In One Universe and Out the Other

A/N: This fanfic takes place some time after the events of "A Lot Going on Upstairs," which aired last season.

No, I tell myself. No, no, no. You can't do it.

The dangling nozzle sways gently from side to side—tempting me, inviting me. I shouldn't do this, I tell myself again. I can't. He's my best friend.

Brian shuffles in his sleep from where he's lying beside my crib, and I walk away from the machine, closer to him. He shuffles again, snuffling now. I frown; what's he dreaming about? He looks..."pained" isn't the right word, but he doesn't look happy, either. He looks...

Rolling over, Brian mumbles something in his slumber. This time, he does look he's in some kind of emotional distress. I bite my lip. I can't do it, I tell myself. It's wrong.

But it's curiosity that wins in the end—curiosity that wins out over my guilt, and my shame, and everything I know about ethics. And so—with considerable reluctance, yet at the same time unable to stop myself—I turn around, walking toward the machine with plodding steps.

I pull the nozzle out, extract the headpiece, and pull out the cord, which I've recently lengthened. I carefully approach my sleeping best friend and, quiet as a whisper, slip the headpiece over his ears.

—

I don't know where I am.

It's not nothingness, but it's not anywhere, either. Are we in the multiverse, maybe? I'm floating, suspended in the air, in a place filled with swirling colors and light. I'm in some kind of wide-open emptiness, like a sky that stretches as big as a universe.

By now, I've become pretty adept at lucid dreaming, at least in my own dreams, so I close my eyes and visualize a hoverboard. A clicking noise tells me I was successful; I open my eyes and stoop my neck to see that I'm standing on a hoverboard, which—as per my mental imagery—looks like the return pad from my time machine.

I can fly on it, though, and I propel it forward with my feet, spreading my amms out to balance myself. I can see what I must be looking for, now: it's a big, metallic, multicolored sphere, floating just up ahead. I can tell it has a clear window—although, from here, I can't tell who's inside.

I approach the sphere, setting onto its exterior with a crouch. Before phasing inside it (that's another one of my dream powers), I look down through the upper half of the window. Inside, I see two figures; one of them looks like Brian, albeit with a pair of glasses, and— I say, is that me?

I turn myself invisible—I don't want to affect the course of the dream by letting them see me—and phase into the sphere. I filter downward from the ceiling, grabbing from one handle to the next—they're built along the upper half of the transport pod—n eventually settle myself at a handle that's located halfway down.

I was right; that is Brian with glasses, though his hair's been scruffed at the top and, for whatever reason, his nose is perched on top of the tip of his snout, like Snoopy's. In fact, turns out, I was right on both counts; that is me, although he's older than me, maybe eight or so. I'm—he—has glasses, and is a redhead. (I must say, though, I look terrible as a redhead. I was right to be afraid of having red hair, once it finally grows out.**)

But, all in all, there's something familiar about the pair of them, though I can't quite put my finger on it. Where have I seen them before?

"Where are we going next?" the other me asks.

Brian's fiddling with the control unit. "That's a surprise."

He keeps working with the console for a few more minutes, then turns to the other me. "Hold on!"

The ship starts shaking, and I'm lucky enough to grab onto a handle in time; my entire body is already trembling. By now, we're moving incredibly fast; my teeth are shaking, great swathes of my lips are flapping against my face, my bones are jolting with electricity...and then we stop.

"We're here," Brian says.

I'm winded, but I manage to crawl down from the ceiling via the handles and follow them, fighting off my vertigo. Where are we?

Wait—what?

We're in Hogwarts. That can't be right, but we're in Hogwarts. We're in the Room of Requirement; I recognize the stacks of Dungbombs, the tattered spellbooks, the palatial size of the place—

"What are you going to show me?"

"You'll see."

I'm following on foot behind them now, and so I keep walking, still invisible, as Brian begins expertly weaving his way through the piles of junk, broken wands and fractured quills smashed chess pieces—

"Ah. Here we are."

I'm looking up as he says it, trying to see what he's searching for, so I see the top first: that shiny black surface, topped with an ancient bust that's bedecked with the diadem of Ravenclaw—

The Vanishing Cabinet from Book 6! Brian must have stored something inside it!

I'm right; motioning the other me to follow, Brian throws open the moldy doors and starts bending down, pulling something out from the Cabinet. Both I and the other me are clustered close behind him now; a glance at my dream doppelganger shows me that we both have the same expression—curiosity marred with concern, and maybe a little fear as well.

Brian turns around; I choke up in shock when I see that he's holding a heart. It's the same shape you'd see on Valentine's cards, but—unlike those paper figures—it looks very real.

Unlike the other me, I'm verklempt with shock—but my doppelganger simply says, "Why do you keep it here?"

"Mostly, I guess I just want to keep it safe. I don't want my feelings hurt." He sighs, places the heart back in the cabinet. "There will be times when it will hurt too much, when it won't seem worth it to deal with the problems—"

"No! Brian, you idiot!" I throw my arm forward, shoving the other me out of the way. "You can't stop wanting to feel because it hurts too much! You can't just—opt out of your humanity!"

Both of them see me, really see me, then; the other me gasps in surprise, and Brian turns to me, opening his mouth with a retort—

And then I'm pulled out of the dream, yanked along through that colorful space of nothingness, until I'm standing alone in my room—weak, panting hard, my breath coming in sharp bursts. And for the first time in a while, I'm scared.

