him back.

And then he said it, red-faced and sneering.

A mean, ugly comment about you being gay.

The room had gone dead quiet after. Not because anyone else was there, but because you stopped moving, fear and hurt freezing you in place.

Johnny had looked almost surprised by the stillness on your face, like maybe he’d expected you to hit him or yelling or something louder than what he got. Understanding the reason behind your stillness, he began apologizing.

“Shit. Y/n. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize… Wait. You’re actually gay? I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Instead you’d just bent down, picked up your notebook, and walked away.

Matthew had been seven at the time. Too young to understand the impact of what had just happened, only old enough to understand that it had happened.

He remembered standing in the hallway, watching you pass him.

Your expression had been blank, but you were crying. Neither of your brothers knew the process and confidence it took to come to terms with your sexuality at that age. Your face was blank in the way people get when something hurts too much to show.

He remembered that now, in flashes, with the kind of shame that you feel later in life and feel even more guilty over.

A month later, you were at the dining room table with your computer open in front of you, headphones on, building something out of sounds Matthew didn’t understand. There were loops laid on tracks, fragments of layered vocals, keyboard chords played and replayed until they turned into a shape only you could see. He never realized how much of a science music is, the language of it.

Matthew had wanted you outside with him, simple as that. He wanted you to play hockey in the driveway with him. He wanted your undivided attention. He wanted, without knowing how to name it, for you to act like a brother the way brothers were supposed to.

So he’d run to your mom in the kitchen and complained in the merciless nagging way kids do.

“Y/n won’t come outside.”

Your mom hadn’t looked up from where she was drying a dish. “Then go ask Johnny.”

“I want Y/n.”

“He’s busy.”

“He’s not busy,” Matthew had argued. “He’s just on his computer making music that’s never going to be good anyway.”

Your hands had stopped moving over the keyboard, raising to your sides, eyebrows furrowed in and mouth agape.

Your mother had given Matthew a look. “You know hockey isn’t his thing.”

“But I want him to play with me.”

“Matthew.”

“Please? Just make him come outside for a little while.”

And because your mom was tired and trying to keep peace in a house that often made peace impossible, she’d called you in that voice that meant she was done arguing before the argument even started.

You’d gone anyway.

Out into the driveway, squinting in the afternoon sun, holding the stick wrong. Matthew remembered being excited for about five whole minutes before excitement turned into impatience which quickly became the innocent cruelty of a child who wants to be good at something in front of someone who isn’t.

You missed the pass he sent. Miffed completely on your own shot, losing your balance trying to stop it.

And Matthew, all his never ending energy, sharp and fast limbs, and feelings that were too big for his small body, had laughed and said, “God, you suck.”

You’d looked at him then.

Not mad. Just tired. Too tired for a boy at only thirteen.

Then another month passed.

You came home with a B minus in one class.

It should have been nothing. In another family maybe it would have been. In yours, it became something bigger than necessary.

Your mom stood in the kitchen holding the paper while you stood across from her in your damp swim jacket, chlorine still clinging to you from practice, your backpack sliding off one shoulder.

“A B-minus?” she said.

“It’s one class.”

“It’s slipping.”

“I can fix it.”

“You need to do more than fix it. You need to focus.”

“I am focused.”

“No you’re not! No swimming until you bring it up.”

“What?!”

“You heard me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“But swimming is the only—”

“No.”

Her voice rose just enough to cut through yours, calm in volume and somehow harsher for it.

“No. Why does everything have to be an argument with you? Why can’t you just be more like your brothers?”

Matthew remembered being in the next room and hearing the silence after. He hadn’t understood the sentence then. Not really. He understood the words, but not the impact it would have on you.

You had gone still.

Looked at her with something quick and raw in your face: hurt, disbelief, maybe both, before schooling it so fast it almost looked like it had never been there.

“All right,” you’d said.

A week later, all of you were at the dinner table.

Johnny talking. Matthew practically bouncing in his seat while he told some story about hockey practice, about a drill he’d done right, about a coach praising his shot. Your mom was smiling at him, and his dad was listening, and the whole table was full of a warmth that somehow curved around you instead of reaching you.

You were moving peas around your plate with the side of your fork. Not eating. Just rearranging.

