Beneath Their Masks: Guitar Strings

Beep beep beep beep beep…

He let out a pained groan as he turned over and slapped his hand down on the alarm, cutting the sound off. His green eyes stared up at the ceiling before he sat up, gritting his teeth against the pulling in his side. He was stiff and sore, but all in all everything seemed fine. Hesitantly, he pulled his shirt up to look at his side.

The bandage was still mostly white. That was a good sign, at least; the gash was too shallow to do any real damage. He had worried he’d need to call Spring to take him to a hospital again, and convincing the doctors and nurses there that he had just been clumsy and landed on a glass bottle he’d dropped hadn’t been the easiest thing in the world the first time. The second time had been much harder.

With a sigh, he climbed out of bed and went over to his closet. It was a small closet that barely fit all of his clothes and he frowned as he stared inside. There were a few old dresses that his mother had bought back when they were trying to convince him that he was a girl, and though admittedly Blu quite enjoyed playing with and wearing makeup he drew the line at dresses. They were so uncomfortable and they felt… vulnerable.

Blu already felt way too vulnerable as it was.

So he pulled out a cheery, but baggy, green shirt that wouldn’t risk riding up and his bandage wouldn’t show through, and then grabbed a pair of jeans. It was early August and as much as he’d like to wear capris or even shorts, the bruises on his legs were visible even through his fur, they were so bad.

He hated when that happened.

Dressing quickly, he threw his pajamas into his basket- he’d do laundry later, he made a mental note, he was getting low on clean clothes- and grabbed his bookbag and slid his guitar case out from under his bed. He picked it up and went over to his window, opening it and setting the guitar outside. With a glance back at the door- he could hear footsteps in the hallway- he slid out of the window and carefully closed it again, picked his guitar up, and hurried down the fire escape stairs.

Alfred had helped him set something up at the bottom to make bringing his guitar easier… and make it easier when he was in no shape to climb a ladder. When he reached the bottom of the fire escape, standing above the ladder, he sat down on the edge and lowered his guitar onto a wooden landing next to the fire escape, supported by an old, unused dumpster. Once the guitar was safe, he slipped off of the fire escape and landed on the wooden surface, hissing as his leg protested the action. He picked his guitar back up and hopped down the makeshift stairs they had spent twenty minutes making and securing, then he ran out of the alley.

The sun had finally started to rise at just past 6:20 AM. Hitching the guitar up on his shoulder, he hurried through the bad neighborhood he lived in and made a beeline to the middle-class neighborhood his only female friend lived in. When he approached her house, he saw Alfred and Mangle were both already there and waiting.

“Spring arrived yet?” he asked as he approached them, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Not yet,” Chii answered, shaking her head. “He texted us, though, Plushie’s ride is late.”

“Ah,” he nodded in understanding, frowning as he dropped down onto the stoop next to Mangle. “Everything alright?”

“He sent us a recording of Plushie’s reaction to Jan J’s signed CD,” Mangle chuckled, glancing over at him. “He was really excited. You should check your phone, he sent it through our Whatsapp group.”

“Ah, a little joy,” Blu laughed, pulling his phone out. He did, in fact, have a video message from Spring in their group chat. “This is perfect to brighten my day! Plushie’s so cute~”

“Ain’t he just?” Chii giggled, kneeling down to look over his shoulder at the excited kit. “Of course, I think if I had a CD signed by Jan J I’d be ecstatic.”

“You’d be in love,” Mangle snorted, eying the screen. “Of course, I think I would be too.”

Blu laughed happily as the video cut off with Spring’s yelp, the little bunny brother having leapt suddenly at him in joy. “Aren’t they just so lucky to have siblings?” he asked with a soft sigh. “Can you imagine having a brother or sister?”

There was a short silence between all of them as they really thought about that, Blu’s ears drooping immediately. Alfred was the one who broke the silence. “I would be afraid.”

“Yeah…” Mangle trailed, nervously scratching at their shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Blu sighed, forlornly this time. The image of little Plushie next to his parents sent a spike of fear through him; there was no way he could wish he had a sibling, not with the way he grew up. Plushie had it hard enough with an older brother playing the part of daddy, after all, no kid needed abusive drunks for parents. Besides... Plushie already had enough problems.

Even through the excitement of the video there was a tiredness about both golden rabbits. Clearly last night hadn’t been easy.

