Fractured Heart: The Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper

"Fractured Heart: the Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper" is a #boysLove / #gay #romance #webnovel about a shy, sulky, economically underprivileged underground EDM artist that ends up falling in love with a funny, flirty, overly-friendly world-famous pop star who seems like he has it all, until they discover that even two people from such wildly different social classes can still bond over their 'fractured hearts'!

You can read four advance chapters for $5/month, as well as the first eight chapters for FREE, on patreon:

"SFW" version: patreon.com/fracturedheart

"as intended" adult-only version: patreon.com/fracturedHeartAO

You can also find more info on the main website: www.fracturedheart.net

Currently editing this scene I wrote yesterday where the MC in my gay romance story Fractured Heart is playing the guitar version of one of his pop star boyfriend's songs for him after learning it on his own and omg they're so sweet I'm gonna die TT_TT

(Spoiler alert: the boys in my 'boys love' story do, in fact, fall in love)

~~

Those emerald eyes were widened as Lysander joined Theo in the room. The singer paused at the doorway before slowly folding his long legs beneath him to copy Theo’s pose, sitting only a foot away so that their knees were almost close enough to touch. Theo kept his eyes downcast, trying not to grimace as his hand stilled on the frets.

“Don’t s-say anything if I mess up,” he commanded by way of greeting, flickering his eyes up only momentarily to see his boyfriend furrow his brows before the singer offered a soft nod. “I’m…I’m s-still practicing.”

“I won’t,” Lysander promised, fingers lightly curling as he clasped either knee.

The position reminded Theo a little of a karate student awaiting instruction from his master, and an uncomfortable titter almost burst out of Theo before he quickly tamped it down. Then, because the poignant silence was only making him more nervous, he forced himself to start playing.

It was the underlying rhythm to Fractured Heart, learned after he’d shyly asked Lysander for the guitar sheet music for some of his songs more than a month prior. Lysander had grinned brilliantly at the request, obviously smug about Theo’s desire to teach himself something so important to his lover, and Theo had scowled and made some snarky response to counteract that arrogance. Still, Lysander had whisked immediately to his office and printed out the scoresheets that same day, though Theo had waited until his lover was gone at work before he’d started plucking out the melodies on his own.

He still wasn’t all that confident about it, so he played slowly, giving himself time to make sure he had his fingers properly positioned before he tried to strum the note. Once or twice a note came out slightly wrong anyway, and he grimaced, fighting the urge to give up in a huff. Lysander stayed absolutely silent throughout the whole song, and with his eyes trained on the guitar, Theo could almost pretend as if his lover wasn’t there; as if he was just practicing on his own as he’d gotten into the habit of doing (almost) every single day.

At the end of it, his hands on the edge of trembling from nerves, Theo looked up at last. And found his boyfriend crying, though Lysander’s smile was effervescent.

“Fuck,” Theo breathed in startlement, unable to prevent himself from gawking even as his boyfriend sniffled and rubbed his tears away with the heels of his calloused hands. Theo had thought Lysander might be happy to see the efforts he’d put into learning the song, but he wasn’t supposed to be crying, damnit.

“Theo,” Lysander breathed in response, and then he was laughing, delighted and overwhelmed. He scarcely gave Theo time to set the guitar aside before the singer grabbed him by the middle and yanked him into a straddling position so Lysander could kiss him, deep and long.

Theo was gasping as he pulled back at last, still on the edge of gawking as Lysander cupped his face and just…held him, staring at him with every drop of love and admiration that the singer apparently felt for him suffused throughout his expression.

“That was beautiful,” the singer murmured happily at last, and Theo averted his eyes sideways, too overcome by his lover’s unabashed profusion of emotion to hold his gaze for another second. “Ah, my beautiful, amazing, irreplaceable Theo.”

Theo didn’t know what to say in response to that, never knew what to say in response to any of his boyfriend’s unbearably romantic sentiments. Lysander always seemed to know what to say or do to sweep him entirely off his feet, just as he always knew how to diffuse Theo’s sullen moods, or to comfort him when he was feeling utterly bereft. Whereas Theo, well...

