Brendon thought that the Bear was the best thing ever. To be fair, though, Brendon always thought that something was the best thing ever, but it just so happened that today, this week, this month, whatever, it was the Bear.
Whenever they had downtime, they usually spent it playing videogames, or shopping. It just so happened that Spencer swaggered into the hotel room where Jon, Ryan, and Brendon were sprawled on the bed, watching cartoons, and declared that he needed new shoes. And when Spencer decided that he wanted shoes, no one would rest until Spencer got to go shoe shopping. It was these times when he could be just as frustratingly annoying as Brendon.
In retrospect, Ryan should've been suspicious about how agreeable Brendon was about going to the mall. Brendon did not like going shoe-shopping with Spencer. ("Spencer is crazy," he'd confided to Ryan once on one of these outings, sitting in the food court waiting, having scoured the entire mall for anything worth buying and now Ryan was half asleep with his head propped up on his hand. Ryan had made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat and Brendon had reached out and pushed his arm from beneath his head. "No seriously, Ross. He gets this gleam in his eye, and whoa, watch out.") But Ryan wasn't thinking.
If he had thought, he wouldn't have been standing in the middle of the freaking Build-A-Bear Workshop, looking mildly horrified as Brendon told him he was going to make a bear.
"Uh." Ryan said, looking at Brendon as though Brendon's last brain cell had crawled out his ear and was doing a dance across his forehead before fluttering away.
"Come on, Ryan, it'll be fun. Seriously. Totally awesome. Plus, Spencer and Jon would never do it because they're not as awesome as you. Then we can both have a bear! And one day when we're old we can sell them and raise money for an orphanage or something."
"Uh." Ryan said. "Jon would totally be more into this than me."
"Come onnnnn," Brendon whined at him, waving around a little bear with no stuffing in its insides. That's what Ryan hated about Build-A-Bear - the bears were empty and sad and he wanted to just stuff them all. But no one needed to know that. Brendon certainly didn't need to know that or the bus would be waist-deep in bears. "You know you want to."
"Stop waving that thing around," Ryan said, reaching out and grabbing it out of Brendon's hand and throwing it back into its bin. Brendon actually pouted at him. Really, truly pouted at him. Like he was going to cry. Ryan wanted to strangle him right there but there were little kids around.
"Please?" Brendon said, one desperate last-ditch attempt to get Ryan to do it. "There's a kangaroo?" He shook the empty little bear a little bit more. Ryan finally reached out and snatched it from his hands.
"Stop," Ryan said, making a face, straightening the bear out and putting it back into its bin. "I hate that they're all empty. They look so sad empty."
"You're a girl," Brendon said brightly. "But if you don't want them to be empty, then you should make one!"
"Brendon, what the hell am I going to with a teddy bear?" Ryan asked, looking at Brendon seriously.
"Ryan, don't swear! There are little kids!" There were not actually little kids in the immediate vicinity. "Besides, you could like, keep it in your bunk. Snuggle it."
"I do not need to snuggle a stuffed animal," Ryan said, looking at Brendon seriously, even though Brendon had fished out another empty bear from the bins and was making it dance around through the air. "Brendon," Ryan whined at him.
"You need to snuggle a stuffed animal. Look at it, Ryan. It needs you to take it over there and fill it up with stuffing and take it back to the hotel and snuggle it. And then keep it in your bunk on the bus and snuggle it every night when you're all alone." Brendon held it right up next to his face, and Ryan did what any twenty-year-old possibly gay rockstar would do when faced with a cuddly little bear and an adorably pouting lead singer.
He caved.
"Fine!" He yelled, making mothers and children alike turn to look at him as he reached out and snatched the bear out of Brendon's hands, marching forward and joining the line of people waiting to get their bears stuffed. Brendon grinned proudly and followed him, stopping next to him to play with the sounds.
Ryan realized a few moments later to his horror that he was going to have to do a dance before the girl would let him put the little heart inside his bear. They had a momentary staring contest before she looked Ryan right in the eye and said "do it". Ryan stared at her for a few more seconds before doing it.
During this, he didn't notice Brendon covertly customizing one of the little voice things.
He finally made it up to where the boy was waiting to stuff his bear. He felt like an ass handing it over. He was twenty years old and he was letting another boy stuff a teddy bear for him. If anyone asked, he'd lie and say it was for his girlfriend. Yeah, totally.
"Wait, put this in it!" Brendon was suddenly saying right in his ear, and Ryan jumped. "Sorry," he said, although it was obvious that he wasn't actually sorry. "Put this in it."
"What is that?" Ryan asked, suspicious.
"Oh, it's a sound!" the stuffer-boy said. "That way, you can squeeze the bear and he'll make a sound."
