Scott sat in that room for a long time. He stared at the place where David's blood had spilled the day before. He stared at the Spring Bonnie suit, whose lifeless eyes stared right back at him. He stared at a piece of paper on the wall - a concept sketch of an animatronic fox with a scribbly eyepatch and pirate hook scrawled onto it.

Silence consumed him, but no matter what happened, he wouldn't give into it. Sometimes, quiet is violent. Isn't that always the case? The true criminals are the ones you wouldn't expect. The sex predators are the timid guys that serve you coffee. The murderers are people with friends and family. Silence gave you time to think, to brood, to get lost in the world of simple emotions. For the people inside your brain to coax you and woo you over to their side.

Scott shook his head. Since when had he ever let his thoughts get so dark? Okay. He'd suffered a massive blow. Vincent was an asshole. He could live with that. But he had to get out of this silence.

Standing up on shaky legs, Scott walked to the door of the safe room and walked through, checking and double-checking that he locked the door behind him. He didn't want another David incident on his watch.

The Dining Hall was as noisy as ever. The animatronics had finally been set up, so they were singing again, their slightly off-tune melodies travelling through the air. People were talking. Children were laughing.

Mike appeared at the end of the hallway. He saw Scott and smiled.

Scott felt himself freeze up unintentionally. Mike knew. He wondered what Mike thought. Was he repulsed? Grossed out? He should be. Scott would be. Nervously, Scott gulped and gave a wave.

"I was just coming to check on you," Mike said, starting down the hallway towards him. "Glad to see you're feeling better. Boss tells me you were pretty upset, huh?"

Scott gave a non-committal shrug, "I'm alright. Much better now."

Mike smiled again, stopping in front of him, "Good. I need you to stick around, Scott. Someone needs to keep me sane in this world of crazy."

Scott grinned, feeling any tension melt away. Mike didn't seem to mind. That was a good first step.

"But, I gotta apologise for something, Scott," Mike said, and his grin disappeared.

Scott blinked at Mike, "Apologise? What do you mean?"

"Well, I've probably been making things uncomfortable for you... I have a tendency to make a lot of sex jokes, even, heh, gay sex jokes..." Mike looked awkward; it was the first time Scott had seen him anything less than cocky.

"Have you?" Scott asked. "I really hadn't noticed." That was a lie. Scott had noticed. Scott had very much noticed. "You didn't know, anyway... nobody did."

"A-ha," Mike didn't sound convinced, "But the thing is..." He trailed off, and then shook his head slightly. "Never mind about it. We still love ya', Scott, gay or no gay."

Scott's grin returned with double intensity, he positively beamed at Mike, "That means a lot. Thanks, Mike." He held out his hand in a kind of brofist way, but Mike rolled his eyes and pulled Scott into a quick bro-hug.

Scott was momentarily surprised, but briefly hugged back before Mike let go.

Mike laughed at Scott's expression, "What? I wouldn't have thought that you'd have anything wrong with a little bromance." He grinned deviously. "A little male on male action."

"Oh no," Scott groaned, "Oh noooo. I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?"

"To put it simply: no," Mike's grin widened. "Don't worry, I won't get too cocky. Ahahahah!"

Mike doubled over, clutching his stomach, his laughter louder than even the animatronics awful excuse for singing.

Scott rolled his eyes and kept walking, out into the Dining Hall. He noticed a few heads turning, but other than that, the day had resumed as if nothing had ever happened at all. Well, he wasn't going to let Vincent get to him. He wasn't going to let that bastard get in his way. Scott caught the eye of people staring at him and grinned back at them as if nothing in the world were wrong.

The rest of the day continued normally. He got a lot of stares, caught a few glares. Some people flipped him off. At one point, somebody threw a soda at him and his clothes were drenched with the sticky liquid, but hey, that was nothing compared to what he'd been expecting, anyway. The Fazbear crew get enough pizza flung at them on any normal day. He'd heard a few whispers and somebody had called out, 'dick sucker' as he walked past, but honestly the thing that worried him most out of all of this was that the soda in his hair had dried and now his hair was permanently sticking on end like a Mohawk and the amount of shampoo he was going to need to use tonight was ridiculous.

In all honesty, he didn't care what people thought. Okay, so it still hurt when somebody wolf-whistled at him followed by a chorus of laughs, but hey, most of the offenders were lanky teenagers and 12 year old boys. None of the older people or people his age seemed to really mind all that much, which was a plus. Hardly anybody here he knew by name, and he'd never see them again, so what on earth was the point of worrying about what they thought? One thing was for sure: he couldn't change. So then he might as well work with what he had.

Then there was somebody in front of him, a little girl, maybe ten years old. Scott new instantly that something was up - and he meant that in the nicest way possible. Something about her eyes told him that she might have learning difficulties.

"My Mama says you're different," she said. Her voice was slightly slurred, and she spoke slowly.

Scott's eyebrows raised slightly, "Does she?"

"I'm different, too," the girl replied. "I have Down Syndrome. What do you have?"

"Uh," Scott crouched down to be the girl's height, "You can ask your mom that."

"My Mom says sometimes people are afraid of people who are different, but that that shouldn't mean that we are afraid of ourselves," the girl said, choosing her words carefully.

Scott smiled at her, "That's true. I forgot that for a little bit. It's easy to forget."

The girl nodded and smiled back at him, "I used to be bullied, but my Mom took me to a place where there are other people with Down Syndrome. The bullying doesn't worry me anymore."

"That's good," Scott said. "And y'know, if you ever get bullied, you can always come here and talk to me about it."

"Ruby! There you are!"

The little girl turned around, facing the woman who had just run up, looking deathly pale.

"Thank goodness I found you! I thought you... you... I thought... well, you know how this place is..." Her eyes found Scott and she was silent for a while, before a slight smile appeared across her face. "My sister is lesbian."

Scott straightened up, smiling back at the woman, "And your daughter is beautiful. Don't ever let her forget that."

They stayed like that for a while, smiling their thanks at each other, until the woman said, "Well, I'm glad I got to talk to you. Stay strong, it only gets better from here on out. Trust me."

"I will," Scott said. "Thank you."

And then he crouched down once more and put a hand on Ruby's shoulder, "You and me are different, Ruby, but our differences are what make us special, what makes us special makes us unique, and what makes us unique makes us better people. Difference isn't a disadvantage, it's the best advantage you could get. Remember that."