Two days later, with the problem outside cleaned up and the customers assured that Fazbear entertainment had had nothing to do with it, the diner opened. Business doesn't sleep. Just like the policemen the night before, nobody seemed to see or hear Nathaniel, and everything went through him as if he was air. It was freaky and depressing at first, but he got used to it after a while. It wasn't so bad to be this way, he tried to make himself believe. After all, he could go wherever he pleased now and that was pretty nice. Of course, nothing he did could stop himself from thinking about his parents and friends or the fact that his murderer hadn't been caught.
The bell at the diner's door dinged and Nathaniel casually glanced over to see who was coming or leaving. A teenage boy walked in with a young child trailing behind him meekly.
All of a sudden, the little boy rushed forward, running through Nathaniel in the process. The boy picked up the Fredbear plush that the bird had so recently possessed and squeezed it in delight. "There you are! I thought I'd lost you!" he squealed happily. The teen snorted and the little boy flinched.
Nathaniel hadn't seen the last of the two boys. They came to the diner nearly every day, arriving after school and leaving at closing time. How the brothers were allowed to come every day without ever attending a party would have mystified the ghost had he not heard the teenager, Henry, smugly address his owner as "dad" as often as he could in front of customers. As the days wore on and Nathaniel realized that the case of his murder must have gone cold, he got bored and took to watching the two boys. He felt like he was getting to know them. Henry always seemed to be snapping his younger brother. Nathaniel knew that little brothers could be annoying, a fact his friends had complained of frequently, but the kid wasn't that bad. Sure, he was a little annoying, but wasn't everybody like that from time to time. He certainly didn't seem to deserve all the cruel pranks his older brother played on him.
Timothy, on the other hand, was perhaps too shy for a kid his age, unless he was alone with his stuffed animals. He had a toy for each of the characters that would be at his father's new, larger pizzeria that was going to open once he sold Fredbear's. The kid brought one or two of them to the diner every day, hiding them in his coat pockets and taking them out for a comforting hug whenever he needed one. Usually that was when he was hiding underneath a table to get away from Henry.
Even though Timothy was terrified into hysteria of the full-sized version of the bear, he especially loved the Fredbear plush. The child carried it with him wherever he went and treated it like a friend: confiding little secrets to it, wearing its fur down with too many hugs, setting aside a portion of his pizza for it to eat (though of course it never took the offer). Nathaniel was pretty sure that Timothy believed that the stuffed animals were real. Maybe it was for the best, because nobody else his age ever played with him. He didn't seem intent on making any friends though. The plushes provided all the companionship he needed, though their friendship couldn't come close to what a real person could offer. Nathaniel found himself wishing that Timothy was his little brother instead of Henry's. He imagined himself teaching the kid sports, helping him with a difficult homework problem, watching him play with his friends' younger brothers…
That got him remembering his own friends, and how they would hang out after school and laugh and get into trouble and talk about their plans for ruling high school. Those plans would never go anywhere now. He'd never see his friends, never go to high school, never get a girlfriend. He felt a tear fall and watched it disappear when it hit the ground.