Book Boyfriends

The first time Violet laughed at Xaden for being jealous of a book, he immediately denied the idea. It was patently ridiculous. Books were, well, books, they're not something to be jealous about. But the longer he and Violet were together, the less he felt threatened by real people like her exes or random guys who flirted with her, and the more those fictional men seemed to stick in his mind.

Rhysand was the first one he felt genuine jealousy about, because she talked about him so much and so… personally. Then there was Alaric, then Xadeaux, and then her current obsession, the dragonlord Tairn.

When Violet was truly passionate about a book, Xaden always made an effort. There were series they enjoyed together; they'd spent weeks discussing the thorny personal and political issues in the Vorkosigan Saga and had taken a mosaic class together after reading Guy Gavriel Kay. They weren't all shared favorites, though. Xaden had never made it through Rhysand's books, he'd read the Hurricane Wars but skipped the sequel, and he'd only gotten halfway through Pay Me in Lust or whatever Xadeaux's was called. But even when the books were not good, and even when Violet was practically calling Rhysand's name in bed, she was still in their bed and when she wasn't reading like it was breathing, those same books tended to remind her that she had other needs that Xaden could help with.

So when he was jealous, he tried to remind himself that it all balanced out in the long run.

He'd surprised himself by enjoying the first two Wings of Four books, reading them back to back almost as quickly as Violet had. There were plot holes and things that frustrated him, but something in the worldbuilding kept pulling him in. It was like he was invested in Tairn's relationship with Queen Sgaeyl despite himself. The cliffhanger ending of the second book popped into his head at inconvenient moments.

When he saw Violet had added something to their shared kindle account called Book Three, he started reading it almost automatically; he was halfway through before Violet realized and explained fanfiction to him.

"I love you," he interrupted her halfway though her explanation of the crucial difference between Queen Sgaeyl & Princess Andarna and Queen Sgaeyl/Princess Andarna.

"I love you too," Violet smiled at him, and he thought the computer screen reflecting in her eyes looked like stars dancing, "but why right now?"

"Next time you have a new book boyfriend and I want your attention, I can write about your shadow daddy of the month seducing his leading lady and you'll know I'm talking about what I want to do to you." He smirked, and she laughed, and they did end up in the bedroom not long after that, laptop abandoned on the coffee table.

And that was certainly true that he could - and probably would - do that, because it sounded like a more creative version of sexting and a fun new addition to their relationship.

But he'd walked her through three or four different orgasms that remembered Tairn giving Sgaeyl in Wings of Four, while Violet dozed with her head on his chest, Xaden realized something else about fanfiction. He realized he could take all the things that annoyed him in Wings of Four and it's sequel-

-and he could fix them.