“But at least they love each other, huh?” he finally concluded, giving a simple response of “adorable!” and adding a smiley-face in the chat.

“Yeah,” Chii agreed, her voice sad. However, an approaching vehicle made them look up, and Blu grinned as he spotted Spring’s silver-grey chevy pulling into the driveway.

“Awesome, Spring’s here!” He hopped to his feet and headed over to the car. Spring popped the trunk and Blu rounded back there, setting his guitar inside right next to Spring’s. Closing the trunk, he hopped over to the backseat and slid in right behind Spring, Mangle sitting between him and Alfred and Chii sitting up front with Spring.

“Sorry about that, guys,” Spring apologized, glancing at the clock. It was just past 6:30. Usually they’d be arriving by now, where they basically had the school to themselves until buses started arriving at 7:15, at which point they would vacate the music room and bid the music teacher a good day. “Mrs. Marks was a bit late. Apparently her grandson had a bit of an accident and she needed to take care of him before coming to get Plushie.”

Blu smiled; Mrs. Marks was a nice old woman who was excellent with children. She was the former nanny to Spring and Spring’s sister and had been the one to encourage them all becoming friends, and now she had a grandson around the same age as Plushie who attended a private school a few cities over. She had suggested Plushie attend there, too, when kindergarten… turned out very poorly for the kit. Spring had to pull some strings, but he had managed to get it arranged.

It wouldn’t be easy, though; Spring was Plushie’s emergency contact. If something happened during school, Spring would have to leave early…

Pushing the thoughts from his mind, he said, “That’s fine! By the way, totally adorable about the Jan J thing!”

The rabbit in front of him laughed as he pulled out of the driveway, and then they were off to the highschool.

Blu listened to the disc Spring currently had in his stereo- it was, surprisingly, not Jan J but a country disc. Blu didn’t mind that, though; he liked any song with feeling and meaning, even if the style wasn’t much to his tastes. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the window, letting himself feel at ease amongst his friends.

When they arrived, it wasn’t yet 6:40. They’d still have about thirty minutes in the music room with the director and Blu even still had time to bounce to the restroom and put on his mascara before anyone else arrived. That was good; Blu liked learning more about his instrument without being surrounded by those… those…

Whatever.

Blu hummed quietly to himself. They were sitting in their third period class, right before lunch. It had been rather… strange, to say the least, to walk into a classroom with only sixteen desks which seemed to be separated into pairs, with the desks shoved together and forcing people into close proximity, but it wasn’t that uncommon. There were eight lab stations at the very back of the room, which was very large. He didn’t know why it was so large, but the words on the whiteboard proclaimed this to be Advanced Senior Science. What does that even mean?

Bored, he decided to stir up some trouble. Turning to Spring next to him, he said, “Hey, Spring, can I see your math sheet real quick?” Summer math sucked but they had completed it weeks before, working together on it at Spring's house.

The golden rabbit gave him a strange look, looking perplexed. “Huh?” he questioned confusedly. “Blu, we worked on that together, we have the same exact answers already.”

“I know, but I want to see something!” he explained with a pleading smile. Across the room the door opened, but he ignored whoever it was coming in. He had no more interest in them than they had in him… which was, frankly, none at all.

Spring raised a brow at him but he unzipped his bag and pulled the desired worksheet out of its notebook, handing it over to him. Blu happily took the sheet from him and made a show of studying the slanted, curling numbers and letters closely, pretending not to notice the look his friends gave each other.

He hummed a bit in thought before declaring with finality, “Chii was right, you do write like a girl.” He handed the page back with a grin, watching as his friends processed the words and began laughing. Success, they're all happy.

“What?” Spring asked through his laughter, his green eyes flicking to the math sheet in confusion. Then he gave Blu a small grin. “C’mon, Blu,” he started, “you should know better than to stereotype genders. I mean, just look at you and me.” Blu snorted at that; it was true, neither he nor Spring looked very, uh, masculine. In fact, they both had long, thick eyelashes and softer features than the other guys at their school. And that wasn’t even mentioning their physiques. There was a reason his parents used to treat him like a daughter instead.

Chii nudged him lightly with a small titter, getting his attention. “He has a point,” she said. “How many times have you been mistaken for a girl since, what, middle school?”