Refusing to let himself fall into old patterns of feeling sorry for himself, Theo mentally grit his teeth, shifted his gaze to his blue-tipped fingers where they were curled in his lap between them, resolved that he’d just have to dedicate himself to finding a way to make himself ‘worthy’ of Lysander’s incredible love. If such a thing was even possible. Maybe therapy really would help; maybe he could identify the parts of himself that were the most broken, and start the process of mending them into something that at least approached “fixed.”

“Theo?” Lysander murmured gently, drawing Theo’s attention back to the present with a blink. Theo met his boyfriend’s gaze again, chest fluttering at the look of unease that had crept into his emerald eyes, of worry.

Immediately Theo applied himself to easing that worry, forcing himself to smile, to trace away a lingering tear with the pad of his thumb. “You weren’t s-supposed to cry,” he said, a little wryly, and Lysander broke into an embarrassed smile under his touch.

“Yes, well. Who was it that said ‘I’m human, too; anyone would cry after hearing that song’?” Lysander retorted, echoing his wry tone.

~~

Heya, so I've been releasing my original gay romance webnovel "Fractured Heart: the Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper" on Patreon since the beginning of the year (with the first eight chapters free on my website fracturedheart.net ) but it's been extremely hard to find new readers, so I was going to start posting them for free on Royal Road and Ao3, and maybe wattpad, scribblehub, and any others that people recommend.

I'll still have way advance chapters on Patreon ($5/mo for a full length (3-5k words on average) chapter every Friday, but my main goal is honestly just to find new readers so that I'm not just writing for myself.

Even if it's an acquired taste, I think there HAVE to be at least SOME people out there who will enjoy a story about a shy tsundere economically disadvantaged midwestern kid with a traumatic past who moves to LA to become an EDM producer where he ends up in a relationship with a flirty, famous, over-the-top pop star who was born and raised rich and privileged after they start bonding together through their "fractured hearts" (I know, groan ^-^;;)

Everything I've researched for Royal Road emphasizes quantity over quality: upload every day even if it's only a page or two rather than space out releases weekly like I have been on Patreon. To that end, I was going to chop up my chapters into 1-2 page sections to post daily for a few weeks, then slow down to three times a week once I start getting closer to where I am on Patreon (currently chapter 22). But RR lets you schedule posts, so I could set up a bunch of them ahead of time.

However with Ao3, my understanding is that the best you can do is DRAFT posts, but you still have to manually log in to post those drafts. I can still do it, but that'll be more challenging to me, given the busy-ness of my usual life. So my question for Ao3 writers is: is there a marked difference in releasing shorter chapters daily or semi-daily vs actual full-size chapters once a week?

I'm also nervous about my writing being stolen and fed to some AI bot or something, but I guess that's the reality of uploading anything online these days. I just have to hope that anyone who reads the stolen material becomes interested enough to seek out the real thing and maybe become an actual reader ^-^;;

Also if there are other platforms I should post to, please let me know! I already made a bunch of accounts awhile ago, I just haven't started posting on them because I'm waiting on some artists I commissioned to finish drawing covers for the book first: https://www.fracturedheart.net (the top right menu item has all the links)

Was joking with my beta reader friend about how I have too many "alternate universe" ideas for the characters in my gay romance novel(s) and said "I might as well throw in one about shifters" and now I have a shifter AU idea too... Alt text:

me:

"“Fuck!” the singer shouted as Theo sank his teeth into the other side of his lover’s neck, this time closer to his throat than his collarbone. Lysander reared back automatically, then he burst into his own startled laugh, rubbing absently at the new surface-level injury. “Damn. Are you sure you’re not a vampire?”"

unintentional reference to the vampire/vampire hunter AU 😂

my friend:

Theo's eyes glow red …no?

