#that's gotta trigger some complicated reactions in the victors especially

[clemencetaught]

"Here," it's... it's just bread. It's a bun, sure large enough to still some amount of hunger, but it's just bread. And yet, María holds it in front of Patrick with the face of someone who'd consider it a criminal offense to refuse it. Nevermind that she's stolen it from one of the banquets. "Just making sure you're eating." ((RUH-ROH it's Len again~ and I promise I forgot about the Peeta bread thing until I re-read this IGNORE THAT--!! FDKLGJDLAJSGF Hope you didn't end up getting sick BUT IF YOU DID HOPE YOU'RE RESTING AND FEELING BETTER SOON 🥺)) || okay but panem is also known as the nation of bread & circuses– ( unprompted w/ @mythvoiced )

He doesn’t eat much in the Capitol. 

Which is ironic, seeing how most of his life before the games, Patrick was always hungry. Always trying between schooling and factory shifts to figure out when his next meal was going to come. Why else would he and Hyuk have taken out tesserae all those years ago? It was preferable, playing the odds in the Reaping to starving for the rest of the year.

Nowadays, food is the least of his concerns. Whereas there is still a dearth in District Three, there is surplus in the Capitol. No surplus isn’t the right word; a surplus would mean the Capitol keeps the extra for the future. No, there is an excess of food in the Capitol, an excess that is dumped and left to rot after the pigs have had their share, have had their fun.

When he remembers that, food in the Capitol, no matter how finely it’s been prepared, becomes disgusting. Repulsive when it is combined with the thought of the districts, his people, still starving and fighting one another for the Capitol’s ‘scraps’. One plate is enough for Patrick to feel the bile swish in his stomach and even crawl back up his throat– how is he supposed to enjoy this filth now?

(But of course the Capitol has a way of perverting everything. Who else would have invented a liquid that makes one vomit what was just digested to make room for more food?)

“You didn’t have to,” is the first set of words to come out of his mouth, however. It’s such a childish gesture on her part; as a victor, she and her family should have more than enough riches to cover for food whether she’s in the Capitol or her own district. That and it’s considered normal to take leftovers from these banquets.

And yet, she’s staring him down like they are in covenance– it’s odd…strange how the things the Capitol deem sacred, she’ll approach with the irreverence of a foreigner and yet with the most mundane of objects, like a loaf of bread, most likely one of the hundred baked today and will be replicated tomorrow, like it is worth the weight of gold. He takes a hold of María’s loot. The loaf is still warm, freshly out of the oven, he wants to believe. Like it came from one of the bakeries in say, District 12, rather than a Capitol banquet table. Does she look at the Capitol and its elaborate feasts the same way? District Eight is probably just as bad if not even worse than his own district when it comes to food shortages so maybe her thievery makes sense.

When one has gone without food for long enough, no amount of surplus is enough to satiate the insecurity. He knows that feeling all too well. His stomach growls in anticipation. “…Normally, the Capitol likes to have this with caviar.” A delicacy from District Four along with butter shipped from District Ten. He splits the loaf in two, the inside crackling and breaking into two crisp pieces. “But I think…I think it tastes just as delicious on its own.” He hands María one half while taking a bite out of the other. “Take the other half; I can’t finish it on my own.”

It tastes delicious.