(For those who have seen me post pictures of my mom's dogs, Boo passed away recently from sudden heart failure at ten years old. She was the squeakiest border collie known to man. I found her in a backyard as a puppy with a family that didn't even let her inside. She was quite spoiled with my mom.)

Holding an armful of books, Ian waited in line to check out at his local library. He'd spoken with an advisor at the community college he was interested in about working on his GED and she had suggested taking a simple college course at the same time, since community college was currently free for the first two years in their state.

He didn't argue, but now he was wondering if he had bitten off more than he could chew. It was just a simple English course, but adding it to the high school English and algebra he already had to do was now seeming much more intimidating. 

He'd also forgotten how huge textbooks were. 

As he waited his turn, his mind wandered back to his normal fixation. 

Grim could probably hold these heavy books up with one hand without even trying. 

The thought of the man immediately brought a dopey smile to his face, making the librarian checking them out return it with a happy one of her own as he finally stepped forward to meet her. 

"Hello sweetheart, have you been having a good week?" she asked as she started scanning his books. 

Ian couldn't have nodded faster, making the woman give a quiet giggle. 

"That's wonderful, hun. You have a fantastic rest of your day and good luck on your classes," she said as she handed him his books back. 

"Thank you, ma'am. You have a wonderful day as well." 

Upbeat and honestly in a truly good mood, Ian left the library and walked the three miles back to his home. 

It was already Friday evening and he'd spent nearly all of his time since he'd last seen Grim trying to focus on getting his affairs in order. 

He'd already submitted his request to not renew his lease and had cleaned up and donated anything he didn't want to bring to Grim's home... which wasn't much, honestly. 

He was just setting his things down on the counter and was going to start reading after he got himself something to drink when he felt his phone chime in his pocket. 

The specific sound had him immediately tugging it out to look at the message. 

Grim: Getting online soon, babe? 

His heart did a little backflip!

He wanted to respond that, of course he would hop right on, but he hesitated for a moment, then pursed his lips and sighed as he glanced sideways at his books. 

Ian: I just picked up my books to study, he replied back, then waited.  

If Grim told him to ignore them for now and get online, he definitely would. 

Grim: Read three chapters, then do the quizzes at the back of each one. I'll see you in the Dragon's Quandary zone when you're done. 

Three?! 

His fingers hovered over his phone's keyboard, but he couldn't make himself type out any kind of complaint. Grim had told him to study. That was that. 

Resigned to a boring few hours, he grabbed one of his books and began reading. He truly wasn't a very good student, and his concentration began to wander after only a few minutes... just like it had during his school years. 

Even the idea of Grim being upset with him didn't help as much as he'd hoped it would. Thus, by the time two hours had passed and his phone chimed again, he was dreading the scolding he knew he'd get. 

Grim: How is the reading coming along? 

Ian wanted to cry. 

He tried to respond, but his hands were shaking from anxiety and messing up the words he was trying to type. 

After a few moments, Grim seemed to be typing again so Ian deleted the gibberish he'd written and waited as he wiped at his watery eyes. 

His parents had been mad enough about his academics as a kid. He didn't want to disappoint Grim, too, but it seemed like it was inevitable. 

Grim: Come play with me, babe. 

Ian blinked at the simple, plain message. 

He's not mad? 

He knew how bad Grim's mouth could be, especially when someone didn't listen to him. Yet his response seemed completely relaxed. 

Sniffling a little, Ian wiped his eyes one last time and replied. 

Ian: Okay 

He did as told immediately and set his book down next to him on his old desk. He logged into the game as soon as the computer booted up, but hesitated to get into the Discord chat he saw Grim in because the man was with his friend, Ammo. 

He had played with him a bit, but they hadn't really talked much. 

He's the one that wanted a picture of me? 

They had forgotten to do that. 

Grim: Hop in chat. 

He joined immediately and tugged his headset on. 

"H-hi," he hurried to say in greeting as he got his character teleported out to the area they were in. 

"Good afternoon, hun," Ammo said, his voice calm and gentle, just like it had been during the streams where he'd watch the man play as Grim's partner. 

"Who you callin' hun?" Grim groused almost immediately as they sent him his invite to join their in-game party. 

Ian smiled as he checked his map for their location, then headed that way after casting an invisibility spell on himself so that he didn't get attacked by any of the monsters in the area.

He watched Grim's and Ammo's hit points on their party bar go up and down every so often, prompting him to check what job the two had come out on. 

Ah, Ammo is a healer. 

He'd seen the guy play as a damage based tank in his matches with Grim, but never a straight healer. 

Grim doesn't normally take so much damage out here...

When his character walked up to the two a few minutes later, he realized what was happening. 

Grim had pulled half of the monsters in the zone and was using area-effect damage to whittle them down instead of giving Ammo a break and fighting things one at a time. 

Ammo was somehow managing to keep up while not garnering too much hate from the monsters himself, considering how much he was healing Grim, but it was a fine tightrope the two were walking. 