me: in the modern day au? lol pretty sure this is the only universe where theo DOESN'T have red eyes 😂 ugh i wanna write the other aus now the vampire hunter one…dragon rider…demon slayer…there are like two others i forgot I should probably come up with a shapeshifter one too just for fun 😂

my friend: role reversal, or was that an actual AU

me: you mean make lys the short one? i'm not sure what you're referencing lol i had a dream once wehre lys was the short one lol but no, thats not one of my actual au ideas oh shit nwo im actualyl imaginign a shifter one

my friend: 🤷 maybe that was it

Chapter 22 of my gay romance webnovel "Fractured Heart: the Tale of the Pop Star and the Pauper" is now up on Patreon! You can find the links, as well as a free first-page-of-chapter preview, here: www.fracturedheart.net/chapters/ch22/

If you're not sure about the story, you can read the first eight chapters for free here, then get one full-length chapter every Friday for only $5 a month on Patreon:

https://www.fracturedheart.net/chapters/ch1-8-preview/

As-intended "adult only" version: patreon.com/FracturedHeartAO

Inferior censored "SFW" version: patreon.com/FracturedHeart

~~

[First Page of Chapter Preview]

Three days later, he was getting ready for his first DJ gig since getting his mixer fixed, and he still hadn’t told Lysander about it.

After asking Juniper, then Ryan, to let him know if any gigs were coming up soon, Theo had had to field through their responses in comparison to his own work schedule. He did his best to leave at least a few hours between shifts and gigs since working back to back meant he’d be dead tired at one or both. As for hiding the gig from Lysander, well. He’d just claim he was working that night and trust that that would be it—Lysander wasn’t about to call the warehouse and make sure Theo was really working at that time.

He couldn’t precisely put his finger on why he was hesitant to let Lysander know about the gig. Part of it was not wanting to bother him, yes…even if he’d had a prior engagement, Theo could imagine Lysander canceling that engagement just to come to the show and support his boyfriend, and Theo didn’t want to interfere with Lysander’s career even more than he already had.

But there was something else about it, too…they’d been lucky so far that tabloid reports about them hadn’t leaked yet, at least so far. Though Lysander typically wore his disguise whenever they were in public, they’d gone on that not-a-date near LACMA, and a truly eagle-eyed zealous fan could have used the zoom on their camera phone to see them through the restaurant window on the pier. And it wasn’t as if Lysander’s disguise was that thorough, either. Given his unusual height, he stuck out anyway, even when he was covering his head and face.

If Lysander came to a gig of his…with all those bodies pressed close…the chances of his identity getting revealed were too high. Then people would wonder why such a major celebrity would be at a tiny underground rave, and if they saw Lysander interacting with Theo after the show, well then…it was all over.

He was using the same “cheap” sound mixer he always used, of course—not only was he unwilling to touch the enormous $10k+ mixer Lysander had bought lest he accidentally break it, it simply would have been beyond impractical to try to bring to the venues by bus. He liked his mixer, anyway—maybe it wasn’t as fancy, maybe it didn’t have brand-name prestige, but it had served him well in the four years since he’d bought it. He hadn’t been able to do DJ gigs before getting it, and his music had bloomed after he was able to associate tactile sensations with the intermixing sounds, not just clicked digital buttons on his laptop screen.

Given that he hadn’t dressed up much in a while, he decided to put more effort into it this time. Though it wasn’t the most comfortable, he fit himself into the same tight pleather pants he’d worn to his karaoke birthday party, as well as a torn-sleeve vest adorned with studs and buckles, paired with fingerless gloves that covered him from palm to upper forearm.

He’d gotten new, better quality makeup, too. He’d used the money that Lysander had paid him since technically they’d completed the final clause of their contract: producing a finished track ready to be sold. He’d needed the funds to supplement what he made from the warehouse to pay for his half of that month’s rent anyway, given that it was now his only regular job.

Siti’s parents were considerably less unwilling to help her pay for expenses—of course, she was going to school to be a biochemist, a far more respectable job than “EDM DJ”—and she worked at Halo mostly for extra spending money. Though she’d said since Theo quit that she was thinking of quitting, too, since it was too boring now that he wasn’t around to bitch about Jim with.

He felt a little bad about that—like it was his fault the job had become unappealing. But at the same time he was glad for it, even if it had been an unwise decision from a financial standpoint. The job had been crushing his spirit as well as destroying his chances for sleep…now, with just the job at the warehouse, he had more hours available to produce music and to do the occasional DJ gig.

