Beneath Their Masks: Guitar Strings

“Your tail is smothering me!”

“Your ears are in my way!”

“You’re practically sitting on me, you jerk, my ears are in my space! Just like you are!”

“Both of you just shut up already!”

Bonnie blinked and looked up towards the front of the car, grinning at Freddy through the reflection in the rearview mirror. “Sorry!”

“No you’re not,” Freddy accused, glancing at the mirror. “Your grin says it all.”

“Sorry~” he repeated sarcastically.

“Ugh,” Freddy groaned, shaking his head. “Morons, all of you.”

“He’s the one with his ears in my face!” Foxy exclaimed in mock-offense.

“You’re practically crawling on my lap!”

“Foxy, sit down before I glue your butt to that bench!”

“Alright, alright!” Foxy laughed, scooting back into his seat in the middle and leaning back. Bonnie shot a look to Chica over their shorter friend’s head; the chicken was clearly amused by all of this, leaning against the armrest and watching them with a smirk tilting the edge of her beak up.

“I agree with Freddy, you’re all morons,” she stated with a laugh, eyes sliding over to Goldie. “So, Gold, how was your concert last night?”

Foxy elbowed her in the side as Goldie immediately piped up with, “It was amazing! My only regret is not being able to stay for the whole thing and not getting a gold pass, I could have met Jan J!”

“Fanboy,” Bonnie coughed into his fist and laughed as Goldie shot him a glare from the passenger seat. “What? Don’t act like it ain’t true!”

“Well you’re a Graham fanboy,” he accused with a sniff. “So hello, pot.”

“Hey, I am a proud hypocrite!”

Foxy laughed, Chica and Goldie snorted, and Freddy just sighed and shook his head.

“Dear lord, y’all are messed up,” he deadpanned, barely glancing at them in the mirror.

“But you’re grinning,” Goldie accused with a grin towards his brother.

“You’re all my morons, so it’s fine.”

“I think you will find that I am my own moron,” Bonnie drawled in a mock-British accent, earning laughs from Foxy and Chica and a guffaw from Goldie.

“Nah, you’re all mine,” Freddy declared, waving a hand in the air dismissively.

“Geez, thanks,” Goldie snorted, looking over his shoulder towards them. “Guys, we’re property now!”

“What’s new there?” Chica questioned, the edges of her beak turned up in a grin now. “Freddy’s always takin’ care of us.”

“I think you’ll find ma does a wonderful job of taking care of me,” Bonnie stated, unbuckling his belt and slipping out of the car once Freddy had parked. “Now, y’all hooligans, on the other hand…”

“Who you callin’ a hooligan?”

“You, Foxy, you!”

They laughed and headed towards the school’s front entrance, Bonnie hitching his guitar case up on his shoulder. It was bright and sunny, warm for being 7:35 in the morning but what was new for early August? The bell for classes would ring in five minutes but none of them were worried about getting to class on time.

After all, they had music first thing in the morning, nothing to worry about. It was right down the hall to the right of the front entrance- near the front offices but far enough away that the sound won’t bother the administrators or guests. They had plenty of time to get there.

As they entered the school, though, Bonnie’s eyes were drawn towards the cafeteria. It was full of students waiting for the bell to ring, mostly humans but Animals wandered around throughout the crowd. Right before they entered the hallway, he caught sight of a bright blue bunny leaning against a taller gold rabbit, a wide smile on his face as they both laughed about something or other on the blue rabbit’s phone. Irritation immediately swept through him at the sight of their “enemy” group and he was glad when a wall blocked the nuisances from his sight.

If one were to ask Bonnie just why he didn’t like Bonito Rodriguez’s group of friends, his answer would be simple; they were annoying. Of course that wasn’t the full extent of it- it was so much more complicated than that. At first it had simply been to fit in with everyone else in school, though they had taken it a bit farther; they didn’t spread rumours or talk behind their backs- what was the point of that?- but they did make their dislike clear, sending little sneers and scowls their way and finding fault in everything they did.

