"No, no, you can't leave me with him, he'll kill me!"
"Now, now, Stewie, mommy'll miss you too, but me and your daddy have to get away for a while. It's just a few days, and if you're good I'll bring you back something nice."
"No, no, you don't understand! He'll kill me! I don't want to die, I don't want to die! Damn you, Lois, you must meet your demise before I meet mine! Don't you dare leave me with that- "
"Uh, Meg, why don't you take Stewie and get him settled down," Brian interrupted hastily. Meg obediently picked up her brother and took him into the next room. "Don't worry, Lois, we'll be fine. He's just a little overexcited. I'll get him settled down."
From the other room, Stewie's wails seemed to increase.
"I know you will, Brian," Lois said, looking reassured, but then she sighed. "He's been so unsettled since his accident. I know the doctor said it was only mild concussion, but, I don't know.."
"Hey, babies recover faster than anyone," Brian told her with false cheeriness, hoping the guilt wouldn't show on his face.
"Hmm, I don't know. Peter, maybe we shouldn't be leaving him."
Her husband looked up from the suitcase he was shoving in the car. "What? No, Brian's right, he'll be fine. Y'know Ben Stiller once told me that everybody copes better with tragedies once they gain a little independence."
"What?" said Brian.
"Peter, he's a baby."
"Ehhh."
"And he was hit by a bus."
"He will be fine, Lois," Brian assured her. "I'll call you if there's any problems, though. Hey, you two better get going if you want to miss the heavy traffic."
"Well, I guess you're right," she admitted, and went towards the car reluctantly.
"Come on, Lois, this hotel room cost me a fortune, show a little enthusiasm!"
"I'm sorry, Peter, it's just- "
Her words were cut off as she shut the car door.
"Have a good time!" Brian called.
Chris poked his head out the door. "Bye, mom! Bye, dad!"
After waving them off, Brian shut the door and found Meg in the kitchen making a sandwich. "Where's Stewie?"
She shrugged without turning round. "I ' unno. I got him to quit yelling. He must have gone up to his room."
Brian left her and approached Stewie's door. He knocked tentatively. "Hey, Stewie?"
"Leave me alone!"
"Aw, Stewie, come on, we're even now! Can't we just forget about it?" He tried the door. "Hey, what the hell? Stewie, how have you locked yourself in? Have you got something against the door? You can't barricade yourself in like that, it's dangerous!"
Stewie took no notice.
"Look, come on, you've got your money and I've had my revenge shot; can't we just let it go?"
Brian waited. He could just about make out some unintelligible muttering, and realised Stewie was talking to Rupert, his teddy bear.
"Fine, stay in there, but I'm coming to get you when dinner's ready, and you better have this door open by then!" He turned and marched downstairs without waiting for a response.
God, that kid was such a pain sometimes. Okay, so it's pretty terrible to push a baby in front of a bus, but hell, the kid shot him in the knees and set fire to him. Besides, the bus was coming up to a stop, therefore barely moving. Brian sighed to himself, flopped on the couch and switched on the tv.
Chris pounded downstairs and stood at Brian's side. "Briiiiiaaan, can I go and have dinner at a friend's house tonight? I want to get away from the evil monkey in my closet."
"Um, sure. But Chris, there's no evil monkey in your closet. You're too old to make up stuff like that."
Brian's gaze remained on the tv, so he didn't notice the appearance of a small, dark figure on the stairs. Chris gave a little cry and ran out of the house.
"Call me when you want picking up, Lois won't want you walking around in the dark!" Brian shouted after him.
He glanced up at the ceiling where Stewie's room was, and then back at the tv. Stewie'd be fine. He settled more comfortably on the couch.
--
Meg wandered into the kitchen. "Hey, is dinner ready?"
"Yeah, just about. Get some plates out, will you? I'll go get Stewie."
Brian went upstairs and found Stewie's door to still be stuck.
"Stewie, I swear to god, I'll call the fire brigade if I have to."
"You wouldn't! No, no, you wouldn't, because that'd make you look like a hopeless babysitter, and Lois'd hate you forever!"
"Stewie just open the damn door!"
There was a little silence, and then Brian heard some movement behind the door. It opened a few inches and Stewie dived out past Brian and fled down the stairs. Brian shook his head and followed him. He met Meg at the kitchen door.
"Brian, I'm doing homework so I'll have this up in my room. We're doing frogs in Biology. See you tomorrow!"
"Uh.. okay. G'night, Meg."
"Goodnight!"
Brian walked past Stewie into the kitchen. Stewie stared after Meg incredulously. "What? No, you can't leave me here with him! Where's the fat one? Chris! Chris! Get down here, fatty!"
Brian rolled his eyes and picked up their plates from the counter. "Stewie, Chris is out. Now will you - "
"What? No way, man, there's no way I'm being left alone with you. I'm not going to be slashed with the carving knife; I'm eating in the next room!"
And so saying he snatched his plate from Brian and managed, wobbling dangerously, to get it to the next room.
"Oh, for God's sake. Look, Stewie, you haven't even got your bib on! Will you just..oh, y'know what? Fine. You better not spill anything though, cos I'm not cleaning it up!"
Brian sat down.
That was lame, even to his own ears. He was such a bad babysitter. He usually had a knack for handling Stewie, though, but it wasn't working right now. Oh well. He tucked into his food. Stewie'd get over it. They'd both forget about all this in about a week.