Although now that he had a boyfriend to entertain visits with amid all that, his schedule was in some ways even more tight than it had been before he quit.

The rave he was getting ready for now was at a new venue he’d never played at yet, one that had opened only six months ago named Underbar; aptly named since it was literally built underground in the basement story beneath an alt-clothing store. Given their newness, they were rotating through DJs frequently, trying to find ones that best fit their “vibe.”

If the sales on the track he’d done with Lysander didn’t pan out, then maybe he could become a regular DJ at Underbar. It wouldn’t pay nearly as much, and playing in front of people would always be stressful to him, but at least it’d be doing something that still involved music instead of having to get a job at a café or some crap.

The bus ride to the venue went by uneventfully—he received a few odd stares for his mix of buckles and black, but no one said anything overtly rude to him or tried to mess with his gear. In fact, a pair of girls had spent half the ride casting glances towards him and giggling before they finally got off on their stop, and he even thought he caught one of them stealthily snapping a picture of him, which he wasn’t sure how he felt about.

~~

“I know,” he murmured, but it still took him several moments to come up with the courage to put the idea into words. “Um, m-maybe after breakfast, we could…g-go to the rooftop, and I could, um…d-draw a picture of you?”

Again Lysander looked thoroughly shocked, and Theo almost tittered anxiously, ruing the suggestion as soon as he’d said it. He was still recovering from how gleeful Lysander had looked during his Sunday workout instruction—and during the two mini-workouts he’d insisted on doing with Theo after he’d returned from work. Besides, even if they’d slept together a million times by now, Theo was still mortified at the idea of staring at his boyfriend that intensely, of trying to hide his embarrassment while the vain pop star no doubt preened under the attention.

“Really?” Lysander repeated from earlier, this time sounding more astounded than amused. “You want to draw me?”

“Y-yeah…I mean…i-if you want me to…” Theo dropped his gaze to the countertop and idly traced along the gridlines of grout, anything to avoid seeing Lysander’s too-keen expression. “You…y-you said once you’d like to m-model for me…” Then again, they hadn’t even kissed yet when the singer had first said it, and he could have just meant it as a ploy to eventually get Theo into his bed. Which he had. Many times.

“Yes!” With his gaze downturned, Theo was startled when his boyfriend abruptly swept towards him, threw arms around his shoulder, then pulled him into a hug with enough rapidity that Theo squeaked. “Yes, I’d love to! That sounds fun. What do you want me to do? What pose should I be in? Do you want to include props?” Voice dropping to a sultry murmur, the singer inquired, “Should I be naked?”

As embarrassed as Theo was at the idea, he did prefer avoiding drawing folds of cloth if he could. There was always Spandex, but… “M-maybe,” he mumbled shyly, breaking into a small but wry smile as Lysander fixed him with a look of comingled astonishment and ardor. Wow, he sure did look astonished a lot that morning. Was Theo really acting that out of character? “But…if you g-get an erection, I’m making you take a c-cold shower.”

The singer burst into a barking laugh at that, kissed Theo on the hair once, then released him to give the final pancake another flip. “No promises. I can’t deny the idea of you admiring me turns me on.”

“’Admiring’,” Theo echoed, chuckling sarcastically. “Art’s not l-like that. You’d just be a b-bunch of lines and curves to me.”

“Very sexy curves, though. No?” the humorously pompous pop star pressed, tilting his hips confidently where he was standing next to the stove and draping one arm at his side while reaching the other back over his shoulder until he looked a little like Michelangelo’s statue of David. He had the right curly hair for it and everything.

“Ugh,” Theo groaned, wishing he had something to throw at his boyfriend, settling for rolling his eyes dramatically. “N-nevermind, I take it back. You’re going to be t-too annoying.”

The writing style itself isn't terrible, it's very abrupt but I could deal with it if the plot or characters were interesting at all. But they're not, so... 😏

And yet she's the professional paid author who does it as her regular job, so who am I to judge I guess? 🤷‍♀️