—

For the next few days, I'm ashamed to admit, I don't talk to Brian much. We each do our own things, and Brian doesn't comment on our lack of speaking, so I think I've gotten away with it. Haven't I?

And so, two days later, when the rest of the family is in bed, I patter down the stairs. I want to watch Starlight Express; it's on at 11:30, and I've never seen it.

But I stop my pattering when I see Brian on the sofa, a beer bottle in his hand. I don't— I'd rather not talk to him. I'm starting to head back up the stairs when he calls out to me, however.

"Stewie, is that you?"

"Uh— Yes. Yes, it is me."

"Come down then, will you?"

"Uh, okay, okay. For sure. Definitely, Brian."

I come down the stairs. I expect him to be angry, but he just looks weary, sipping at his beer. He pauses the TV—some cartoon is on—and turns to me.

"H-hey, Brian," I say, rubbing my neck.

"Hey. What's wrong?"

"Well, I, um— You're not mad at me?"

"I was at first, but then I realized you needed your space."

"Oh... Well, I shouldn't have been avoiding you. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." Still insecure, I swing up onto the sofa, sitting far away from him. "I'm sorry. I should have spoken to you."

"It's okay, Stewie."

"Why didn't you come talk to me?"

"Well, I've been busy with...other things." He gestures to the room around us; there are at least ten beer bottles scattered all over the carpet.

"Oh, well. That."

"Yeah, that." He glances at the TV. "You can come closer to me, you know. Dogs don't eat people."

"As far as you know, that is."

He chuckles, and I move to sit beside him.

"So you've been more...upset lately?"

"It's the same as always, isn't it? I feel lonely...and restless..."

"But you've got me."

"Yeah, I know. Not when you're avoiding me, though."

"I'm sorry..."

"It's not a big deal, but can you just tell me why?"

"Well..."

"Stewie," he admonishes me.

He's not really forcing me, but I want to tell him anyway. "It's because I went in your dream, okay?"

"What?"

"I went in your dream and I saw you! You were with me, and we went to Hogwarts. and took your heart out of the Vanishing Cabinet!"

He gasps. "It was you! Of course! That's why there were two of you in my dream!"

I don't say anything; for a moment, I'm irrationally terrified of losing our friendship. But then, a moment later—after his anger fades—he says, "That wasn't a nice thing to do. It was a...violation of my mental, psychological and emotional integrity." He pauses. "But fortunately for you, it doesn't really bother me. You're my best friend, and...in that position, I probably would have done the same."

I smile, feeling heartened. "Okay."

"It was still unethical, though."

I wonder if his leftist tendencies will encourage him to tell me off about it some more—something like "That's in direct contravention of the International Blahblahblah Blahblahblah, Stewie."

"That's in direct contravention of Article 3 of the UN's the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Stewie."

I'm smiling. "I knew you were going to say that."

"Yeah, I guess I am pretty predictable, aren't I?" He pats the space on the sofa that's directly beside him. "Come closer."

I move closer to him. "Say, Brian... Do you really feel that way, in real life? Like you hurt too much, and you just want to—give up?"

"Well, you didn't let me finish. What I was about to say—before you so rudely cut me off—is that you can step away from your problems when they get too painful. You don't need to constantly surround yourself with negativity. If you feel like hurts too much, you can walk away for a bit."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh. But, otherwise, I'm okay. I could be doing better, but I'm not in a bad place right now."

"You know I'll always be here for you."

"I know. And I appreciate it." He sighs. "I don't need to talk about my problems right now, okay?" He grins. "Sometimes you just need to step away from your problems, for a bit. It's enough to know that somebody cares." He hands me the remote. "But for now, let's just watch some TV."

I unpause the TV, and we watch for a few minutes, until the next commercial. The show is about a dog who goes on adventures with a boy, teaching him about history. And, I realize, it's the same pair of characters Brian and I were based on, in the dream.

"Brian?"

"Hm?"

"Do you really see yourself that way?" I ask.

"You mean, like a teacher or a mentor? Yeah, I guess I do." He chuckles. "You're my protégé, Stewie."

And we both laugh.

"The show's good, but I like the original shorts better," he says as we watch.

"Ah, yeah, you would think that, wouldn't you? Typical hipster douchebaggery."

"Well, we can't all be geniuses like you, Stewie."

And this time, instead of laughing, we both just smile at each other.

—

Several thousand universes away—

"Mr. Peabody?"

"Hm?" He's standing at the control unit in the WABAC machine; when I call to him, he turns around to face me.

"Do you ever— Do you ever get the feeling that—that—you're alive in another universe?" I'm a bit doubtful; It was just a dream...

"Our universe is bigger than we know. If we can travel through space and time, is it really so implausible to think that we could be alive in another universe as well?"

"I remember... I was alive in a dream from another universe."

"The universe is greater than we know," Mr. Peabody repeats, nodding sagely. "Now, Sherman—where to next?"

"The next great adventure!" I say, and we both start laughing.

—

** One of the episode ideas they had kicking around for last season's "Candy, Quahog Marshmallow" was that Stewie would be afraid to be a redhead when he grows up.

A/N: For those of you who are a tad confused, the final bit is based on Mr. Peabody and Sherman, which originally was a series of shorts on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. In 2014, they made a Peabody movie, and now it's also got a show on Netflix. The similarities between the franchise and Family Guy are apparent (inasmuch as they're both the story of "a dog and his boy go on adventures through space and time"), so I thought it would be pretty cool to combine together in one fanfic.

Okay, so that's all I wanted to say. I hope you enjoyed my fic!