a/n [I SWEAR THIS WAS GONNA BE FLUFF, BUT MY HAND SLIPPED. Written by Johanna for the fourth day of Caesar's Palace's Shipping Week. Uses prompt 'music notes' from c/p.]
Peeta feels like everything is one giant joke that no one will let him in on. The doctors whisper back and forth—all day long, not even pretending they aren't. The visitors look utterly depressed—even Delly, which he isn't quite sure is possible, so he must be imagining it. Even his own mind seems out to get him—the nightmares won't go away.
Eventually Peeta gives up on people and life and himself. He stays in his medically perfect bed and hangs limp when the doctors try and get him to move or speak or be happy. It almost seems better this way, except his mind seems to grow worse the more he stares at the blank white ceiling.
When he starts screaming nonstop, at thin air, at two o'clock in the afternoon, someone finally gets an idea. The music starts off quietly, meant to be calming, but Peeta can't hear it over himself. So the sound is blasted up until it's too high to bear, and Peeta ends up quieting, curling into himself in the center of his bed.
He doesn't listen for the first few minutes, because he just wants everything to stop—why can't I just die already? But when it finally hits him, he stops breathing and unfurls on the bed until he's lying calmly on his back. He knows that song, that voice. The voice that screams at him every time he shuts his eyes. The voice he should hate, but he can't—it's too soft, too gentle, too kind. And the ceiling doesn't seem so harsh anymore.