"What's the sound do?" Ryan asked.
"It says ‘I love you'," Brendon said. "You know, for when you snuggle it."
Ryan stared at him, startled. "I'm not going to be snuggling it."
"You totally are though! That's what you're getting it for, right? To snuggle."
"Shut up, Brendon, seriously. I'm not snuggling a bear."
"Sure, whatever you say," Brendon said, pleased with himself. He just reached out and stuffed the sound into the bear. Ryan just rolled his eyes. The bear would probably get shoved into a suitcase back at the hotel, and then when they got back home, it would get put away somewhere else and would never see the inside of a bus.
The boy just finished stuffing the bear and pulled the strings to sew it up quickly, then he handed it to Ryan. Ryan was happy that it just wasn't so sad and empty anymore. He actually smiled and thanked the boy.
"Clothes," Brendon said, and dragged Ryan over to the clothes.
Twenty minutes later, Ryan had let Brendon pick out the perfect outfit for the bear that he, belatedly, realized that he'd been clutching tightly in his arms the entire time. Then Brendon ushered Ryan up to the checkout.
"I can't believe you made me do that," Ryan said, once they were on their way out, Ryan carrying he cardboard house that they'd tucked his bear into.
"Spencer's next on my list," Brendon said.
"Spencer's not going to do it," Ryan said. "I'm telling you, you should try Jon. He's got a much higher tolerance for people being ridiculous than Spencer does. Which is probably why he likes you so much."
"Oh shut up, Ryan," Brendon said, and wrapped his arms around Ryan's shoulder.
***
Spencer didn't say anything about the bear when they met up an hour later. He was fuming about not being able to get the shoes he wanted in his size. Jon didn't say anything either, because Jon had the look of a man who had just been through a war. Ryan recognized this look. Brendon had had it the first time he'd been the one to accompany Spencer on a shoe-shopping venture. It didn't phase Ryan, for some reason. He was just used to Spencer, he supposed.
They all gathered up in Spencer and Jon's room for dinner that night. Ryan told them he'd be a few minutes, because he wanted to change, and he disappeared into the room that he was sharing with Brendon. He sat down on the bed and opened up the box, taking the bear out and the clothes, pulling the tags off of them and starting to squeeze the bear into them.
He squeezed the bear just the right way, and a very familiar voice said "I love you, motherfucker!"
What? How in the hell did Build-A-Bear get away with having little sounds that said that. Ryan squeezed it again.
"I love you, motherfucker!" the bear declared. With Brendon Urie's voice.
That little shit. He'd put something completely horrible inside Ryan's bear. Ryan pulled out a notebook and tore out a sheet of paper, writing a note on it quickly before finishing dressing the bear and propping it up against his pillow before actually changing and hurrying down the hallway to the other room just in time to get in on ordering dinner.
***
Brendon got back to their hotel room first, having left Ryan sitting there deep in conversation about, well, who really knew, with Spencer. He smiled when he saw the bear that Ryan had made sitting propped up against the pillows on his bed. Then he noticed the piece of paper laying on his bed, folded in half. He walked over and picked it up.
Written in Ryan's spiky handwriting were the words I love you, too, motherfucker.
Brendon just laughed and folded it up, tucking it into his backpack and changing into his pajamas to climb into bed.
When Ryan came in a while later, Brendon woke up.
"I meant it," he said sleepily. Ryan smiled and tugged on an old hoodie that he slept in when he roomed with Brendon, because Brendon liked for it to be ice cold at night.
"I meant it, too," Ryan said.
"No, Ry, I mean it," Brendon whispered. Ryan climbed up onto the bed with him. "Mean it."
"Bren, we're friends and - " Brendon reached out and tugged at Ryan's sweatshirt, catching him off guard and causing him to fall forward. "Brendon, what -" Brendon kissed him.
Oh. "I mean it," Brendon said. "And this can be weird later, but I mean it."
Ryan shifted and snuggled close to Brendon, letting the other boy wrap around him. Brendon was warm, and Ryan just cuddled against him. "It won't be," Ryan said. He thought that he was really, really okay with this.
"I'll keep you warm and you won't have to wear that sweatshirt," Brendon said. Ryan was tiny underneath the folds of fabric that engulfed him.
"Do you not like my sweatshirt?" Ryan asked.
"It smells nice," Brendon said, nuzzling his nose into the sweatshirt. Ryan just rolled his eyes and let himself relax with Brendon shifting around, occasionally kissing him, kissing his lips, is kissing his cheeks and chin and a few times, his neck. He wondered how he'd been missing out on this Brendon for the last three years, the sleepy one who just wants to snuggle up and kiss him.
He was suddenly very glad that he'd gone with Brendon to make that teddy bear.