The friends all began laughing more and Blu grinned. “Aw, shucks, guys, I know I’m fabulous but ya don’t gotta rub it in~” he sang teasingly to them. He watched as theykept laughing. “Anyway,” he continued once they had quieted enough. He glanced up at the whiteboard, giving them a quizzical look. “Advanced senior science, yeah? What does that even mean?”

“I think it’s lab-based,” Mangle told him with a slight shrug, looking up at the whiteboard as well. “I glanced through the textbook on the way in, there’s a lot of different sciences in it. I saw physics, biology, and chemistry in my little… um, glance.”

“You saw a lot of stuff for it being a glance,” Spring pointed out with a snort, shaking his head slightly and sliding his worksheet back into his bag. He then gave the fox a strange glance, raising a brow. “When’d you even do that? Weren’t you right behind us in the door?”

Mangle looked at Spring, unimpressed, and deadpanned, “It’s called I paused, Springy.” Blu laughed with Alfred and Chii at the obvious answer. Spring rolled his eyes in mock agitation.

“Well, duh,” he snorted, “I was just-”

“Alright, then, settle down class.” It was an unfamiliar but bright sounding voice and Blu turned his attention to the human who had just entered the room. He was tall- at least six feet tall- with bright blue eyes and… brown hair dyed green. Blu grinned; he liked this man already.

The class quieted down and gave their teacher the respect and attention he deserved. Once all was quiet, he continued with, “I am Doctor Mike Schmidt and this year I am your science teacher.” Blu resisted the urge to say well duh.

He glanced over at Spring and noticed him frowning over his shoulder, so he turned his head slightly to look at the classroom behind and to their right. Immediately he identified the problem, a sharp frown tugging at his own lips as he spotted the group of popular students.

Everyone called them the “Fazcrew” for some reason and it sounded absolutely ridiculous to Blu, but he didn’t care enough to say anything about it. He had been indifferent towards them up until freshman year when he had accidentally run into the other rabbit and saw him roll his eyes at his apology and just keep walking without saying anything. And the first time he noticed the golden bear sneer at them? Yeah. So they had all mutually decided that they would return the feelings and gestures… which only made things worse between all of them, but none of them really cared. It wasn’t like the Fazcrew meant anything to them, after all.

He turned his attention back towards the teacher, frowning. Blu glanced over at Spring just in time to see the golden rabbit turn his frustrated gaze to him. He simply shrugged at his friend despite feeling the same irritation. This wouldn’t be the only class they had with that group, after all; they had their morning gym class with them too, and they hadn’t yet gotten to their elective or afternoon classes. Hopefully they’d have a different elective and considering Blu knew for a fact the Fazcrew always chose music, he was pretty damn sure they wouldn’t be in their art class.

Unless they had more than one elective... Damn.

“This year,” Dr. 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.”

Blu felt his heart suddenly drop. Oh my god no. No, don’t.

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

And there it was. He turned his attention to Spring, biting his lower lip in concern. From the expression on the rabbit’s face- wide eyes, small frown- he was starting to panic already. The golden rabbit noticed him, though, and gave him a forced smile. It didn’t convince Blu. He looked at Alfred, behind Spring, for help.

Alfred, noticing Blu’s pleading look, reached forward and touched Spring’s shoulder, causing the rabbit to jump and turn around to look at the bear. Blu couldn’t see his expression but Alfred’s worried frown told him everything he needed to know.

“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." Reasons, please? Explain them? No? "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.”

Blu frowned as he looked back at the teacher. This wasn’t sounding good at all. What if Spring was partnered with someone who didn’t know him? What if Mangle was partnered with someone who wouldn’t respect their preferences? What if Chii got stuck with a self-righteous prick? What if Alfred ended up with someone who was too nosy for their own good?

What if… he himself got put together with someone who spoke Spanish? What if he was with someone who touched too much, who wouldn’t hesitate to grab at his shoulder, who might end up discovering the bandages? His hand twitched to his side, feeling almost sick at the thought. No, think positive. You’ll be with Spring, no doubt! Or maybe Alfred. They’re both really careful and-

“Alright. Gather your stuff, everyone,” Dr. Schmidt’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “And stand back near the lab stations. You can choose your own seats, but you must be sitting next to your partner.”

Blu grabbed his bag and stood up, looking worriedly at his friends. When they had made it to the back, between the desks and lab stations, he turned around so that he was in front of Spring. He fidgeted with the strap of his bag. Positive, Blu, positive. You’ll definitely get one of them.

