Cat keeps bringing leash and harness to bed during the night, but he hates these things!

I would have tagged as "behavioral issue, but... it's not really an issue. I'm mostly trying to figure out what this means, and I know it's probably a more lighthearted topic than what gets posted here.

My cat hates putting his harness on because he knows it means we are getting in the car. He has done this before in the past, but not as often. However, in the past week, I've started trying to train him on it proper. Giving him churu, putting it on him, giving him more churu, waiting a bit, giving him more, taking it off, then finishing the tube, so that hopefully he learns to associate it with something positive. Now he brings either the harness or the leash to bed every night, usually while I'm asleep and don't notice. I wake up and it's there, where it wasn't when I went to bed. My first thought is that maybe it just smells like him, and he wants the bed to be associated with his scent. But I'd love some insight.

Why would he bring something he hates to a safe place?