crazy over you. mona & jamie

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

When they call Mona's name, all Jamie can see is red.

It feels like the entire world is crumbling around him, like the sky must surely be falling and there is going to be nothing bright or good left in this world already so full with ruin. His stomach drops out from under him when it's Mona's name that gets called out, feels it all the way down to his bones when there is a ringing in his ears, like every part of him is vibrating, like every part of him is trying to come apart at the seams, like every single one of his atoms cannot comprehend a world in which Mona—his Mona—is going to be ripped from him.

He can't do this, can't lose her.

Not her, too.

Jester's hands are already on him though the second that it's Mona's name that gets called out, grabbing Jamie and holding him in place, slapping his hand over his mouth and to make sure that Jamie doesn't do something really fucking stupid like try to volunteer or some shit like that. The skin to skin contact jerks Jamie out of the impulse to volunteer as it is, drags him out of those toxic thoughts. We'll figure out another way, the other boy says anyway. We'll make sure Thorne gets her the sponsors.

It won't be enough. Jamie knows it. Everyone does.

It certainly wasn't enough for Jules.

Nico Thorne can't even save himself; there's no way he could save anyone else.

When the Peacekeepers take her away to the Justice Building, Jamie is already on their tail, watches them drag her all too roughly through the front doors. When he goes to visit her, again he refuses to do it through the proper channels, refuses to try and let them put a time limit on how long he can spend with Mona in what could be her last moments in Twelve. Seeing her there when he crawls through the window almost undoes him.

"Well, this wasn't the plan," he says, jaw clenched tighter than it has ever been, a desperate attempt to keep himself put together. He doesn't think she'll believe him, but still, he doesn't know how to do anything other than try to keep a straight face, try to make a plan. He thinks, if he had a choice, he would offer to trade places with her. If he could, he would die just to know that she'd get to live. He knows that she'd never have been able to heal him anyway, knows that he was always going to be this empty and broken thing, a violent creature incapable of kindness.

[sidney]

The Justice Building used to be her favorite place in all of Twelve. Mona could spend hours sitting atop it's roof either watching the sun rise or set, legs dangling, not a care in the world except making it home in time for dinner with the crew. But now, as she sits here confined in a stark white room with nothing but a table and two chairs, it feels more like a prison—a cage—than anything else. Play some jazz and add in the stench of smoke and whiskey, and it's practically the Den. 

She's trapped once again, her fate sealed.
With no hope of escape. 

Ten minutes pass, or maybe thirty, or maybe even an hour—she doesn't know. There's no clock and she's meant to sit here and wait. You have until the end of the day for visitation, the Keeper had said right before he slammed the door in her face and locked it behind him. Pacing back and fourth, she starts to count her knives. List their names off in her head a couple dozen times. Even chuck a few at a painting on the wall, determined more now than ever to leave her mark all over this place. If no one will remember her name, at least this room will always have a piece of her.  She decides to carve MW into the wood frame of the door; it becomes her number one priority. Even if the Keepers catch her, what's the worst they can do?

She's already a tribute.
There's no finer punishment. 

Halfway through the last line of the W though, there's a clattering behind her. It sounds like a window sliding open, followed by a loud thunk—boots atop hardwood floor. She doesn't even have to turn around to know it's him, to know he said fuck the rules and climbed to her room just to break them. Because he could. Because he was Jamie Monaghan and no one tells him what he can and cannot do.

"Well, this wasn't the plan," he says and she can't help but laugh. Not because it's funny, but because that may have been the most obvious thing to ever have left his lips. 

"It was someone's,"  she says, like it's a fact. Mona knows he believes in no god except himself, that he's always thought the old gods she speaks of and prays to are nothing more than legends in storybooks. Of the past and not worth entertaining. But she can't help but feel like they put her here, for a reason yet to be determined. "Plan or no, you're looking at the next female tribute of Twelve. Like it or not." 

Now what? She wants to ask. What's your plan to get me out of this? 

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

It was someone's she says and he feels himself nearly fall apart.

Every single one of the muscles in Jamie's body feels like it is on fire, like there is nothing inside of him except flames and they are burning him alive faster than he can stamp them out. It's like every time he closes his eyes, every time he starts thinking that he can breathe again, there's something there in his way putting matchstick to gasoline. Over and over and over again, he stands at the precipice of a moment he cannot come back from. Jules being reaped, ripping a Peacekeepers right eye out to figure out what room she was in and what window he needed to climb through to get to her. Watching her gut shredded apart and gutted in the Games, watching her allies abandon her and leave her bleeding on the forest floor, listening to drunk's in bar's chuckle and guffaw while they sat fat and ugly on their barstools. Jamie remembers breaking their legs while they walked home, black gloves on tight. Sidonie following him that night, ruining the image of Jamie that she had in her head, the pretty little delusions she still nursed that somehow, some way, Jamie was still kind, still soft, that losing Jules hadn't completely wrecked him and turned him rotten.

