Rather blacker than before [Angst - Psychiatrie - fürs Team]

[peterhforalpha.livejournal.com]

Team: Ravenclaw
Challenge: Angst - Psychiatrie - fürs Team
Titel: Rather blacker than before
Fandom: Houdini and Doyle
Charaktere: Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle
Wörter: 790 Wörter
Sprache: Englisch
Warnung: Psychiatrie, Halluzinationen

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

Houdini’s eyes wandered over those words again and again. After the third time he heard Doyle’s voice in his head, speaking them to him. He sighed loudly. Doyle knew everything better, saw the things that Houdini was unable to observe.
Somehow Houdini had the feeling these words had been meant for him. Doyle still wanted to persuade him of the existence of the supernatural, even after the many times that he lost their bets.

Houdini’s grip around his newest possession from one of their little games tightened.
Doyle had lost their last bet - as always - and Houdini had a new book on his shelf. The Hound of Baskerville.
Houdini stared at the beautiful book in his hand and wished, not for the first time, that for a change Doyle had won this round.

Maybe Houdini wouldn’t be here then…

If there was only one logical proof Houdini might be able to believe. Believe that there was more than the normal eye could see. Believe that there were things that couldn’t be explained at first. But there wasn’t any proof. There was nothing.

Every case they worked on together turned out to be normal after all, logical explanations were found, every single time.
There were no such things as psychics, monsters or ghosts, just illusions and trickery.
Houdini proofed Doyle wrong over and over, even showed him a few of these tricks himself. It was easy to fool the human mind, to let it see things that weren’t there - under the right circumstances.

And if a human mind saw these things without these circumstances there was only one logical explanation left.

It had gone mad!

Houdini raised his head, looked around in this small dim room - in this cell - and found his mother sitting on the bed on the other side of the wall, smiling back at him. His eyes wandered back to Doyle’s book, he could read every line, clear proof that he wasn’t dreaming.
He hadn’t for a long time now. Every time his mother visited him he was completely awake.

Houdini nodded to himself. It had been the right choice to come here. It had been Houdini’s only choice to commit himself to this asylum.

“Are you okay, Harry?” The voice of his mother rang to his ear. Startled he dropped the book in his lap and it fell to the floor.

Afraid he looked up and saw Doyle leaning over him. “Are you okay?” he asked again, this time in his own voice.
Absentmindedly Houdini nodded.

“Is my new book this boring?” He continued now with a smile on his face.

“What?” Houdini furrowed his brows.

“Falling asleep while reading it.” Doyle kneeled down and picked up the book, gave it back to Houdini.

“No, it’s-” Houdini stopped and looked around, completely confused. He was back in his hotel suite, sitting on his comfortable armchair. “It’s confusing,” he muttered and didn’t exactly mean the book by that.

“Really?” Doyle sat down on the couch next to him. “Why is that?”

Houdini looked at Doyle, saw the honest curiosity in his eyes. He was eager to know Houdini’s opinion on his book. It was nice but completely wrong. Something was wrong. Houdini shook his head, looked around one more time and at last his gaze fell onto Doyle’s book. The letters on the cover were blurry and muddled. “Aaaah,” he exclaimed, leaning back in his chair.

Now Doyle seemed to be confused. “Ah?”

A smile appeared on Houdini’s lips. “You know it would have been more interesting to hallucinate Mr. Holmes like you always do. You are a bit boring, don’t you think?”

“Harry?” Houdini could so clearly hear the worry in Doyle’s voice and even if he knew it wasn’t the real Doyle it broke his heart. “Are you okay?”

Houdini shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

“Can I help you?”

“How?” Houdini’s voice was rising. “By telling me how everything I see is real? How it’s actually the ghost of my mother that is following me? No, Doc, I’m not one of your psychic wonders. I’m just a man that’s mind is going crazy.” He stood up, wanted to shout so much more in Doyle’s face but he was suddenly back in this cold and dark room, no trace of Doyle. Luckily his mother was gone too for this moment.

He was alone.

Houdini sighed and picked up the book. It opened up on a random page. His eyes fixed on a sentence that immediately let his heart feel even heavier.

It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before.