“Alright now,” Dr. Schmidt hummed, turning to face them with his clipboard in front of him. “First, Bonito Rodriguez and Bonnie Henderson.”

Hardly even noticing the soft hiss that escaped his lips, Blu shot a dark look at the violet rabbit who, he found, was returning it completely and one-hundred percent. The rabbit headed towards the desks next to the door and Blu had no choice but to follow, noting in irritation that he was left with the desk on the wall’s side. Not that he minded that but that meant he’d be separated from his friends. He dropped the bag down and slid into his seat, leaning on his hand and pointedly ignoring Henderson.

“Marion Marshal and Malesha Jacks.”

His heart sunk more; that was literally the only other person Spring knew outside of their group. Quickly pulling his pen out, he began fidgeting and staring at it, twirling it in his fingers and listening as more names were called out. He didn’t look at any of them.

“Freddy Fazbear and Alfred Fischbach.”

What do you know. He heard them take the seats two rows behind them. He hoped it was Alfred in his line. He was sure it was.

“Vivien Blanc and Drew Jones.”

Blu almost let his head fall against the desk as the two foxes, growling slightly, went to their desks. Not only were they stuck with someone they hated but there was, what, a one out of five chance that Spring would end up with Chii?

“Leah Stuart and Jackie James.”

This time he did let his head fall against his desk, doing his best to smother a frustrated shriek. Now Spring could end up with either their friend or, higher probability, one of their enemies. Wonderful. He had a bad feeling he already knew how this would end.

“Frederick Fazbear and Spring Salvage.”

Yep. Called it. His ears drooped, noting with some happiness that the pair had taken the seats directly behind them.

“Francisca Sanchez and Charlotte Kain.”

Once the chickens were seated, Blu sat up and turned around in his seat to look at Spring, his ears twitching only slightly as he frowned and drew his brows together. Spring, understanding what he was asking, forced a smile, but it fell short; his ears were laying flat and there was a slight, hardly-noticeable tremble in his hands.

“Mr. Rodriguez, turn around please,” Dr. Schmidt called and Blu frowned before doing as he was told. Immediately he began fidgeting with his pen again, training his eyes on the doctor. “Now, I know all of you know each other-” he heard a snort from behind and to the left of him, “-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.”

Blu’s frown deepened at this but he took the three questionnaire sheets he was handed and glanced at them. They looked typical enough. He passed one back to Spring but didn’t dare stay turned around longer than necessary- getting scolded twice about the same thing in the span of two minutes was pushing it.

So with a meaningful look to Alfred, the blue rabbit turned his attention back to the worksheet, taking a more careful look at it.

My New Lab Partner!

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

There was no way in hell he was giving Bonnie Henderson his landline number, but he figured he’d have no choice but to give him the cell number. It wasn’t like they would actually use it, anyway, unless they couldn’t arrange something during school hours.

Hopefully that’ll never happen, but just in case…

Blu sighed and wrote down the name Bonnie Henderson before glancing boredly at his partner. The purple rabbit was frowning and Blu noticed he had gotten Bonito Rodri down before pausing. He rolled his eyes.

“G-U-E-Z,” he spelled out for the purple rabbit who shot him a slight glare before filling in the rest. It was such a common name that Blu didn’t know how anyone could not know how to spell it. “And nickname is Blu. Without an “e” at the end,” he added in a mutter.

“I don’t have a nickname,” the rabbit stated flatly, writing his answer down. Blu simply scratched through the line. “July thirty-first, ‘98.”

“February twelfth, 1999,” he muttered, feeling only a little irritated that the rabbit was almost a full year older than him.

“Started school early?” the purple rabbit questioned, raising a brow. Blu quickly determined it was more mocking than curious. “Most birthdays that late start school late.”

“Yeah, well, my family isn’t your typical family,” he bit back, his grip tightening on his pen because the rabbit had no idea. The wound on his side pulsed with pain as he thought about it and he just barely managed to keep from wincing and reaching for it. “And the only other place I’ve lived in is Spain.”

“Immigrant?”

“No, my parents were. I was born here, we just moved back to Spain shortly after,” he grumbled, tapping his pen against the paper. He didn’t like thinking about it, the reason they left Spain to return to America again. He had been barely four years old but he could still remember that explosive fight...

“Dunno why you came back,” Bonnie sneered, writing the info down. “And I was born in Brooklyn.”

