it will never be okay

"it will be okay"

monty solemnly eyed the star-shaped shades held within the grasp of his claws. he remembered that day; he always looked back on it fondly, but it was always with a bittersweet pang. bonnie had given him his iconic superstar shades as a gift, and a sign of friendship, according to him at least; monty'd always assumed he'd done it out of sympathy as well. he didn't like being pitied upon, but as much as he kept denying it, he wholeheartedly appreciated the gesture. it was what solidified their friendship after all.

then, holding the shades in one hand, he stared intently at the other. his strength has always been his greatest pride, but also his worst curse. his fingertips may know how to make magic come to life in the form of music, but his fists have inflicted pain upon one of his friends. and he feared himself from that day forth.

he knew it wasn't him, but the evidence was there before his very eyes – before freddy's own eyes. he knew it wasn't him, but freddy didn't believe him. maybe he couldn't believe himself either. how could he when he's done so much damage with just his bare hands?

he didn't want to risk another incident like this happening again.

he didn't want to risk losing his friends.

"hey."

he jumped at the sound of another animatronic's voice just behind him. he did not need to turn around, for he already knew who it was.

"what are you doing here? you're supposed to be reuniting with all your best buds." monty did not mean to sound so spiteful; if anything, he was angry at himself rather than at bonnie.

glamrock bonnie sat down beside him on the circular stage of monty golf, a smile upon his face. "i came to chase down one of my best buds who ran away from the rest."

monty did not turn to look at bonnie; he couldn't bear to look at the rabbit he once destroyed. "how could you say that after what i did to you? best buds don't kill each other."

bonnie frowned at this. "yeah. that's why i believe that you didn't do it."

this time, the gator faced bonnie, confusion etched all over his face. he could barely get himself to speak out of shock. "wh... what? but y-you were there. you saw me hit you, like, a lot of times!"

bonnie merely shrugged. "i know you, montgomery. you are destructive, but you are not a killer. it was someone else."

"but that doesn't make any sense!" monty shouted out of impulse. as he stood up he dropped his shades – bonnie's shades – and he gripped and shook his head vehemently, as if hoping that would make him make sense of it all. "i... you were... why are you..."

his questions and rebuttals choked back down his throat as he shut his eyes closed. if he were human, he'd have been a sobbing mess at that moment, tears pooling at the bottom of his eyes and flowing down his cheeks like waterfalls. he didn't like being seen in such a vulnerable state, but at that moment he didn't care. even after the way he's treated bonnie for so long, after the decommission that was clearly his fault, how could bonnie so easily say that he wasn't the one behind it all? heck, even freddy didn't believe him, not like he had evidence to support the truth; but bonnie was willing to put his trust in him anyway.

"why?!" he screamed aloud, his raspy robotic voice echoing off the vast space of monty golf. "why do you trust me?! after all i did to you... is this your way of punishing me?!"

bonnie stood up to his feet and stared at monty, his eyes filled with nothing less than sincerity. "are you admitting you did kill me?"

"well, what other explanation is there?! i had your corpse on my hands that night, bonnie! i don't deserve your forgiveness!"

"... you really wanna know why i think it was someone else?"

bonnie planted his hands on monty's shoulder, prompting him to glance up at him. "i saw that deadly glint in your eyes, the way you glared at me. i don't know any other way to describe it but... it was glowing purple. you looked possessed, you didn't look like yourself; you definitely weren't yourself at all.

"maybe it was a malfunction, maybe some vengeful spirit somehow made its way into your conscious – i don't know, and we may never find out. but i know from the bottom of my heart that the truth is that you did not kill me. and even if it was your body that got me decommissioned..."

bonnie smiled. "i forgive you."

monty's jaw was slacked open as he stared at bonnie. he felt a typhoon of intermingling emotions... disbelief, surprise, a hint of sorrow and regret. and then there was that feeling of closure.

at that moment, he knew that it will be okay.