Your mom noticed eventually.

“How was your day?” she asked.

You looked down at your plate. Then up.

And in a voice so calm, you said, “I think I should go live with Dad.”

For a moment, time stopped.

Matthew remembered his own spoon halfway to his mouth. Remembered your mother going pale. Remembered Johnny saying your name.

Remembered not understanding that there are sentences that split a family open even before anyone answers them.

⸻

Back in the locker room, Matthew stared at the floor between his skates.

No one said anything for a moment.

Barzal was the one who finally broke it. “So… what? You guys don’t talk just because he went to live with his dad?”

Matthew shook his head once.

“No.” He stood and reached for his helmet. “It’s deeper than that.”

He jammed his phone into the pocket of his suit pants and got to his feet. “We should head toward the ice.”

The room stirred back into motion around him.

No one pushed for more right away, but Barzal knew him well enough to know that silence like that never meant done. It just meant later.

⸻

The tunnel to the ice was cold and bright.

The crowd was a low roar beyond the walls. Matthew adjusted his gloves, rolled his shoulders once, then stepped out into the wash of arena light for warmups.

His legs knew what to do. That was the comfort of hockey. The mercy of it. On the ice, you didn’t have to understand anything. You only had to move. Barzal skated up beside him while they circled the zone.

“So what happened after he left?”

Matthew took a pass, snapped it back. “He got famous.”

“That usually helps sibling relationships.”

Matthew gave him a look that said “not ours.”

He looked away and the second memory opened up.

⸻

You were sixteen when you came back to visit in November, all long limbs and expensive clothes and the kind of exhaustion that made you look older than you were.

You had been in the industry for a year by then, technically, but not really. Not the way the world would soon understand it. You were still on the edge of becoming a story too big for the family that made you.

That night, everyone crowded around the television for the Grammy nominations. The house was loud in that anticipatory way family houses get around good news, like everyone had decided joy in advance and was just waiting for word to celebrate outwardly.

The broadcaster’s voice came through clear and polished.

“For Album, Song, Record, and Best New Artist…”

“Single Soon, Y/n L/n!”

The living room erupted. Your mom gasped and covered her mouth. Johnny shouted. Your stepdad let out a stunned laugh. Your assistant grabbed you around the shoulders, jumping up and down screaming. Everybody was talking at once.

Everybody except Matthew.

He was at the kitchen table, arms folded, staring down at a homework packet he wasn’t reading.

You looked around through the excitement, realized he wasn’t there, and stepped into the doorway between the living room and kitchen.

“Hey,” you said, still half laughing from the shock of it. “Why aren’t you celebrating with us in here?”

He didn’t look at you at first.

Then he did and there was something dark and young and kind of hurt in his face.

“Because it’s not worth celebrating.”

You blinked. “Matt…”

“It’s just another excuse for you to leave.” His voice shook with the effort of keeping it hard. “Congratulations on being some big, amazing popstar so you never have to see us again.” He shoved back from the table so fast the chair scraped, bolted out the front door, and disappeared into the cold.

A minute later the family could hear the hard, repeated thunk of pucks hitting the practice net outside.

You stood in the kitchen doorway for a long time, staring at the empty space he’d left behind.

That February you won every category you were nominated for.

Twelve Grammys in one night at only sixteen years old. You were the youngest artist ever to take that many home and the first and openly gay male artist to be nominated for that many categories and sweep them all. It was cultural reset, according to the press. A once in a lifetime star born in the 21st century.

You stood at the microphone with your suit glittering under the lights and your hands visibly shaking.

When you accepted the award for Best New Artist, you thanked your dad. You thanked your family.

And then, smiling out at a room that adored you without knowing you at all, you said, “And to my little brother Matthew, who told me a few years ago that my music was never going to be good anyway…”

The room laughed.

Even some people in the house laughed watching from home.

Matthew didn’t. He just felt his face go hot with humiliation and grief and something else he would only later recognize as guilt.

⸻

Warmups blurred around Matthew.

The San Jose Sharks came out onto the other end of the ice, a wash of teal and black sliding into a tight and intimidating formation.

Matthew’s eyes tracked the logo on one player’s chest without really meaning to.

“Sharks would be his home team,” he said.

Barzal glanced over. “Because of California?”