If it hadn't, losing Mona surely will.

He doesn't cross the room to her immediately, just stands there by the window with his hands clenched into fists. If he unfurls them, he knows that the first thing he's going to want to do it tug on the edges of them, pull them closer to his palms, pull them as close as he can get them, make them as tight as possible. He knows that it's his most obvious tell, the one that only Mona and Jules ever knew to look for, the singular thing that lets the world know James Monaghan is a fucking inferno on the inside.

"I don't—" he stammers, and that's when he knows that it's game fucking over, that there's no way in goddamned hell that he's going to be able to get her out of this. His brain feels like it's shattering into a million little pieces, like he is only fragments of himself and at any given moment he's going to just come apart at the seams. Her laugh is so empty, so hollow, and it sends shudders down his entire spine. In his head, he can hear Jules voice rattling around, getting louder and louder and louder. This is bigger than you and your boys. He hasn't been able to hear her in months but there she is, a memory he'd really rather fucking forget. Doesn't matter though.

Even dead, Juliet Monaghan knows better than Jamie.

His hands are such tight fists that he's at risk of busting open one of the seams, but he can't unclench, can't calm down, can't see straight. Because he's looking at Mona, his Mona, but he's not.

He's looking at a tribute.

And that's so much worse.

"Not," he says in response finally to her last words, jaw still clenched tight, swallowing. "Decidedly not."

He tries to ignore the trembling in every one of his bones. This is not the moment to explode.

Jamie looks at her, bitter coffee color eyes turned black holes. When he speaks, there's a desperate edge to his voice that he doesn't know how to get rid of right now.

"I can't undo this, Mona."

[sidney]

She thought maybe he'd at least lie to her at first, pretend he has something up his sleeve that he started to cook up the second her name was called. There was still a few hours before they'd put her on a train to the Capitol which meant he had plenty of time to set something in motion. 

It was a nice fairytale for a few seconds. 

Mona imagined all of them coming to her rescue just minutes before the Keepers came knocking. Jester smirks as Jamie helps her down from the same window he'd snuck in through hours earlier. Charmer waits for them two blocks away with a proper disguise for their Wraith until they're back at a safe house somewhere far from here. Maybe even beyond the fence. It was a great story. She'd tell it to herself each night before bed in the arena, use it as something to hold onto. It could happen, she thought, if I win.

She watched as Jamie worked himself up into a silent fit of sorts,  shaking and stammering, a storm raging behind those chestnut eyes. She swore she could even hear the leather squeak as he clenched his fists so tight his knuckles cracked. Control had always been Jamie's first love, even if he never admitted it. Followed closely by profit and all she had to offer him. But this, the reaping of his precious Wraith, was beyond him. There was nothing the infamous Monaghan boy could do and she marveled at the war of resistance he waged in her name, even if it was fleeting. Not, he said. Decidedly not. He may not love her, but maybe he cared about her. At the very least, he didn't want to see her die. That much was pretty clear. It wasn't love, but she knew it was all he would ever give her.

It wasn't enough.

I can't undo this, he said and Mona smiled at that. Admitting defeat was so unlike him. It made accepting her fate a bit easier. Even the bastard of the Seam knew this was the end. If he can face facts then she should too. Jamie was never actually a knight in shining armor. Yes, he'd saved her. He'd plucked her right from the mouth of hell and given her purpose, but he wasn't going to be her savior again. This wasn't a fairytale; she wasn't a princess in a tower and he wasn't a prince who could just climb up if she let down her hair. 

"Well, if you can't," she shrugged, trying desperately to fight against the tears threatening at the edges of her eyes, "then no one can." Mona's voice cracked and in an instant she was furious with herself. Fear had no place in her heart at a time like this, not when she had to memorize everything about the boy before her. Not when she had to say goodbye. "Come here," she cleared her throat and took a step closer to him, the ghost of a smile at the corners of her mouth as she tried to take one last mental picture. "Let me look at you." She wanted to remember that little, barely-there freckle on the side of his nose. She didn't want to forget the sharp edges of his jaw or the dark chocolate color of his eyes. She wanted to remember ever part of him, and hoped at least a piece of her would stay with him when she was gone.

Satisfied she took a well enough look, she relaxed and locked her gaze with his once more, "Listen, don't be too hard on Sharpshooter, okay? He'd do anything for you. But I won't be there to make sure he doesn't stir up trouble."