Noticing that Ammo was running low on his magic points and his regeneration ability for them wasn't keeping up enough, Ian had his character step in and began casting on Grim's. 

"There's my little bitch," Grim cooed as Ammo, realizing that he was finally being given a break, made his character kneel down to begin recuperating his magic points faster. 

Ian focused all of his attention on taking care of Grim and throwing in a few area damage spells here and there. As they worked, Ammo began sorting the items that were dropping, casting his lot on everything so that he could tally up what amounts they were getting to make it easier to distribute in the end. 

"How is studying going?" Grim asked after a little while, his words immediately dragging Ian back into his nervous depression. 

"I-it's..." 

He didn't want to sound like he was whining by saying it was too hard to focus on, nor did he want to make it seem like he hadn't tried... even though it felt like he hadn't. 

"What chapter did you get to?" Grim asked a moment later. 

Ian sent out a particularly strong blizzard spell, killing all their current remaining enemies. 

"A little into chapter two," he replied as he knelt down to rest his magic points and Grim ran off to grab about group of monsters. 

"What subject are you working on?" Ammo asked, quietly stepping into the conversation. 

 "English," Ian replied, his voice nearly just as quiet due to embarrassment. 

To his surprise, however, Ammo replied right away with a more enthusiastic tone. 

"Ah, I had some trouble with that when I was in high school, too. If you'd like, I'd be happy to go over some things with you?" he offered as Grim's character returned with another massive group of monsters, prompting them both to stand back up and begin helping with them. 

Not being someone who was good at saying no, Ian looked at the big book beside him, then back to the screen. 

"I-if you don't mind. I haven't read very much of it yet, though," he added with a faint blush that he was glad they couldn't see since he still hadn't hooked up his camera yet. 

"Ah hey, get your camera on, Ren," Grim said not a moment later. 

Uh...

Setting his character to start casting an inferno spell, he reluctantly did as told and got the new streaming camera set up on his desk. 

He then had his character heal a few times, then kneel down to recuperate before plugging it in and testing it out. 

Seeing himself staring back at him in the test screen had him quickly fixing his messy hair and shirt, then blushing again. 

Just go with it. 

Not wanting to upset Grim, he linked the camera to their Discord chat and got the little chime notification that the other two could now see him. 

"Not bad," Grim stated as he clearly split his attention between what he was doing and glancing at Ian's video screen, which was likely overlapping the upper left part of the game screen, as was normal when streaming or sharing a screen. 

Ammo was a little slower to comment, but when he did, Ian felt his face warm further. 

"What a cutie." 

 "Fuck off," was Grim's immediate response to him, to which Ammo simply chuckled, then replied, "alright." 

Before Ian could process what was going on, Ammo began warping himself out of the area! 

His spell was actually nearly complete before Grim's character whirled around and sent a knock-back spell at him, sending Ammo's character skidding backwards a few steps, interrupting his casting. 

"Um..." Ian mumbled, unsure of the situation. 

Ammo started casting warp again, but before he could even get halfway through the spell Grim sent a length of cable towards him and easily yanked him forward and into the mess of monsters he was still fighting without a second thought!

Ian quickly put all of his effort into keeping them both alive as Ammo struggled to get out of Grim's bindings while at the same time trying to heal himself. It was clearly a strenuous task, because he was also having to time his casting to keep it from getting interrupted by all of the damage he was taking! 

It was a bit of a clusterfuck, to put it lightly. 

"So, I found a copy of the book for the current GED courses going on. It's the Fowler fifth edition for English, right?" Ammo asked after a minute or two of anarchy. 

Ian, who was already going slightly insane trying to keep up with the fighting, took a few moments to process his calm words before nodding. 

"Y-yes sir," he replied automatically before sending a massive healing spell towards the two of them... only to get himself aggro from a few of the monsters in response for healing too many hit points in correlation to the damage the monsters were being dealt.  

Ammo, thankfully, put up a reflection barrier just in time to rebound the monsters, but instead of helping finish them off, Grim completely ignored them, leaving Ammo and Ian's character, Renegade, to kill them one by one. 

"Leaving your love to me already, Grim?" Ammo questioned, making Ian furrow his brows in confusion. 

Is he mad? 

Grim remained silent as he fought off the monsters that still had hate on him, meaning that he clearly was, likely, for some reason, now upset at them. 

Did I say something wrong? 

He honestly hadn't said much at all recently, though. 

Is he mad I didn't get further in the book? 

"Let's do some practice questions just for fun, hmm?" Ammo offered, ignoring Grim's silent tantrum, much to Ian's dismay. 

He wanted to know what went wrong first!

"S-sure, but I really haven't read much..." 

"That's fine, I promise. I've tutored a lot of kids in different high school courses, so we can just try doing things a little backwards and see if it helps the information stick better," Ammo said cheerfully. 

How is he so happy? I feel like Grim might try to light us both on fire at any moment and Ammo is just relaxing, getting ready to do some quizzing while we're getting mauled by monsters left and right? 

It didn't add up, but somehow, things seemed to settle down and even out soon after Ammo got his own online copy of the book pulled up, then began asking some simple questions to start with. 

Ian, unsurprisingly, didn't do well right off the bat. Not only was he trying to focus on a mixture of damage and healing, but he was also trying to rack his brain for the answers to Ammo's questions. 

Thankfully, the guy was extremely patient with him, and after about ten minutes of simple quizzing, he managed to get a question right without needing to glance at his now-open book. 

"Very good, now toss a fireball at Grim," Ammo said calmly as Ian responded without thinking... and promptly lit Grim's character on fire! 

"W-wait!" he squeaked as he immediately dispelled his fireball, nearly bursting into tears at his abrupt treachery. 

He honestly expected Grim to yell at him, but instead, his character picked up one of the nearly-dead monsters he was fighting, an orc, and promptly threw it at Ammo!

The other man managed to dodge the assault, but just-barely. 

"You forget to equip your accuracy gear, Grimmy?" Ammo taunted as Ian moved his character into the fray to try and kill more enemies... before they could be thrown at Ammo again. 

As soon as he started attacking stuff Grim abandoned the throng and began running after Ammo, ignoring the group of angry monsters still vying to kill him!

Grimmmmm.

To his surprise, Ammo managed to outrun the other man without much issue, prompting Ian to examine his character. 

Oh, he's got movement speed gear on. No wonder Grim can't catch him. 

Grim was finally talking again, at least, but it was mainly to just throw cuss word after cuss word at his quietly chuckling friend, their previous monster-farming goal evidently forgotten for the time being. 

All the while, Ammo continued to quiz him, and the longer they worked on things and ran around, the more he was beginning to put things together. 

Using a little pack of sticky notes, he made notations through the first chapter, while at the same time picking off monsters here and there that were still chasing after Grim. 

He managed to kill the last one as they finished the last question for chapter one, making him lean back and give a quiet sigh of relief. 

One chapter down. 

"You're going down!" Grim snarled suddenly, bringing Ian out of his thoughts as he quickly leaned forward and refocused his attention... only to see the man's character descend from above Ammo, having clearly jumped off a flying mount he'd summoned to set up for an aerial attack. 

Reacting instinctively as Ammo approached him, running as fast as he could, but clearly no longer fast enough, Ian had Renegade intercept them both, casting a binding spell on Ammo while at the same time setting a barrier spell up above them to block Grim's incoming attack!

Ammo's character skidded into his own, slowing him down just enough to keep from pushing them out from beneath his barrier. 

Said barrier managed to repel Grim's attack, but it quickly dissipated after it absorbed all of the damage, leaving a fuming Grim standing right in front of them. 

Ian quickly tried to figure out how to diffuse the situation and was about to say something when Ammo calmly spoke. 

"Alright, let's start on chapter two." 

M-more studying? Right now?! 

Ian lifted his weapon and stepped between the two at the same time Grim swung towards Ammo, blocking his giant axe just in time!

"G-guys, weren't we farming item—" Grim summoned his red dragon mount and hopped onto it at the same time the dragon reached forward and abruptly grabbed Ian's character around the waist with its teeth and lifted him up into the sky!

The dragon was a specially gifted mount to some of the higher-ranking players in the game, and while it was a two-seater mount, he thought that you'd have to accept the ride before you hopped onto it... not just get grabbed and carried away like you were some sort of sacrificial sheep!

His cat boy didn't seem very enthusiastic about the ride, either, because he was flailing his legs and tail, trying to get himself free, though he was clearly failing miserably. 

"Stubborn guy," Ammo said as Ian turned his in-game camera to look behind them. 

He's catching up.

The double mounts were nice, but with two people, you would obviously fly a bit slower, and Ammo was using the fastest mount in the game right now, too. It was a much longer, Chinese version of a dragon colored in a mix of silver and white from head to toe. 

It wasn't easy to get and was a valuable asset to PVP matches that allowed mounts. Especially if the weather in the arena that day was foggy. 

Soon Ammo was flying right beside them, and even reached out to tug on Renegade's tail after a few moments. 

"You took him away before we even got to start chapter two," he teased as Grim's character reached down and swatted his hand away, his dragon mount snorting out a little puff of smoke from its nose for the annoyance. 

"How am I supposed to get to know him if you carry him off into the sunset without me?" Ammo questioned, making Ian realize that not only were his words just a little cringe, but they were actually true, too. 

There was currently a very nice in-game sunset going on. 

Grim remained mostly silent, only giving out a quiet grumble every now and then as they continued to fly steadily side by side, eventually leading Ammo's character to reach over and gently tug on Renegade's tail again, a little lopsided grin on his face. 

"So then... chapter two?"