“Yeah. He moved to Northern California when he went to live with his dad. His dad went to college out there.”

Barzal nodded. “Well, surely your relationship got a little better after the Grammys, right?”

Matthew laughed once, humorless and dry.

“No. It got worse.”

He took another puck, fired it into the net harder than necessary.

“After the Grammys, his career blew up overnight. Like insane overnight. Stadiums. Press everywhere. Every award show. In a new country every other weekend. Every time I turned on a TV or opened my phone, there he was.”

He circled back, stopping hard enough to spray ice.

“There’d be birthdays where he was on the other side of the world. I’d get a happy birthday text. He’d try to call. I’d decline it.”

Barzal’s brows lifted. “You declined his calls?”

Matthew’s jaw flexed. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because he changed.” He looked away. “And not totally for the better.”

That wasn’t the whole truth, and he knew it.

The whole truth was that fame had made you shinier and less reachable, yes. But it had also made him feel abandoned in a way he’d never quite gotten over. Every missed call was a chance to make you feel some fraction of what he had felt.

Childish. Petty. Real.

And then came the years that broke everything open.

⸻

He was fifteen the first time you showed up unannounced at one of his high school games.

You were twenty one by then. World famous in an impossible way that made you come off as untouchable. Security when you needed it. Dark sunglasses indoors to hide your face. The kind of famous that made people stare before they even realized why.

He saw you after the game with the family, standing there with one hand in your jeans pocket, trying to smile at him like this might be normal, like you hadn’t become someone who lived in headlines and hotel suites and cities with names too glamorous for the rest of them.

And he walked right past you.

Not because he didn’t see you. He did. He walked past you, jaw locked, shoulders tense, and ignored the quiet way your face changed.

That same night, the whole family went back to the house.

There were snacks and blankets out because your mom had wanted everyone together, wanting comfort and some semblance of normalcy.

Then she sat all of you down and said the sentence that split your world in half.

She had cancer.

Everybody fell apart differently. Johnny cried openly, immediately. Matthew too, because he was still young enough that grief was simple in its shape. Your stepdad held her hand so tightly his knuckles whitened. You went to her and hugged her and for one suspended second, Matthew thought maybe all the old anger had been stupid, because family was still family when it mattered.

Later, during the movie night that none of you were really watching, your phone buzzed.

You stood.

“I have to take this.”

And went upstairs.

Matthew watched you go with a new and furious certainty hardening in his chest.

Mom tells us she has cancer and he only cares about himself.

That sight rooted itself in him right there. It lived in him for months. Years, maybe.

He didn’t know then that the call was with an oncologist. One of the best in North America. That your assistant had spent hours arranging it. That you stood at the top of the stairs speaking in a voice that silently broke while you asked about treatment plans and clinical options and who they could call and how fast they could move.

He only knew you left the room.

And Matthew had always made a religion out of your habit of leaving.

February of 2024 smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee.

The hospital room was too bright and then not bright enough and somehow unbearably ordinary for a place where the worst thing in the world was happening.

When the doctors told them she was gone, Johnny folded in half with the force of it. Matthew sobbed with his whole body. You were crying too, but in that strange, silent way that looked almost strained until you turned and walked down the hall because you couldn’t break down in front of anyone, not wanting to upset them even more.

Matthew had watched you go even then.

Leaving… again.

Only later… months later, through some conversation with your assistant and then your dad’s old texts and then one awful moment when Johnny put pieces together aloud, did Matthew learn the truth about that phone call the night she’d told you all she had cancer.

You had been trying to save her. You had cared enough to leave the room because caring in other’s views was making you frantic.

It knocked something loose in him.

Not enough to fix anything, but enough to ruin the version of you he’d been leaning on.

⸻

During a line rush, Barzal coasted near him and said quietly, “It sounds like he cared to me. He probably just didn’t want you seeing him like that.”

Matthew’s mouth pulled tight.

“Maybe,” he said.

“I wasn’t all that nice to him after that either.”

Barzal didn’t say anything.

He didn’t need to.

Matthew already knew where the next memory would go.

⸻

You were twenty three at the time of the 2025 NHL Draft.

Matthew had known you were coming because his dad told him. Had told him with that careful voice adults use when they suspect one of their kids is already angry and don’t want to set off the rest of it. He was seated with Johnny, his dad, and the ache of his mother’s absence like another person at the table.

Then you came in, suit dark and elegant, face thinner than he remembered, your eyes searching until they found them.

You walked over and stopped just short of the table.

“Mind if I sit with you guys?”

Johnny lit up instantly. “Yeah, of course.”

His dad gestured to the empty chair beside him with quiet affection. “Saved your spot for you.”

Matthew looked at you and felt something hot and ugly rise up in his throat.

Because there you were. Clearly late, but looking beautiful, famous. All together, impossible to ignore.

Because you still got to belong. Because part of him had always believed that leaving should have cost you the family, and every time it didn’t, he resented you more.

When his name was called first overall, the whole room exploded around him.

He hugged Johnny andd his dad. The moment was everything he’d dreamed of and nothing like it, because your mother was not there to see it.

He turned to you, giving you a curt nod because he could not bring himself to do more, then walked to the stage and pulled on the Islanders jersey with hands that only barely fit.

In his draft speech, he talked about his mom and how he was playing for her.

He didn’t look at you.

After the after party, all of you went out for dinner. The restaurant was loud, crowded, glossy. Everyone celebrating him, the first overall pick, the future. Cameras had finally vanished. For a moment, it was just family.

Matthew noticed you weren’t eating much, not really touching anything but rather playing with your food.

He was already angry and exhausted by the mere nearness of you, the wrongness of you in the same room as all his grief.

So he said the cruelest thing he could think of in the moment.

“What? Sad there was no way for you to make everything about yourself for once?”

You looked up sharply, hurt flashing across your face before you could hide it.

“You know…” you said slowly, quietly, “you’ve been a dick to me for the last few years and I don’t understand why. Was it because I went to live with my dad? When I started making music that people actually liked? Why?”

Matthew looked away.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Then he stood. “I’m not hungry anymore. Let’s just go.”

Outside the restaurant, the night was crowded with people from the draft. Prospects. NHL stars. Names anyone who follows the hockey world would have noticed immediately. Bedard. Crosby. MacKinnon. Tkachuk.

You didn’t seem to notice a single one of them.

You followed him out onto the busy street and said, “No. Seriously, Matthew. Why do you hate me so much?”

He spun around so fast it made even Johnny jump at the sudden movement.

“Because all you do is leave!”

People nearby went quiet, watching the chaos unfold in shock.

“You left us to live with your dad! You left us to be a popstar! You left us when we found out Mom had cancer. You left when she died and now you want to show up like this and pretend we’re okay? We’re not!”

You stared at him, eyes widening, tears instantly filling to your brim.

And then he said something unforgivable:

“Mom would never forgive you for this,” he snapped. “She would hate you.”

Your whole face changed. Not dramatically. It was almost worse, because it went very still.

You swallowed and looked to the left. Nodding a couple times like you were trying to understand an unearthed truth you had not expected to hear from him. One tear slipped down the left side of your face.

“All right,” you said, voice breaking. “I wasn’t aware that’s how you think of me. I… um…” You breathed in shallowly. “I’m just gonna go then.”

You turned and started walking toward the hotel.

Matthew, still furious, shouted after you, “Go ahead. Do what you do best and leave.”

You didn’t turn around, but he saw your shoulders shake once before you disappeared.

He thought about that almost every night afterward.

⸻

The Islanders won.

Matthew scored once and assisted on another, and the crowd chanted and the room was all victory afterward, all adrenaline and noise.

But once the media was done with him and the congratulations had all been handed out, he sat at his stall again, phone in hand to finish your album.

Now that he was listening for them, the references were everywhere.

A line about a hospital hallway.

A lyric about your mother’s perfume on an old sweatshirt.

A line that sounded suspiciously like the driveway back home, the cheap net, the smack of a puck against plywood.

A song that turned the dinner table into a haunted house.

A bridge that all but said his name without saying it.

He sat with his elbows on his knees and let track after track rip something open in him.

He opened older headlines, reading them in the harsh white light of his phone:

Your dad dying from cancer, only a year after you lost mom.

Your stadium show attacked by a homophobe.

You injured in the aftermath, then almost killed in the car accident the morning after while driving to the hospital to visit victims from the attack. Your fiancée dead. You alive.

Photographs of you leaving a club disheveled and glassy-eyed. The world chewing on your pain before it knew it was pain. No one, but you, knowing you had been assaulted in the club bathroom.

Then being diagnosed with the same type cancer that had killed your dad. Three months later: remission. Recovery. Another false positive headline about you “beating cancer” with the kind of language people use when they want to turn suffering into something uplifting for their own convenience.

He scrolled and scrolled until the room blurred due to tears he didn’t realize had welled in his eyes. It felt, reading it all together, less like your life and more like an indictment.

As if the universe itself had taken aim and the world had looked at you, deciding that not enough bad things had happened yet.

He put the phone in his pocket and walked out of the room hollowed out. Near one of the concession stands in the quieter part of the arena, you were waiting for him.

No security visible. Just you in a dark coat, sleeves tugged over part of your hands, expression tired enough that for one insane second all he could see was thirteen year old you at the dinner table moving food around a plate.

He slowed.

You looked up. For a second neither of you moved, then he walked over.

“Hey,” you said.

Your voice was gentler than he expected.

“Hey.”

The silence after was unbearable.

The crowd was gone now, seldom for a few arena staff in the distance. The smell of popcorn gone stale.

“I didn’t know if you’d stop,” you said.

“I almost didn’t.”

“Fair.”

He looked at you properly then.

You were thinner. Paler. There was a drag to the way you stood, as if your body was still relearning itself after all it had survived. Up close, the famous parts of you disappeared. What was left was just his brother. Twenty four years old and exhausted beyond language.

He hated that this made his chest hurt.

You glanced at him, then away. “I heard you got the game puck.”

“Yeah.”

“Congrats.”

“Thanks.”

Awkward silence vibrated between the two of you.

You exhaled slowly. “I listened to some of the postgame interview.”

“Why?”

You shrugged. “I keep tabs.”

That hit him strangely. He looked down at the floor. “I listened to the album.”

This time it was your turn to go still.

“Oh.”

“Mostly sad songs.”

A faint, humorless smile touched your mouth. “Yeah. That seems to be my brand lately.”

“You wrote about Mom.”

You looked off toward the emptying stands. “I wrote about a lot of things.”

“You wrote about me.”

Your jaw shifted. “Some of it.”

Matthew swallowed.

He could feel the old anger in him, but now it sat next to understanding.

“I read the headlines,” he said.

You laughed once. It sounded brittle. “That must’ve been fun.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried.”

He frowned. “No, I mean all of it. The cancer. The…” He stopped before the club, the assault. He didn’t know if he had the right to say it out loud. “Everything.”

You stared at him a moment, eyes unreadable.

Then you said, very quietly, “Because every time I tried to be around you, you looked at me like I was ruining the room.”

He flinched.

You looked down at your hands. “And because after a certain point, you start feeling stupid for bleeding in front of people who resent you for making a mess.”

He opened his mouth.

You kept going, softer now, like the truth only came out when you didn’t look directly at it.

“I know I left. I know that. I know it hurt you. But I was thirteen, Matt. I was drowning in that house.” Your voice shook once. “And later, yeah, I got famous and I got busy and I got worse at being there in normal ways. I know that too. But I never stopped…” You stopped and swallowed. “I never stopped caring.”

Matthew’s throat tightened.

He remembered the phone call upstairs. The oncologist. The months of hating you for something that had actually been love in the only form you knew how to give it.

He said, “At the draft… when I said what I said…”

You laughed under your breath, a sound with no joy in it at all. “Yeah. I remember.”

“I shouldn’t have said Mom would hate you.”

Your face changed at that, but only a little. Like the wound was old enough now that touching it no longer bled, it only ached.

“No,” you said. “You shouldn’t have.”

He nodded, half expecting you to say more. To hit back. To tell him where to go. To finally give him the version of your anger he had always thought he deserved.

Instead you just looked tired.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

The words sounded small in a building this big. Small against the years. Small against the dead.

You looked at him for a long time.

“I’m sorry too.”

“For what?”

“For making leaving look easy,” you said. “For every birthday text from another country. For every call you declined that I should’ve made in person sooner. For not knowing how to be your brother anymore once the world got loud.”

Matthew looked away. His eyes burned.

“Do you know what the worst part is?” you asked. You smiled without humor. “I kept thinking if one more terrible thing happened to me, maybe it would finally make sense to everybody. Maybe then I’d stop looking like the villain in all my own old stories.” Your voice went quiet. “But it just kept happening and it still didn’t fix anything.”

He stared at you.

In the fluorescent light, you looked less like a popstar than a person apologizing for taking up space.

Maybe that was what that whole year had done to you. Maybe that was what he had helped do.

His voice came out rough. “You should’ve called me.”

You smiled weakly. “Would you have answered?”

He didn’t.

That was answer enough.

You nodded faintly. “Yeah.”

Without hesitation or though, he said the thing he hadn’t known he was coming here to say until it was already halfway out of him.

“You weren’t the only one who got hurt, Y/n.”

The sentence landed between you.

Not as accusation, at least mot entirely.

Just fact. A bruised, imperfect fact.

Your face softened in a way that made you look younger.

“I know,” you said. “I know.”

He couldn’t stay after that. Couldn’t do whatever came next while standing in the bright public in-between of an arena concourse.

So he nodded once, turned, and walked away. He could feel your eyes on his back all the way to the tunnel.

⸻

A month later, you won Album of the Year again.

The Islanders were in Chicago after playing the Blackhawks, and Matthew was at Connor Bedard’s apartment with half the league’s under-twenty-five royalty jammed into one space.

Connor. The Hughes brothers. Macklin Celebrini. Will Smith. Matt Rempe. Gabe Perrault. Cole Caufield. Juraj Slafkovský. Lukas Reichel. Adam Fantilli.

The TV was on. Everybody half watching, half talking over it the way athletes do with award shows they claim not to care about and somehow always have on.

Then your category came up and suddenly the roomwent mute.

You walked to the stage looking immaculate and somehow wrecked at the same time. Beautiful in the polished, unreal way celebrities are on television, except Matthew could see now what most people in the room couldn’t: the fragility under it. The overcareful posture. The face of someone holding themselves together one breath at a time.

You took the trophy.

The applause swelled.

Then you started speaking.

“This has been the best year of my career,” you said. “And the worst year of my life.”

Nobody in Connor’s apartment moved.

Your speech went on, and the longer it did, the less it sounded like an acceptance and more like an apology. Not for the album, but for being alive. For surviving what other people hadn’t. For still standing there. For existing where everyone could see you.

Matthew felt something cold slide through him.

Celebrini muttered, “Fuck, man. Life has just had it out for that guy.”

Matthew stiffened so hard Connor noticed.

“You good?”

Matthew was already standing. “Can I use your bedroom?”

Connor nodded immediately. “Yeah, go.”

He shut the door behind him, suddenly desperate for quiet.

Then he called you.

Once.

No answer.

Twice.

Nothing.

Three times.

Four.

Still nothing.

He sat on the edge of Connor’s bed with his elbows on his knees and his phone in his hand, heart beating too fast for someone sitting perfectly still.

Then it buzzed.

Y/n is calling.

He answered so fast he almost fumbled it.

“Hello?”

The noise on your end was overwhelming—music, voices, the huge bright chaos of after-award crowds. For a second he thought the connection was bad.

Then your voice came through.

“Matty?”

Just hearing you say his name like that did something painful to his chest.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the calls. Everything’s insane here.”

“I figured.”

Then, awkwardly, “Congrats.”

You laughed softly. Tired. Disbelieving. “Thanks.”

He could hear you moving, a door shutting, the noise dampening as you stepped somewhere quieter.

“All right,” you said after a second. “What’s up?”

Matthew swallowed. He hadn’t thought this far.

“I saw your speech.”

“Unfortunate for both of us.”

He almost smiled.

“It sounded…” He stopped, searching. “It sounded like you think you have to apologize for surviving.”

The line was quiet for a beat.

Then you said, lighter than the words deserved, “Occupational hazard.”

“Y/n.”

There was a pause on the other end, and when you spoke again your voice was lower.

“I don’t know how to do this year,” you admitted. “Everyone keeps telling me how strong I am and I feel like I’m made of tissue paper and bad timing.”

