Chapter Fourteen: Deal with a Devil
When Meg unlocked the door, all she really wanted to do was go upstairs, use the bathroom, take a bath, and then go to sleep. She was exhausted, her head was killing her from bashing it against the car window that morning, and her whole body was aching and throbbing from the beating she'd taken.
Fate, as it turned out, had other plans for her.
Brian was lounging on the couch with his massive white head resting on his paws, brown eyes locked on the front of a newspaper; even as she wheeled her way inside the house, he grabbed the corner with his teeth and used his head to turn the page before settling back down and continuing his reading.
He didn't give her a second glance, and similarly, she kept her gaze focused on the stairs.
She was just about to slide onto the carpet like the previous day when his voice filled the air.
"Stewie's waiting for you in the kitchen, Meg."
Her hands froze on the wheels and she stared sightlessly at the wooden stairs when she remembered what had happened with Stewie only yesterday. She had forgotten about it completely with everything going on, had told herself before falling asleep that it couldn't have been real, that it had been her head playing tricks or the meds...
Or maybe Brian was simply letting her know that her brother needed her for something.
Yeah, that had to have been it.
Letting out a sigh, she wheeled herself toward the kitchen, trying to remain optimistic... but that optimism died the moment she rolled through the arch and saw her baby brother sitting on the kitchen table with two screwdrivers and a pile of electrical tools beside him. She froze, gawking at the sight of him tinkering with a strange-looking machine.
He glanced up at her for a second, then sneered, lip curling.
"Well," he snootily drawled, going back to tinkering. "It's about time you showed up. I must speak with you about something of the utmost importance!"
Meg's mouth dropped open in shock and she stared, bug-eyed, at Stewie for a good thirty seconds until he paused, slowly turning his head and looking at her through his shock of soft brown hair. Those arctic blue eyes were very cold and calculating, and also very impatient: the expression on his face was completely adult-like.
It didn't suit his young, childish face in the slightest.
"Did you not hear me?" he demanded; when Meg didn't move, he slapped his little hand against the table and bellowed, "NOW, WOMAN! DON'T MAKE ME REPEAT MYSELF!"
She jumped and hastily wheeled herself over to the table, shivering under her little brother's gaze.
"Much better," Stewie said, then went back to tinkering, gaze becoming focused. "I'm sure you have a great deal of questions now that I've revealed my secret. I bet you're wondering things like how I'm talking so articulately, aren't you? Not that I blame you... the idiots in this house never seem to notice anything, ever."
Meg tentatively opened the pad and uncapped the pen before scribbling down a jerky response.
'I thought I was going crazy yesterday. I'm still not so sure I'm not crazy.'
He glanced up at the pad, but within a literal split second he was back to working on whatever contraption had been laid out on the table.
"You're not crazy, I can assure you," Stewie told her, fiddling with something that sparked; she jumped, staring at the strange blob of a machine in shock, but he seemed unfazed. "Truth is, I have advanced intellect unlike anything this world has ever seen. I also have a photographic memory. I remember every single moment of my life thus far, as if I were still living through it. Only a week out of the womb, I was already able to talk and think and create."
Meg stared at him, then wrote her response and held it up.
'Why didn't you ever say anything?'
Again, only a split second glance on his part.
"I despise Lois and the fat man," he said coldly, holding up his screwdriver with a scary, emotionless face that didn't suit his childlike features. "I kept my mouth shut because I knew I'd never have another moment to myself ever again if Lois ever found out about my genius. She'd spend every single waking second of her time trying to milk it and turn me into a trophy for personal recognition when all she's really good for is a meal and a diaper change."
Meg leaned back, mind blown, not sure how to respond, but after a few seconds, she wrote down her biggest question.
'Why did you tell me all this? What changed?'
This time, when he looked at the pad, instead of glancing back down he met her eyes head on.
And smiled.
It was a mischievous little smirk, but it wasn't unfriendly.
"Simple," he drawled, holding out his little hand; she stared at it, but when he wiggled his fingers in the universal gesture for 'come here' she tentatively wheeled herself a bit closer and held out her own hand. He took it gently, little fingers wrapping around her much larger palm. "You lost your legs and your voice because you thought I was going to perish. That means you're useful, dear sister, so I've decided to let you in on everything Brian and I do."
Meg stared at the tiny fingers ensnaring her palm with a hollow feeling in her chest.
Is this really happening? she wondered, dazed. I can't understand anything. What is this?
His head suddenly moved in the path of her gaze, and those blue eyes caught her attention.
"You'll have to work hard on your own if you want to get your legs back," Stewie said in a monotone, staring at her without blinking, "but if you prove yourself truly useful to me, and you vow on your life to keep everything you might or might not learn about Brian or myself an absolute secret, I'll return your voice to you, Meg."
That caught her attention.
Stunned, she gawked at him yet again, then scribbled a frantic response. His eyes ghosted along it when she held it up.
'How could you do that?! I'm paralyzed, Stewie! My vocal chords are damaged! They won't work!"
"How do you think Brian speaks to us?" he deadpanned, raising an eyebrow when she did a double take. "Surely you didn't think his collar was some sort of mail-order trinket that just happened to really work, did you?"
Meg frowned, since she had, actually, wondered about that a few times in the past.
Nobody knew where he'd gotten it since he'd had it before he'd come to live with them, but he'd been a talker since they'd met him, at the very least. Her whole family had been shocked at first, but when the reality had sunken in that Brian was an actual talking dog, Peter hadn't hesitated to make him a Griffin.
"That collar was made by me," Stewie boasted, slyly wiggling his eyebrows; pulling his hand off hers, he grabbed another tool from the pile and resumed his tinkering. "Don't ask questions about how I gave it to him. That will come in time once I'm sure you're trustworthy. Now, let's make a deal and pinkie swear on it, shall we?"
Meg warily scribbled in the pad and held it up.
'What deal?'
And again, only a split second glance on his part.
"From here on out, I'd like you to be my personal assistant," Stewie said simply. "You won't have to do much as I'm quite resourceful, but there are times when an extra set of hands would make my inventing sprees a little easier, and it would also be beneficial to have someone other than Brian covering for me if and when things go wrong."
Meg went limp in her chair, letting out a heavy sigh.
Her brother obviously heard it and gave her a sour look, but just as she opened his mouth, she started writing in the pad and tiredly held it up. His jaw snapped shut when he read what was on the page.
'I love you, Stewie, but I dunno if I can go through with this.'
"And why ever not?" he demanded, affronted; he planted his hands on his hips. "I'm offering to give you your voice back."
Meg shook her head and scribbled a response.
'I'm going to have a hard enough time just getting dressed, getting around the house, crawling up and down the stairs, using the bathroom, bathing, and everything else... I'm going to be far too tired to do anything that might help you. It's only been one day and I'm already so exhausted I can barely move my chair anymore.'
"Oh, is that all?" he airily asked, going back to tinkering. "In that case, if you agree to it, I'll invent some devices that will fix all those problems in a jiffy! That shouldn't be too hard, or even all that time consuming... so, what do you say? Will you become my personal assistant?"
Meg hesitated, since she didn't know how a four year old could manage to make her life easier or even fix her voice... but then again, she didn't know how he was the way he was, either. In the end, she decided to go along with it, since she figured she could always stop if he didn't keep his end of the deal. Plus, she still had a weird feeling that this was all just a strange dream.
She wrote her response in the pad and held it up.
'Fine. You have a deal.'
"Excellent!" he bugled, nodding at her; then he saw the clock on the wall and winced. "Blast it. I should clean this up before the fat man gets back. You're free to do as you wish. If I need something, I'll come to you. Oh, and I'll begin working on those devices I mentioned later this evening."
Meg watched in a daze as he pulled something out of his overalls pocket and held it up, but when a blinding flash filled the room and made her eyes smart, she flailed and rolled backwards, slamming into the wall. Her bruise smarted and throbbed, sending stars shooting into her brain, but when her vision cleared she saw that the strange tools, the electrical parts, and the odd blob of a machine were all gone, as if they'd never been there in the first place.
Stewie was already wandering out of the room.
He paused right before he walked out, however, and turned with a perplexed look on his face.
"Why did you do it, by the way?" he casually inquired, tilting his head. "It doesn't make sense, to be honest."
Meg blinked, confused, and scribbled in the pad.
'Why did I do what?'
He rolled his eyes and folded his arms, staring at her with a dead fish stare
"Jump in front of a speeding car on my behalf, you fool," he reiterated, then frowned. "I've never once given you a reason to do something like that for me. You know that I dislike you... my behavior patterns were unmistakable, so why is it that you took a hit for me when all I've ever done is kick or hit you?"
A wash of depression came over her in an unexpected wave.
She sagged, then wrote her answer down.
'You're my little brother, Stewie. Even if you hate me like everyone else, we're still family, and I can't stop myself from loving you. As much as it sucks, you guys are all I have.'
His eyes lingered on her words far longer than they had on any of her other responses.
"Touche," he stoically droned.
Doing an about face, he walked out without another word, and after that, Meg was alone. She sat there for a long time, dazed, confused, wondering what the hell had just happened... but even though she wanted to go upstairs, she was too tired to move.
She folded her hands on her lap and leaned back, head coming to rest against the kitchen wall, staring tiredly at it; her eyelids drooped, her muscles tingled, and every part of her felt heavy.
The silence, broken only by the ticking of the kitchen clock, lulled her.
Her eyes fell closed.
The ticking was rhythmic in her ears.
It happened unexpectedly: a good dream.
She could see a woman with short red hair standing in front of a well-kept stove, happily humming a little tune under her breath. Her father, sitting across from her, reading the paper despite his hulking size. The man's were mellow, and even though his face was expressionless, he somehow seemed happier than he'd been in years.
It really was a simple dream.
But despite that... Meg was... happy.
"Mama," she called, happily lifting her arms. "Mama... hug!"
Lois's short red hair fanned around her ears when she happily turned and looked at her, sweeping forward with her arms stretched wide.
"Meeeeg..."
Those arms... those warm, loving arms... they were going to -
"Meeeeeeeeg... wake up!"
A loud, deafening metal clang jerked her out of her dream and her mother's smiling face abruptly vanished like a cloud.
With her small white hands still outstretched towards the perfect dream, Meg groggily blinked at the banging pots that Peter was rapidly smashing together, grinning the grin she hated so much; reality slowly came back, and it did so in a slow, painful manner. Meg let out a huff of air and pressed a hand against her forehead, but the banging and her father's raucous laughter was giving her a headache, so she grumpily rolled herself out of the kitchen.
Dinner had already been made and eaten from the look and smell of things.
The windows were dark, which likely meant she'd been out cold for the rest of the day.
She tiredly wheeled over to the stairs, then flopped out onto the first one and began the difficult crawl to the top, back screaming and burning with the effort of pulling herself up one at a time. She had to stop halfway there to catch her breath, and she pillowed her head on her arms, but once she was able to she continued to the top.
Then she crawled all the way to her room and dragged herself into bed.
She tiredly set her alarm clock to go off at three thirty in the morning just in case before flopping back. Lifting her eyes, she looked around her room... then closed them, feeling a little sick.
She wished she could go back into the dream and stay there forever, but her wishes never came true.
She went back to sleep a second time fighting back the urge to cry.
It had been a long day.