Now it was Blu’s turn to sneer. “Dunno why you came here,” he mocked. The look Bonnie gave him was murderous and he simply smirked right back.

“You’re a bitch, aren’t you?” Bonnie growled. It was a common insult for anybody and normally it would mean nothing to someone as self-confident as Blu pretended to be.

Those words, however, brought last night to the forefront of Blu’s mind- the feeling of hands holding him against the wall as untrimmed nails dug into his side, the woman shrieking obscenities at him and one phrase he heard all of the time echoing around; you little bitch. You’re a bitch. Little bitch should never have been born. Just a mistake. Little bitch needs to pay for it. Bitch. The pain in his side flared up again as he remembered how his mother’s long, sharp claws dug into him, how she had scratched him down to his hip, how her claws scraped against his shoulder and almost his neck, the memory of being thrown down onto the ground and landing on the remains of a broken bottle of Corona, filthy glass digging into the skin on his hip and his thigh, trying to catch himself before he could hit his head...

He tried not to dwell on it, tried not to let the rabbit see how badly that it affected him, but he realized he had stopped breathing and was just staring silently at the rabbit, completely still. The rabbit in front of him looked confused and opened his mouth, but Blu didn’t give him a chance to say any more. Abruptly, he turned back to his paper, gripping his pen too tightly as he wrote down Brooklyn mechanically. “Future plans.”

“Hey, are you-”

“Future. Plans.” He tried so hard to keep his hand from trembling. He wasn’t angry at the words… okay, maybe he was- what did Bonnie Henderson know about him? How dare he think he knew Blu well enough to make that decision!- but more than that he was… scared. It was like being slapped in the face, this stranger’s words echoing the words his mother and father often shouted at Blu and at each other. They were words he’d been hearing since Spain- probably since before. Words that always preceded hard hands and sharp claws. They were words he didn’t like, that foretold pain. They were the warning words to hide.

Apparently the purple rabbit realized he had touched a nerve. Blu didn’t know what expression he was wearing as he finally answered, “Music academy in California.”

Yeah, he’d already known that. Everybody did by this time. “Undecided,” he chose to say, even though he had already decided on a school a few hours away. He wanted to do music but he refused to make the same mistakes his father made. “Cooking and playing guitar.”

Still he couldn’t see the rabbit’s expression but he could hear the pencil against the paper. “Music and videogames,” the other rabbit finally said. Blu noticed his answers were as short as his own. Probably in response to his short answers, of course. “Red. And Jonathan Graham.”

He noted the colour and artist down and said the first things that game to his mind; “Yellow, Jan J.” But Jan J wasn’t his favourite. Jan J was among his favourites, but not his favourite. His favourite wasn’t anywhere near as optimistic as Jan J was about the underdog’s position in life, but how could he even begin to tell someone else that peppy, cheery, always-bright Bonito “Blu” Rodriguez basically liked music saying nothing would ever get better and everyone was better off dead?

Of course, he didn’t even think about the fact that Jan J wasn’t optimistic in any sense of the definition, at least not to anyone who wasn’t an underdog.

Blu glanced at the final line. Phone number. Geez, do I? Neither seemed willing to offer their numbers up. However, as Dr. Schmidt passed, he lightly tapped their pages. “Trust me, you’ll want to exchange those, I’m infamous for changing due dates,” he warned before moving on.

Bonnie let out a huff. “346-9807,” he said simply.

“346-3427,” Blu responded shortly, noting down the number he was now determined to never use. He dropped his pen down and turned his head away towards the door, staring out through the window into the hallway. He didn’t want anyone to see the crease in his brow that gave away his true emotions, he definitely didn’t want them to see that telltale shine in his eyes. He needed to get back to being the happy, peppy, cheery bunny everyone knew him as.

He needed to be happy for his friends; if they couldn’t rely on him to brighten up their day then who could they turn to? Who could they depend on to always bring up the bright side, to show them not all was bad? When they were hurting or sad, who would make them smile? He needed to be strong, not for himself or for his nearly-nonexistent reputation.

He needed to be strong for them.

My New Lab Partner!

Name: Bonnie Henderson
Nickname(s): -
DOB: July 31, 98
Places You’ve Lived: Brooklyn
Future Plans: California music academy
Interests/Hobbies: Music, videogames
Favourite Colour: Red
Favourite Band/Musician: Jonathan Graham
Phone #
    Cell: 346-9807
    Landline: