Quahog was, by all known accounts, a town that had long since come to terms with the peculiar. It had, after all, survived hurricanes, maniacal chickens, and the continued existence of Glenn Quagmire. However, even by its own standards, the arrival of Baxter Q. Parsnip was something of a new low. Or high. It depended on how one viewed the metric of social decay, or the general concentration of THC in Baxter's lungs.
Baxter was a rabbit. This was immediately notable because rabbits, as a general rule, do not stagger into towns reeking of gin and questionable life choices. Nor do they chain-smoke, engage in prolonged philosophical debates about the ethics of stealing bar nuts, or possess a voice eerily similar to Ryan Reynolds. Yet Baxter did all these things, and with a level of self-assurance normally reserved for cult leaders and used car salesmen.
His arrival was not so much an introduction as it was an incident. He had, in an act of both desperation and drunken ingenuity, hitched a ride into town on the back of a fish delivery truck. This had resulted in three things: the immediate shutdown of a local seafood restaurant due to "lingering odours," his arrest for indecent exposure (which he protested, claiming fur counted as clothing), and Mayor West deciding, after deep contemplation, that Baxter might be "a god of some kind."
The police let him go, mostly out of confusion. Baxter celebrated by immediately finding the nearest bar, which happened to be the Drunken Clam, and inserting himself into Peter Griffin's life with all the grace of a bowling ball through a stained glass window.
Peter, who had long since stopped questioning the nature of reality, found an immediate kinship with the disheveled rabbit over their shared love of alcohol and aggressive indifference to financial responsibility.
"Hey, do you pay taxes?" Peter asked.
"Only in regret," Baxter replied, taking a long drag from his cigarette before flicking the ash into someone else's drink.
It was friendship at first felony.
Quagmire, upon encountering Baxter, had only one question. "So, do rabbits have, like, weird sex stuff?"
Baxter's eyes lit up. "Oh boy, do they! Now, let me paint you a picture—"
It was twenty minutes before Cleveland returned, having briefly left to pray for his own soul.
Lois, ever the reluctant host to Peter's strays, was understandably less enamoured when Baxter followed Peter home. Her mood was not improved when she found him passed out in Stewie's high chair, the distinct scent of whiskey and bad decisions filling the air.
"I don't want him in this house, Peter," she hissed.
"Oh, come on, Lois," Peter said, waving a hand. "He's not so bad. He's just… rustic."
Baxter lifted his head groggily. "Hey, at least I passed out in a chair. You should see what I did to your carpet."
Brian, who had long suffered as the resident alcoholic misanthrope, sensed a rival immediately.
"Oh great, another washed-up has-been ruining my already miserable existence."
Baxter gave him a lazy grin. "Relax, pooch. I've seen your book sales. I was ruining your existence before I even got here."
He assimilated into the Griffin household like a fungus—slowly, inevitably, and with the distinct smell of something that probably needed medical attention. He took up residence on their couch, usually in nothing but a bathrobe of dubious origins, and chain-smoked while offering Meg unsolicited life advice.
"You ever think about just… being someone else? Like, someone who doesn't suck?"
The only family member he seemed to genuinely respect was Stewie, though this was primarily because he was convinced the baby had killed before and would do so again.
"That kid's got the dead eyes of a contract killer," Baxter whispered to Peter one evening. "If I disappear, tell my story."
Through means unclear, Baxter even secured employment. Quagmire, recognising a kindred spirit in recklessness, gave him a job at his airline as an in-flight entertainment consultant. This involved getting drunk in first class and making deeply unsettling announcements over the intercom.
"Ladies and gentlemen, if you look out the left window, you'll see the ground, which is where we'll all be if the pilot's had as much to drink as I have. Haha, just kidding. Probably."
He had not, inexplicably, been fired.
His influence spread. One night, he found himself standing at a podium in James Woods High, having somehow infiltrated an assembly and deciding to offer some unsolicited wisdom to the youth.
"Listen, kids," he said, swaying only slightly. "Life's a rollercoaster, and you're either the guy having fun or the guy puking on his own shoes. Be the fun guy. Also, smoke 'em if you got 'em, and never trust a man with two first names."
The school board was outraged. The students, however, declared him a legend.
For all his debauchery, Baxter occasionally stumbled into wisdom, much in the way a blindfolded man might occasionally stumble into an open manhole. To Chris, he once said:
"Kid, life's just a series of bad decisions wrapped in a trench coat. You either own it or let it own you. Also, always carry snacks."
Chris took this to heart, stopped doing his homework, and declared Baxter his life coach. Lois nearly strangled him.
And so Baxter remained, unwelcome but tolerated, a stain upon the fabric of Quahog that everyone had simply given up trying to scrub out. He was not here to learn a lesson. He was not here to grow as a person. He was here because, in his words, "I've been kicked out of every other town within a hundred-kilometre radius."
And so, with a cigarette in one paw, a drink in the other, and the devil-may-care smirk of someone who should really, really be in therapy, Baxter Q. Parsnip was here to stay.