Damn You, Puberty!

If there is one thing to know about Brendon Urie, it’s that he does not wait. In fact, he refuses to wait for anybody, or for anything. His erratic, inpatient manner often got the best of him, and annoyed even the calmest of people, especially his best friend Ryan Ross, who seemed to live his life in a mellow, monotonous fashion.

Because that was a known fact of Brendon Urie, every single person whose life intertwined with his dreaded the day when that boy would turn sixteen, knowing the consequences of that day.

That morning when Brendon awoke, the first thing he did was not run into his parents room, demanding presents to compensate for his birth, nor taunt his siblings about how they had to be nice to him for the entire day. No, instead, he ran down the stairs, jumping two at a time, and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him for good measure.

He leaned in toward the glass, pulling his face down into a frown to get a better look at his upper lip, combing it with his eyes for any sign of those fine little hairs. Nothing. Brendon drew back with a bitter look etched onto his face. He considered spending the rest of the day kicking shit and brooding in his room because of his lack of upper lip hair, but then he remembered that he still had presents and birthday cake waiting for him, and quickly forgot his anger.

-&-

Brendon hated Ryan. Hated him so much, he wanted to kick that bastard in shin for everything he had done to him. Okay, technically all Ryan had done was left a little fuzz under his nose that he usually shaves off, but in Brendon’s mind, it was as if Ryan was rubbing in the fact that he totally has puberty under his belt. It was bad enough that Ryan could drive, had grown into his body and had a super sexy low voice, but the mustache really topped it off.

Brendon sat sulking in his room for the better half of the night, contemplating the thought of using a sharpie to draw on the facial hair, but decided against it. It was probably too obvious. Eventually, around ten o’clock, Ryan’s car pulled up alongside the curb and Brendon wondered if he had a good enough throw to pelt the car with eggs. The door bell rang out, and Brendon took his sweet time to answer it.

When he did, a freshly shaved Ryan stood there, in all his naked upper lip glory. Ryan blushed and mumbled something about his girlfriend not digging the mo and that’s why he got rid of it.

Ryan didn’t have a girlfriend, both of them knew that, but Brendon was too busy being happy and hugging the life out of Ryan to catch him out on it because shaving off your wicked mustache because your friend couldn’t grow his own was true friendship.

-&-

“Mom, I think I’m defective. I demand that we see a doctor. Preferably today, please,” was the first words to come out of Brendon’s mouth one Saturday morning, half a year after his sixteenth birthday.

Mrs Urie almost spat her hot tea all over the place when her son’s words reached her ears. She gave him a weird look before replying with, “what are you talking about?”

Brendon squared up his shoulders and tried to train his squeaky voice to sound a little manlier. “I haven’t reached puberty yet, mother, I do believe there is something wrong.”

Mrs Urie was trying her hardest to stifle laughter, but her son’s priceless expression wasn’t helping her in anyway. What made it worse was how hard Brendon was trying to seem older, and if you knew Brendon, you would know how hard it was to ever take the boy seriously.

Mrs Urie tried to form her comforting words carefully. “Well Brendon, everybody reaches puberty at different ages, and your body is just not mature enough for all the changes to go ahead yet...”

Brendon’s face turned to absolute horror, and Mrs Urie knew she had overstepped the line.

“I am so mature! How could you even say that? Well, I see how it is. If you need your grown-up son, he will be upstairs eating his weight in Lucky Charms and watching Sponge Bob. Good day!” Brendon then proceeded to huff, and stomp the whole way up the stairs. Mrs Urie could only shake her head and wonder how long this misery would drone on.

-&-

It was two days before Brendon’s seventeenth birthday, and shit, he was getting nervous. His non-existent facial hair killed him every time he looked into the mirror and what was worse, Spencer had a full mo going on, and he was half a year younger than Brendon! Brendon would love to take a razor to that thing, but Spencer’s bitch-face was pretty damn scary.

Brendon often wondered if he should just pretend that he grew facial hair, but just shaved it off before anyone could know, but that would take time, effort and a heck of a lot of lying to break through the disbelieving looks he would receive. That was definitely out of the picture.

He had also tried not looking into any mirrors for weeks on end, then look, hoping that the hairs would come out of hiding if he wasn’t constantly watching. His family started to think he had a vanity problem with the amount of time he spent checking himself out in the mirror.

With a heavy heart, Brendon got himself ready for bed, dreading the fact that in two days, he would have lived on this earth for seventeen years, and had no facial hair to show for it.

-&-

Brendon felt different. Not in a bad way, but in a nothing way. He would be seventeen in a few hours time, but that wasn’t the reason. No, it was definitely something to do with his body, not his age.

He slowly peeled back the covers, and trudged into the bathroom, his dreary eyes searching for the light switch. There was someone else in the mirror. A better him. He leaned toward the cool glass and peered at his upper lip. He counted, three times to make sure.

Excitement built as he realized he could rub this in Ryan and Spencer’s faces and his parents would stop laughing behind his back. He was a man now!

He ran down stairs, the excitement building, and all inhabitants of the Urie house were awaken with the heartfelt squeal of,

“I HAVE THREE MUSTACHE HAIRS! I’VE HIT PUBERTY!”