Matthew closed his eyes.

“You don’t have to do it alone.”

Silence.

He heard you breathe in, then out.

“That’s new,” you said softly.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

Then, carefully, like he was crossing thin ice, “I was wrong about a lot of things.”

You didn’t answer right away.

He kept going before he could lose his nerve.

“About you leaving. About Mom. About the phone call. About all of it, probably.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “I think I was so angry that it got easier to keep making you the bad guy than to admit I missed you.”

The words sat there between you.

He could hear your breath catch.

On the other end, when you finally spoke, you sounded like you were already struggling to hold the tears back.

“I missed you too.”

Matthew looked down at the floor. In the living room outside, somebody laughed at something on television. A hockey game highlight maybe. Life going on stupidly, normally, while his whole chest felt cut open.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” he admitted.

“You probably can’t,” you said.

He flinched.

Then you added, “Not all at once.”

He breathed.

“Okay.”

Then you said, with the faintest trace of the old dry humor that used to belong to you before grief made everything brittle, “For the record, I always thought your skating was obnoxiously good.”

Matthew let out a startled laugh.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Annoying, actually.”

He smiled despite himself. “Your music got all right, I guess.”

You snorted. “Thanks. How generous of you to say.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees again.

“Where are you now?”

“In a hallway at the Grammys hiding from people who want pictures of me crying.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It is.”

Then he said, “Text me when you get back to your house.”

There was a pause.

“Why?”

“So I know you got there safely.”

You went quiet for just long enough that he wondered if he’d pushed too far.

Then, very softly: “Okay.”

He nodded to no one. “Okay.”

Neither of you hung up.

Not immediately.

It was strangely hard to end it.

Finally you said, “Goodnight, Matty.”

“Night.”

After the line went dead, Matthew sat there for a long time with the phone still in his hand.

Outside the bedroom door, the apartment noise went on. Connor and the others talking. Somebody raiding the fridge. A burst of laughter.

Normal life.

But in Matthew’s chest something had shifted, small and stubborn and painful.

Not forgiveness. Not yet. Not healing either.

Just this:

for the first time in years, when you had called back, he had answered.

And for the first time in years, neither of you had tried to make the other one leave.

sweet like candy (LN4 SMAU)

summary: in which Lando is a complete simp over singer Y/N L/N

warnings: a little bit of hate, cursing, suggestive content

pairing: lando norris × singer!reader

face claim: sabrina carpenter / morgan riddle

✧ next up

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ENJOY. 　⁺ 　 . ✦

ynln

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ynln: la dolce vita or whatever they say

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#ln4 #formula 1 #f1 #f1 x reader #f1 x you #f1 fanfic #f1 fic #lando norris smut #lando #norris #lando norris x reader #lando norris fic #lando norris singer reader #lando norris x you #lando norris x y/n #lando norris reader #singer reader #lando norris

Never Growing Up --- Eddie Munson X Fem!Reader

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Rockstar Eddie Munson X Singer Female Reader

Words: 8179

Summary: 4 years ago, Eddie Munson left Hawkins to pursue his dream in LA, leaving the small town and you, his high school sweetheart and first love behind. You never forgave him and after getting your own break your annoyed to learn his label and yours have planned a benefit in town and your the headliners. Now forced back together you'll have to get through the weekend without letting all the pent up feelings get in the way.

Setting: 1990 Hawkins but an AU where nothing happened lol.

Warnings: Just some swears and a lot of angst, you get kinda mad at him.

Tags: Eddie Munson, Rockstar Eddie, Stranger Things, Angst, fluff, unrequited feelings, Dustin appears, music au, everyone lives AU, old loves, mentions of the song Levon by Elton John, no use of Y/N.

AN: Now...who the HELL is this man...hahaha...Blame @dearwalker who I for some reason love and want to write me smut HAHA. So in turn I made this and I hope she loves it, if it blows up, it's her fault. Also I may like the guy...Keyword may...Please note I am going back to Bucky tho...He's my real rockstar. But for the moment, I guess Eddie can share some love. Divider by: @strangergraphics

Never Growing Up

“I'm like, "Yeah, whatever, we're still living like that". When the sun's going down, we'll be raisin' our cups. Singing, "Here's to never growing up".”