--
Brian finished his meal in the strangely silent kitchen, and got up to check on Stewie. He found the plate on the coffee table, most of eaten apart from the meat. He realised Stewie had had nobody to cut it up for him so he'd just left it. Brian felt a little twinge of guilt. He went upstairs and called through Stewie's door, "Hey Stewie, you've left your meat..do you want me to cut it up for you? Or make you something else?"
"No."
Brian sighed. "Listen, kid, I.. can we just let it go? I told you, you gave me one revenge shot and I've had it. What do you say, friends again?"
Stewie said nothing.
Brian sighed again, and left him. The phone rang when he was halfway down the stairs.
"Hi, Brian!"
"Hey, Chris. Do you want picking up now?"
"Yeah! I'm at 252 Maple Drive, Rhode Island, USA."
"Northern Hemisphere, the world, the universe?"
"Yeah!" Chris laughed. "Oh wait, hang on..I think so, but - "
"I'll be there in a minute."
"Bye, Brian!"
"Bye."
He replaced the receiver and stood at the foot of the stairs. "Meg, I'm going to pick up Chris, keep an eye on Stewie for me!"
"Okay!"
Brian shook his head on the way to the car. Couldn't Peter and Lois have any normal children?
--
Brian opened Stewie's door without knocking and found him engrossed in his toys.
"What do you want?" He said suspiciously.
"You need changing," Brian told him.
"Why, that's preposterous! Lois always changes me at half eight and it's only twenty past and I don't... oh."
He picked Stewie up and lay him down on the changing table. "And don't piss in my face this time."
To his surprise, Stewie didn't. Fear had made him eerily compliant. When Brian had got him into his sleep suit, Stewie jumped off the table and went back to his toys, ignoring Brian completely.
"Do you want some supper?" Brian offered.
"No."
"Alright then. I'll be up a little later to tuck you in."
Stewie kept his back to him.
A little irked, Brian gave up and walked out. Hell, if anyone was sulking it should be him, but then again Stewie was just a kid, and he'd always seemed to have a bit of a crush on Brian. It was understandable that he'd taken being pushed in front of a bus by him a little hard.
Personally, Brian no longer held any grudge for his beating. He figured Stewie had saw something on tv and copied it. It would explain the mobster voice-impersonations. How the hell had he got the gun though? Maybe he'd made it himself. God knew he was smart enough.
He went back up a little later to tuck Stewie in, only to find he had beat him to it. He'd even put all his toys away. "Stewie?" He said uncertainly. He crept nearer to the crib, and observed how his arm was hooked firmly around Rupert and his thumb was in his mouth. "Stewie? Look, I can tell you're awake. Are you okay?"
Stewie frowned a little and took his thumb out of his mouth. "Yes. Let me sleep."
"Don't you want a story?"
"No! Get out!"
"Fine, be a jerk! I've tried to make amends and you clearly aren't interested. Let me know when you decide to be a little more grown up about this."
Brian left in disgust. Christ, the kid was so annoying!
--
Brian was startled out of sleep by the sound of Stewie's yelling. He stumbled out of bed and into his room. He felt for the lamp blindly.
"Lois! Lois! Lois! LO- "
"Stewie, shh, you'll wake everybody up. Lois isn't here, remember?" He lifted him from the crib.
Stewie burst into tears and pummelled Brian weakly with his fists. "NO! I need Lois NOW! Lois is always here when I have a nightmare! I want Lois now!"
"Shhh, Stewie, calm down, it's okay," he said soothingly. He pulled up a nearby stool and sat on it, cradling Stewie to his chest. "Stewie, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to upset you this much. Please don't cry."
Stewie sobbed into his fur. "But you h-hate me, Brian,"
"No, I don't!"
"You've always hated me!"
"Stewie, you're still half asleep. I was pissed off, but I've never hated you."
"But..but I s-shot you in the kn-nees and s-set fire to you."
Brian sighed and shifted Stewie around a little on his lap. "Yeah, you did. Why, Stewie? Why the hell did you do that?"
Stewie sniffed. "Cos you didn't gi'me ma money." He was putting on that gangsta-like voice again.
"You can't copy things like that Stewie, it's wrong. You were just pretending to be some rough mob guy, so why didn't you just pretend to beat me up?"
"But you didn't pretend to give me money."
"Of course I didn't, I was actually making a bet and I assumed you'd be sensible about it. I had no idea you'd take it so seriously. I was going to give you your money, Stewie, I just couldn't be bothered going to the bank. I was waiting til friday because I'd already arranged to go to the mall with Peter then, so that's when I would have gave you your money."
"..oh," he said in a small voice.
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry, Brian,"
Brian nearly dropped him in shock. He'd never heard Stewie apologise in his life. "Okay," he said after a moment. "You can stop treating me like a monster, then. You're just a kid, I'm not going to do anything else to you."
"Okay," Stewie sniffled into Brian's fur and wriggled around on his lap a little. Brian listened to how quiet the house was. Chris and Meg must have woken up when Stewie started screaming, but it looked like they'd just rolled over and gone back to sleep.
"Brian?"
"Yeah?"
"Will you read me a story?"
"What, now? It's 2am."
"Please? I won't get back to sleep if you don't."
Brian gave in. "Alright." Stewie's favourite book was a short one, anyhow. He lowered him gently back into the crib and pulled Stewie's favourite bedtime story from the shelf, and spoke the words he knew practically off by heart.
"Once, long ago.."