One day, though, they started… responding to them with their own scowls and sneers, their own eye-rolls, but then they would just turn around and return to smiling with their friends as they talked about whatever they had done the night before and it just solidified their animosity, and the Fazcrew made even more of a show of their dislike. But that annoying group had drawn so far into their own world that half the time Bonnie and his friends’ actions weren’t even noticed. He didn’t mind that, of course, but hell, can’t they be consistent? They didn’t notice anything except each other and didn’t even respond when others tried to approach them… which, actually, hadn’t happened for many years now. Not since people began realizing the Fazcrew didn’t like them. And whatever the popular people thought was obviously true, right?

They made it to the music room and entered just as the bell rang, immediately claiming their spots and Bonnie set his guitar down on a shelf where it would stay until the day was over. Normally he had no problem carrying it around all day but after last year when one of his teachers nearly had a hernia because he had dared to bring a “leisure object” into the classroom he was told to leave it in the music room during the day. Such bull.

“So what do you guys think about our schedules this year?” Foxy asked conversationally, lounging in his seat and watching his friends.

Bonnie shrugged and dropped down in the seat next to him. They already knew the director would move them around to best fit their voices but they didn’t mind. “I dunno, I’m kinda really miffed that they switched all of us from theory to art. I mean, do any of us even draw?”

“It is kinda stupid,” Chica agreed from her seat, leaning on her propped knee. “I wasn’t even in theory, they switched my cooking class to next period and put me in fourth period art. That’s just annoying.”

“And what the hell is “advanced senior science” anyway?” Goldie questioned with a snort, straightening his shirt. “And how did we get in there? I remember signing up for human anatomy.”

“And I remember signing up for French, not Spanish,” Chica added with a sigh.

“They put you in Spanish?” Bonnie blinked, looking at Chica in amusement. Chica already spoke Spanish, seeing as that was the language everyone in her house spoke. “Well, at least it’s an easy A,” he offered.

“I took foreign language in, like, freshman year,” Foxy snorted, stretching his arms above his head.

“Same,” Goldie and Freddy chorused with a shared chuckle. It always creeped Bonnie out when they did that but at the same time it was so cool. Like twin telepathy or something.

“Junior year,” Bonnie dismissed with a shrug of his own, throwing Chica a grin.

“Well none of you have been bilingual your entire lives,” Chica shot back with a frown. “I didn’t know I needed to take a class to graduate. I don’t even need this class, I already speak two languages!”

“The school can be stupid,” Goldie agreed with a shrug. He paused as the teacher came in. “Mr. Fitzgerald!” he called in greeting, prompting Bonnie to turn to the door.

The music director, Jeremy Fitzgerald, was a strange man in Bonnie’s opinion, but he was fun to be around and was one of the best musicians Bonnie had ever met. He could play pretty much any instrument and even hit a high C on the trumpet, though his face would turn an amusing shade of red when he did so. With strawberry-blonde hair pulled back into a low ponytail and falling down his back partnered with lithe frame and soft angles, Bonnie had thought he was a woman when he first met him. What a surprise that had been.

Mr. Fitzgerald gave them a kind smile. “Hello, boys,” he greeted, walking over to the wooden shelves where instruments were stored. Bonnie’s eyes followed him, noticing two guitar cases sitting there innocently. It looked like whoever had left them had been in a rush; one of the cases was partially open, showing a hint of rich cherry red. “How are you this morning?” he asked as he zipped the slightly-open case shut and proceeded to pick both guitars up, heading to his office. This made Bonnie very curious; most people would just leave them on the shelves, after all.

“We’re fine,” Goldie answered, giving the director a grin. “A bit annoyed with the school, though. They put us in fourth period art instead of theory.”

“That’s because the theory class was cancelled,” Mr. Fitzgerald informed them, closing his office and heading to the front board. Other people had begun trickling in finally. “And you all already took all of the other music classes. That was the only elective they could think of that you don’t need an audition for.”

