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One's own birthday, at least to a teddy bear, is the most important of all days of the year...and no one knew how best to celebrate a birthday than the teddy bears of Perfection Island.
Or at least, they would, had most of the teddy bears of Perfection Island still been alive and ready to party, rather than scattered here and there around the island's disco in ways that suggested that each bear had met a brutal and most unpleasant end.
You looked around at the horrible mess, and then heaved a sigh of annoyance.
It seemed that someone had tried to stop someone else from showing up, despite your very firm directions that he was more than welcome and that the others were not to interfere.
Naughty Bear all but confirmed it when you asked him if that was the case. You had heard the screams and had stopped dancing in order to investigate, and had found him standing there and watching you with his adorably grumpy face covered in fluff, his machete clenched in one fist and a yellow present-box held delicately in the other. It had been Chubby and Giggles who had started it yet again, you figured; you'd explicitly warned them, but it apparently hadn't been heeded.
Naughty shyly brought both paws behind his back and scuffed at the ground, not looking directly at you when you asked him if he'd really needed to kill everyone. He grumbled and mumbled wordlessly, giving a little half-shrug before he hesitantly offered you what was surely meant to be an apologetic smile.
Well. You supposed that that's what happens, when the others try to stop your beloved Naughty Bear from coming to your birthday party.
He inched a little closer, dwarfing you with his shadow. Any other teddy would have been terrified to tears, but it was impossible for you to be afraid of him when he was looking so sweetly bashful about what he'd done. He brushed some cotton from his face and then, as if worried that you were going to get angry with him, offered you the present with a hesitant little 'ta-da!' that made you grin.
Feigning surprise, you asked him if that was for you, and he nodded eagerly.
You took the little yellow box, pulled on the shiny red ribbon to let it fall open-
-And saw nothing inside but broken glass. Your gift, it seemed, had gotten smashed in the commotion.
Naughty seemed to deflate when he saw the contents of the box; his shoulders slumped, and the corners of his mouth turned down in a defeated kind of frown as his ears drooped. The machete-tip touched the dirt, and you saw him glance between the broken shards and your face as if he was now concerned about facing some form of punishment of his own.
You looked around you again. The music from the disco still floated on the air, mingling sweetly with the Fluffouls singing and calling to one another in the trees. The warm summer air smelled like birthday cake. Goober's corpse lay draped over a grill, sizzling.
Lightheartedly, you reassured him that it didn't matter. Naughty looked up, his posture still hunched, and his brow knit in confusion. You brought your paw up and lightly booped his nose- his tongue poked out when you did so, and he giggled.
He, you told him brightly, was the gift!
Naughty's face lit up with such soft delight that you forgot, for a moment, that you were standing in the middle of a mass murder scene. He pointed at his own chest, and you reaffirmed that yes, you were so happy to have him there that you didn't need anything else. It was the truth, anyways- you loved your big bloodthirsty teddy bear to bits...even when he was covered in fluff and thread from hacking other teddies to pieces.
You put the broken present down on a picnic table, and then grabbed Naughty's huge paw to pull him towards the disco. You had cake to eat, and music to dance to, and bodies to hide, and it was time to get the party started now that all of the guests were here.