Boom. I figured, the explanation was kind of bouncing around in my head anyways, so I might as well write it down... And Claude's here, because I love Claude :~) I own nothing.
"Peter! Pete! Come on, poodle, snap out of it. I'm gonna kill you if you get stuck in there."
Someone was slapping his cheek with maybe a little more force than was necessary. He opened his eyes but regretted the movement immediately. The room spun, and only the invisible man's grip on his arm kept him from collapsing. He was sitting in a chair in between two cots, a man on one and a woman on the other. Claude stood in front of him, scowling in concern. "Peter?"
He shoved the man away just as he leaned forward and retched into a conveniently placed bucket right in front of him. His vision blurred, and he ached from the force of the heaving, but he didn't feel quite so sick afterwards. His head was still throbbing.
"I take it didn't work," Claude said, sounding genuinely disappointed.
"Work...?" Peter asked weakly, resting his elbows on his thighs and holding his head in his hands. "What was I..."
The past three days came rushing back to him all at once, and he swore violently as he recalled what he was supposed to be doing. "I was almost there, Claude!" he snarled, jumping up and immediately sitting back down as he felt nauseated again. "I got in! They saw me, they were coming... Then it all fell apart!"
He held his head in his hands once more, not wanting to look at the unconscious man and woman on the bed. Elle and Gabriel Gray had been out for two days, though judging by the looks on their faces when he had finally broken through it had seemed longer to them.
Two years ago Gabriel had, very much against Peter's wishes, rescued his girlfriend from the past, and a year later they had been married. Gabriel had already been one of the most regocgnized "superheroes" already, and Elle had joined right in. A week and a half before, reports had come in about a telepath gone bad. The couple had offered to take care of the problem.
A week later they were finally found.
Unconscious, beaten, and unresponsive was how Claude had found them, and then he had dragged the two to the warehouse that Rebel was currently operating from. The telepath was still at large, but Peter couldn't care less. The man had gotten Elle and Gabriel so deep inside their own minds he couldn't break through the barriers, even after regaining his empathy and having a whole truckload of powers to choose from. And the one time he finally did...
His best friend and his best friend's wife lay unresponsive on their beds, and he was too weak to try again. It would be hours before he could attempt it once more.
"Can I have something to eat?" he muttered. Claude resisted the urge to make a crack at his expense; he had apparently learned at some point that he could only push people so far before bad things happened. Peter was already dangerously close to breaking point; he remembered what it was like being stuck in Nightmare Land, and he had a gut feeling this one would be even worse.
"Sure." He squeezed Peter's shoulder once, the most comfort he could expect from the older man, then left the room. Peter closed his eyes and tried not to think, tried to empty his mind, but it didn't work. There were too many frantic thoughts racing around in his brain.
"Here." It wasn't Claude's voice, and the hands holding out the plate of food were small and dark. Micah.
He took the food, grabbing the garlic bread and taking a bite before starting on the spaghetti. "Thanks."
"Welcome." Micah paused, and Peter didn't look up. The boy was seventeen now, still leading Rebel surprisingly well for a teenager. "Claude got tied up. He asked me to bring you something." Peter nodded and grunted a reply, not willing to talk. He wondered why the kid hadn't left yet.
Finally, his question was answered. "What's it like?" Micah asked softly.
"What? Not being able to help them? It sucks."
"No, I mean, inside there. Being trapped in your own head. It happened to you, didn't it?"
Peter slowly set his fork down. "Yeah. Me and Gabriel were in there for a few years."
"A fewyears?" Micah asked, sounding amazed. "When?"
"The same day Claire jumped off the Ferris wheel. It was years to us. It was five hours out here. I guess the deeper you go the longer it takes... Don't even want to think about how long it's been for them."
"Do you think they'll be okay when they get out?" Micah asked anxiously, compulsively checking the monitors that the couple were hooked up to. Peter set the plate on the ground, appetite gone.
"I don't know. Gabe and I were both... well, messed up, I guess, once we got out. Things were bad for a while, but we did okay." He shivered as he remembered the scene that had greeted him when he finally made it into their heads. "But things weren't as bad for us as they are for these two."