“I was in cooking,” Chica deadpanned. “I got moved to cooking second period on Mondays and Wednesdays. An alternating period. How can we cook anything in fifty minutes?”

“Well, that one I can’t say,” Mr. Fitzgerald laughed, shaking his head. “Sorry. But it’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

“Hey, Mr. Fitzgerald, can I ask you something?” Bonnie ventured casually, glancing in the direction of the director’s office.

“Shoot.”

“Whose guitars were those that’cha put in your office?”

Mr. Fitzgerald paused and looked at Bonnie, a small, thoughtful frown on his lips. “It’s for a… class, I suppose you could say. It’s more like tutoring. Two of the students play guitar and came with their friends to me near the end of their freshman year asking me to help them, but they couldn’t take this class due to, hm… scheduling issues.”

That was a strange response. It didn’t sound very honest, either, but Bonnie dismissed it in favour of turning back to his friends. What did it matter? It wasn’t like it affected him in any way at all.

The purple rabbit sauntered into the science room and immediately claimed one of the desks next to the door, dropping down into it. Foxy slid into the seat next to him, tapping his finger against the desk impatiently as they turned around to face the twins behind them.

Bonnie’s ear perked as he heard a triumphant, “Chii was right, you do write like a girl.” His eye twitched in annoyance; one of the biggest problems with being a rabbit was with his excellent hearing he could hear every conversation in the classroom. And when the group of friends across the room started laughing he could hear it as clearly as he could hear Goldie talking about what had happened in gym class.

“What?” he heard from across the room, but after that he forcefully tuned them out, focusing his attention on his friends.

“-nd the teacher didn’t even care that a kid started having an asthma attack?” Goldie asked incredulously, shaking his head. “Like geez, poor kid could’ve died.”

“Well, at least his friend was willing to just walk out with him, a good friend to have,” Freddy hummed a bit, looking quizzically at the board. “I wonder what goes on in this class.”

“Who knows,” Bonnie shrugged, glancing over his shoulder towards the board. “This definitely isn’t chemistry.”

“Looks like chemistry will be part of it, though,” Chica observed from her seat on Bonnie’s other side, her eyes trailing over to the lab stations. Bonnie followed her gaze to the beakers sitting there. He frowned.

“Yeah. So who’s gonna be whose partner this year?” Bonnie asked, looking at Freddy. Of course they all knew Freddy and Goldie would partner up- they were very close- but Freddy was their unofficial leader so his advice was always valued.

“Whoever you want,” Freddy answered simply, shrugging. “It’s not like I’ll be choosin’, ya know.”

“I call dibs on Freddy,” Goldie piped up jokingly and they laughed, knowing all along that Goldie would be partnered with his brother. “But hey, looks like the other people in class are… uh… people none of us get along with… huh.” Bonnie almost snickered at Goldie’s thoughtful expression.

“Alright, then, settle down class,” an accented voice interrupted and Bonnie turned around, looking at their teacher. The green hair barely registered with him. Humans had been dyeing their hair crazy colours for years now, it was nothing new. When the class was settled, the man continued with, “I am Doctor Mike Schmidt and this year I am your science teacher.”

Bonnie nodded slightly with the rest of the class, keeping his eyes trained on the doctor.

“This year,” Doctor Schmidt continued, “things will be different. In the past I know you have always been allowed to choose your own partners, but in my experience I’ve found there is a lot less messing around and procrastination when partners are assigned.”

Immediately Bonnie frowned and exchanged a look with Foxy. Assigning partners? Geez, the likelihood any of us will be together… damn.

“So this year, I will be assigning your partners.”

Of course they had all already figured that out. He glanced over at Foxy again with a frown. Beyond Foxy he could see Alfred Fischbach reach forward to touch “Springtrap” on the shoulder, prompting the rabbit (he looked panicked, Bonnie noticed) to turn around. Apparently the rabbit wasn’t happy about this either.

No one was.

