Work Text:
Rubius’ earliest recollections are of decay, sprung from the wake of toxic waves that lap at what’s left of the Iberian Peninsula. His waking hours are spent directing plans to reconstruct a dilapidated city, a city that is marred by fire and trampled by years of storms and flooding. But try as he might, a new neighborhood at the edge of town, reparations for the crumbling hospital, the crooked roads themselves– all succumb to the claws of hunger and poverty. The walls will crack again. The roofs will collapse. At times Rubius can almost smell the stink of a long-gone country’s corpse, see it twitch and attempt to sit up as the flies bite at its feet. The stench of death is heavy in what used to be Spain.
And yet, across the lunging waves, lies Panem. Pristine and iron-clad, Panem is strong; Panem is stable; Panem is success shining brightly over a world shrouded in loss.
From the loose assembly of states that Rubius lives in to the outstretches of faraway continents, that beacon of light falls piercingly on every conversation. Farmers discuss crop yield and their limited land, and inevitably there comes chatter of the Capitol’s wealth of food, of tables piled with cake and turkey and every vegetable imaginable.
Conversations skim through infrastructure and suddenly they see light bouncing off of shining glass skyscrapers, deities compared to their own rundown towns.
The same question is pondered and dissected, spit on and embraced: Panem doesn’t let the events of a century past poison their people. They build back what they have lost and they keep it. Why can’t we do the same?
He asks this once to Samuel “777” de Luque, the leader of their nation– a straight-backed man with steely eyes and slicked-back hair that never falls out of position. The effect is instantaneous; his friend glares at him with a hardened gaze and he feels that sting of shame, his own internal rot.
“How can you say that?” Samuel asks him, his voice sharp and flame-licked. “You know what they do to their people. You know about the districts, and the Capitol, and that horrible tradition of death they call the Hunger Games. God, you know that what they show you isn’t real! Pan y Circo– that’s all it is!” There is anger and disgust, and worst of all, judgement, in his voice.
Rubius is quiet for a moment. He thinks of the rumours about cities covered in soot and ceremonies of children leaving home to die, of parents held back by bullets and desperate volunteers. Then he thinks of the victors, dusted with glitter and gold and all the things he will never have. When he responds his voice is rough and low.
“But Luzu can still go visit whenever he likes, right?”
Samuel’s expression goes stiff. He looks away and it seems as though he is searching for some ungraspable answer. Rubius takes advantage of the silence.
“Because our people are our first priority, right?” he barks. “We are the ones falling apart at the seams, and we can’t afford to have hostile relations with Panem and their goddamn nuclear weapons.”
The poison is rising in him now, coursing through his blood and making him vicious. “You talk about how it’s all just pan y circo, well, at least they have enough bread for that! What do we have? Cracks in our roads and holes in our schools and flies that eat at us every day! That’s what we have!”
And Rubius knows he’s gone too far when Samuel reaches up and smoothes his hair back, a long shuddering breath filling the silence.
“I’m sorry–” he begins, but is quickly cut off.
“No,” comes the leader’s weary voice. “You’re right, we have nothing. And Panem has everything. But we can’t be like them. We just can’t. We both know why.” His voice falters on the last words, and Rubius hates himself for it.
“Of course I do. I’m sorry.”
...
Later, he walks again to the edge of the ocean, where it all began. He dips a finger in the cool water and swirls it around, and he feels his string of hope slipping through his fingers. He closes his fist tightly.
There is a world across the sea that is golden and warm and alive, where the waves don’t claw and the flies don’t bite.
He would do anything to taste the bread of Panem– even if the poison kills him.