“I have already assigned everyone their partners and you cannot switch out partners. I have partnered everyone up for specific reasons, and this is the partner you will have all year long. You will sit beside each other in the classroom, when we are in the lab you will work together at your station, and you will be expected to work outside of the classroom as well. Basically, your lab partner in this class will be the person every assignment in this class, minus your exams, will be done with. Whether you call each other or meet up in person is up to you.”

Bonnie had a sudden feeling of dread. Foxy shifted next to him and they watched the doctor pick up a clipboard, making a few notes. After a few moments, he commanded them to gather their belongings and head to the back. As they moved, he continued, “You can choose your own seats, but you must be sitting next to your partner.”

Well obviously, Bonnie huffed silently to himself as he settled against one of the lab stations in the back of the room with Freddy on his right and Chica on his left. They watched, boredly, as the eccentric doctor paced the front of the classroom, staring at his clipboard with a small frown. Then he abruptly stopped and looked over at them.

“Alright now,” he hummed, a large smile on his face. “First, Bonito Rodriguez and Bonnie Henderson.”

Of. Fucking. Course.

Bonnie’s crimson eyes slid over towards the blue rabbit, scowling at him. The rabbit’s green eyes glared back and Bonnie moved towards the pair of desks closest to the door. He left the desk next to the door for the blue rabbit, dropping down into the seat Foxy had been occupying earlier. Rodriguez dropped his bag down next to the desk to his right before slipping into his seat and leaning his head on his hand.

“Marion Marshal and Malesha Jacks.” They were two people Bonnie didn’t know, but something about it apparently got Rodriquez’s attention as he abruptly pulled a pencil out of his bag and began twirling it nervously. Bonnie rolled his eyes. “Freddy Fazbear and Alfred Fischbach.” Damn, poor Freddy. He’s in the same boat as me. He looked over his shoulder to see Freddy sit down two seats behind himself, a small frown in place, and the smaller bear slip into his own seat, his face typically expressionless but for a small crease in his brow that gave away his displeasure.

“Vivien Blanc and Drew Jones.” Foxy too? Damn, is this man plotting against all of us? His ears twitched as a low growl sounded, but neither fox spoke up as they approached the desks to the left of the empty row behind him and Rodriguez. “Leah Stuart and Jackie James.”

Next to him, the blue rabbit dropped his head against his desk and Bonnie could just barely hear a low, frustrated growl in his throat. That seemed… uncharacteristic. Admittedly, Bonnie didn’t know anything about Rodriguez, but the blue rabbit had a reputation for being hyper-actively optimistic and this did not seem to fit that bill.

“Frederick Fazbear and Spring Salvage.”

Poor Goldie. So all of us got stuck with this shit. He looked over at Goldie as the golden bear dropped down into the seat behind him. The golden rabbit seemed much more hesitant as he sat down, refusing to look at either Goldie or Bonnie. That didn’t bother Bonnie one bit.

Despite the fact that only two people remained, Dr. Schmidt still said, “Francisca Sanchez and Charlotte Kain.” The two girls were already taking their seats next to Bonnie’s.

Bonnie didn’t pay much attention to the blue rabbit as he sat up and turned around to look at his friend, instead choosing to lean over and whisper this blows to Chica. He straightened up when Dr. Schmidt looked up from his clipboard and said, “Mr. Rodriguez, turn around please.” As the blue rabbit obeyed, he began fidgeting again. Annoying as hell. “Now, I know all of you know each other,” Bonnie heard a snort from behind him and had to resist his own dry laugh, “but this is my first year at this school and I don’t know any of you. So, I want all of you to fill out this questionnaire about your partner, which you will then read aloud to the class.”

The violet rabbit frowned but took the small stack of three papers, handing it over his shoulder to Goldie. It was a simple, to-the-point questionnaire and he knew literally only one answer. And that was his partner’s name.

My New Lab Partner!

Name:
Nickname(s):
DOB:
Places You’ve Lived:
Future Plans:
Interests/Hobbies:
Favourite Colour:
Favourite Band/Musician:
Phone #
    Cell:
    Landline:

Automatically he began to write “Bonito” and got through “Rodri” before he realized he didn’t even know how to spell the other rabbit’s name. He frowned down at his paper, his pride telling he to not ask his partner how to spell the name; he was perfectly aware it was a common name but he wasn’t exactly good at spelling in the first place. And, well, he took German, not Spanish.

The other rabbit seemed to notice, however, as he glanced at the page and rolled his eyes. He spelled out, “G-U-E-Z.” Bonnie glared slightly before finishing his name. “And nickname is Blue,” the rabbit muttered. “Without an “e” at the end.”

So his nickname was Blu. Stupid. “I don’t have a nickname,” he stated matter-of-factly. Feeling a bit vindictive, Bonnie wrote down “Blue” on his page, purposefully spelling it like the colour. He glanced at the next line. “July thirty-first, ‘98,” he added.

“February twelfth, ‘99,” Rodriguez muttered, irritation slipping into his voice.

Bonnie looked at the rabbit, frowning slightly. Most people with birthdays that late started school late. “Started school early?” he questioned, raising a brow. He was honestly curious but the small scowl the rabbit sent his way told him that it wasn’t received that way. Perfectly fine with me, jackass. “Most birthdays that late start school late,” he decided to explain. The rabbit was probably too stupid to understand the concept anyway.

Just ignore the fact that they were in an advanced science course.

“Yeah, well, my family isn’t your typical family,” the blue rabbit said between clenched teeth, his hand tightening suddenly around his pen. Bonnie watched, brow furrowed, as Rodriguez’s eye twitched. It took him a moment to realize that it had been a wince.

Strange.

“And the only other place I’ve lived in is Spain,” Rodriguez added, his hand twitching now.

Spain. Well he knew the rabbit had Spanish heritage- close heritage, considering his first name was Bonito- but it hadn’t occurred to him that the rabbit might have lived in another country like Chica had. “Immigrant?” he questioned, wanting to see if Rodriguez had been born there like Chica had been born in Mexico.

“No, my parents were. I was born here, we just moved back to Spain shortly after.” He frowned at the blue rabbit as he tapped his pen against the paper. That is getting seriously annoying.

He turned to his own paper and began writing Spain down. As he did, he shot a sneer at Rodriguez and said, “Dunno why you came back. And I was born in Brooklyn.” Bonnie was almost surprised when Rodriguez sneered right back.

“Dunno why you came here,” he mocked, throwing Bonnie’s own words back at him. Bonnie scowled and glared at the other rabbit who just smirked triumphantly. Oh you little bitch. Bonnie’s comeback wasn’t that great, but he growled out the first thing that came to mind when he saw that smirk.

“You’re a bitch, aren’t you?”

The reaction was instant; Rodriguez’s smirk slid off of his face and his gaze went blank, staring slightly wide-eyed at Bonnie. This… honestly surprised the rabbit. It was such a common insult, there was no way one of the most disliked students in school hadn’t been called that before.

Then Bonnie realized the rabbit was rigid and completely still as if frozen in place, that the rabbit had stopped breathing completely, and he realized that the look in Rodriguez’s eyes wasn’t vacant or blank, it was distant… distant and scared. Scared of him? Bonnie didn’t understand- what connotations could the younger rabbit have with those words that caused him to react like that? Bonnie opened his mouth to say something, but then the rabbit seemed to come to his senses.

Abruptly, before he could say anything Rodriguez turned back to his paper. His eyes were still wide and his hand was trembling slightly, gripping his pen much too tightly as he wrote down Brooklyn. “Future plans.” His tone was flat and void of pretty much any emotion, and honestly Bonnie actually felt a little… worried.

Furrowing his brow, he began, “Hey, are you-”

“Future. Plans.” And the emotion was back, but it wasn’t annoyance like it was before. This was anger, this was hatred, this was… fear? Bonnie stared at the blue rabbit.

Yes. The rabbit was scared. His ears were down, his hand was trembling, he was staring blankly down at his paper- and Bonnie wasn’t sure if the smaller rabbit noticed, but one of his hands had curled up closer to his chest, his shoulders were slightly hunched as though he was trying to hide inside himself. It was something he had never expected from the extremely, annoyingly optimistic, bouncey rabbit.

He had been talking, rather shortly and in fragments, to this rabbit for all of five minutes and already he was beginning to suspect that Bonito Rodriguez was hiding something. And right then, Bonnie was starting to suspect that that something was something dangerous. Not to Bonnie or anyone around him but to Rodriguez himself.

Realizing that there was a tense silence- how long had he just been staring at the rabbit?- he finally answered, “Music academy in California.”

Not that that would surprise anyone. It was pretty common knowledge that he was attending the same school as the Fazbear twins.

“Undecided,” the blue rabbit said, voice devoid of emotion again. It didn’t fit the rabbit and it just added to his sense of wrong wrong wrong. “Cooking and playing guitar.”

Guitar. That stuck out to him. He hadn’t been expecting that. He noted down the answers silently. “Red. And Jonathan Graham.”

“Yellow, Jan J,” Rodriguez stated flatly and Bonnie quirked a brow. Jan J? They weren’t exactly a positive band, that much he knew from Goldie’s ramblings. Always talking about how society fails the majority, how life isn’t alright, how nothing is as it seems.

Huh. Maybe there is some truth to those lyrics after all. Things were not adding up here with the other rabbit separated from his friends like this. People don’t just do a 180 and then do another 180 and find themselves turned into a completely different circle with different angles. This wasn’t the annoyingly optimistic Rodriguez nor the annoyingly snarky Rodriguez. This was someone- something- whatever- that Bonnie had never actually seen before. He wondered which one was the real him.

Of course it wasn’t like he ever actually knew the rabbit. His first interaction with the other had been to sneer at him, actually. So who was he to say just who the hell Bonito Rodriguez was? For all he knew, none of these were him.

But that still brought up the question of why he acted the way he did if it wasn’t real.

Suddenly, a human hand entered his line of vision and tapped on the paper on his desk, interrupting his musings. Bonnie looked at Dr. Schmidt with a slight frown. “Trust me, you’ll want to exchange those, I’m infamous for changing due dates,” he told them with a wry smile before moving onto the golden duo behind them. The rabbit glanced down and realized the next line was the phone number.

Bonnie frowned more and huffed before saying, “346-9807.”

“346-3427,” was the reply he got and Bonnie noted the number down, frowning at the sheet in thought. From the corner of his eye he saw Rodriguez drop his pen and turn away, staring intensely at the door.

Yellow? That fit with the Rodriguez he saw from a distance that morning. Jan J? That fit with the Rodriguez he was seeing now. Guitar? Well… any kind of person could play guitar so that didn’t say much. Cooking? That also seemed to fit the Rodriguez that was with his friends. Nothing here fit that bitter, snarky, mean Rodriguez that he had first spoken to, though. Sure, it was probably because Rodriguez didn’t like Bonnie and was pissed about being separated from his friends, but it didn’t seem... right.

Just stop it, Bonnie, you’re overthinking things again, he scoffed to himself, giving the blue rabbit a strange, unhappy look. Something still felt wrong, wrong, wrong. He’s probably just messing with your head. He’s one of Fischbach’s freaks, after all. However, for some reason that he couldn’t explain, Bonnie still found himself erasing the “e” in “Blue.”

He couldn’t forget that abject look of horror he had somehow put in Rodriguez’s eyes.

My New Lab Partner!

Name: Bonito Rodriguez
Nickname(s): Blu
DOB: 2/12/99
Places You’ve Lived: Spain
Future Plans: Undecided
Interests/Hobbies: Cooking, playing guitar
Favourite Colour: Yellow
Favourite Band/Musician: Jan J
Phone #
    Cell: 346-3427
    Landline: