Undone

As suave as he likes to act around her, he has to admit that keeping something secret from her is a lot harder and more painful than he believed it would be. A part of him is saying that she's a kindred spirit, and would know and understand what he's going through. It tells him to open up to the girl who doesn't like becoming attatched to others, yet has become attatched to him. Another part is screaming for him to keep it a secret. No need for her to know. Not just yet.

It's the night before their flight to Amsterdam and Morpheus has decided to go AWOL on him. Or just decided that maybe he'll just skip past this room in the two story colonial house with it's stucco walls. Normally, the inability to sleep is a blessing for the average teenager-the glory that is the Internet being your late night/early morning companion-but tonight it isn't the most welcomed affliction.

For the umteenth time that evening, he reaches for a cigarette and sticks it between his teeth. Muttering to himself, he reopens the well-loved, (read: battered) copy of An Impreial Affliction and opens to a random page in an attempt to distract himself from thinking about the inevitable discussion about that thing he really would like to procrastinate on.

As he continues to read the same sentence again, the most annoying thing about procrastination strikes him. Regardless to how long he tries to run away from it, there's no escaping.

;_;_;_;_;

"Are you sure you still want to do this?"

Clenching his teeth, he forces himself to remain as calm and 'normal' as possible, even though whenever his mom asks that question he feels his anger spike. "Yeah, I'm sure." He says, and mentally winces. Even to himself he sounds angry.

His mom wrings her hands and sits down beside him on the couch, running her hand through his hair. "I'm sure that Hazel'll understand. Just, just tell her that you can't go. Let her and her mom enjoy Amsterdam together."

He brushes her hand away and tries his best not to glare at her. "That would ruin the point of the trip. I want to be there to meet Van Houten too." He says past his gritted teeth. Already he knows that this is going to end badly.

"Gus, please. Please, cancel. You have to cancel. You have to stay here so that you can get the trea-"

"Don't," He growls, "tell me. What to do." Standing up he begins to pace restlessly, fingers curling into fists. On the couch him mom begins crying in earnest.

Her hands cover her mouth in an attept to stiffle the noise, but it's an attempt that fails miserably. "Please. Please Gus, you have to stay. Y-your father and I. We wouldn't, wouldn't be able to-" She shakes her head frantically, still crying.

Grabbing a cigarett from his pocket, he closes his eyes and tries to use his most reasonable and pursuasive voice. "You and dad will be fine. You've got Dad, and Julie and Martha and all your grandkids, and you'll be fine."

Eyes red and puffy, his mom shakes her head, "But we want you too Gussie. You need to stay. You have to! You will complete the palliative chemo! You HAVE to!" She screams between sobs, and when she she stands and tries to pull him into a hug is when he snaps.

"No! I will not stay Mom, okay? I'm going to go with Hazel and her mom to Amsterdam, meet Van Houten, check out tourist spots around the area and I'm going to have fun, and relish every single damn moment instead of staying here and being miserable BECAUSE IT'S MY LIFE, MOM. IT BELONGS TO ME." He roars over her cries before stomping down to the basement and flinging himself on his bed.

After taking five minutes to fume quietly, he rolls over and checks his phone to see if a certain someone has texted him. Surely enough, she has, and she's waiting for him outside. Upon closer inspection, it appears she sent the text five minutes ago. Oops. Quickly he sends a text back as he grabs all of his stuff.

Just CAN'T decide what to wear. Do you like me better in a polo or a button-down?

He waits patiently for a text back and doesn't have to wait long for an answer.

Button-down

As he grabs the said preffered shirt, he can't help but grin at how a simple text back from her restores his contentment.

;_;_;_;_;

Judging by the anxious atmosphere she probably has an inkling about what he's going to tell her. God. Oh god. Someone shoot him now. He walks over to the chair sitting in the corner of the room and collapses into it. Without him really thinking about it, a cigarette makes its way to his mouth . Leaning back into the chair, a part of him wishes if he presses his back against it hard enough, it'll swallow him up. "Just before you went into the ICU, I started to feel this ache in my hip."

When he sees her expression, he wonders if what he's feeling right now is what his old basketball trophies experienced when Isaac razed. "So I went in for a PET scan." Already his eyes are stinging. As stoically as he can, he takes the cigarette out of his mouth, but the wave of emotion makes him clench his teeth in an attempt to keep them in check. Damnit. She doesn't need to see him, not like this. Damnit. Damnit!

Swallowing thickly, he offers her his best smile. His Hazel Smile. "I lit up like a Christmas tree, Hazel Grace. The lining of my chest, my left hip, everywhere."

The silence that falls on them weighs more than all the oceans of the world. She crawls up to him, cart and all, and kneels in front of him. As she wraps her arms around his waist and nestles her head in his lap he gets hit by an overwhelming feeling of bitterness. He's imagined them being in a similar position to this. Except their positions are switched and his head isn't in her lap. His ear is pressed to her belly, listening to the second heartbeat that resides there.

Unconciously, he begins stroking her hair. "I'm sorry." She murmurs into his shirt.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," He apoligizes steadily, but internally all he wants to do is curl up with her under the comforter on the bed and stay there away from the rest of the world. "Your mom must know. The way she looked at me. My mom must've told her or something. I should've told you. It was stupid. Selfish." That adjective is all he's been being the past weeks.

Sometimes he mulls over the whole 'gernade' concept that he knows Hazel also mulls over. He thinks its stupid. It's true when they say that love is blind (no Isaac, he's not trying to be funny). He's lied to her about long he realistically can stick around. She doesn't give a damn about his leg. And she's still by her side.

"It's not fair. It's just so goddamned unfair."

"The world," he says, "is not a wish-granting factory." Up until then, he allowed himself a small amout of pride for being able to hold it together. However, after that scentence escapes his mouth a sob escapes him. Damnit. Damnit!

Pulling her to him, he looks her in the eyes, and vows to her, "I'll fight it. I'll fight it for you. Don't you worry about me, Hazel Grace. I'm okay. I'll find a way to hang around and annoy you for a long time."

Once, he said that it be an honor for her to break his heart. He wishes he didn't have to do the same to hers.

;_;_;_;_;

He can't help but give himself a mental pat on the back for lasting eight days. Who knows? Maybe he'll even make double digits. A part of him wishes that they could hook up Isaac's gaming console to the tv gathering dust in a corner of the room so that he could at least do something aside from hazily count ceiling tiles. Oh, and seeing how high he can count before he falls asleep/forgets what numbers he's counted and which he's just sporadically jumping to. Currently, his best is 4, 242. He wonders if he'll be able to say coherent or patient enough to reach 1, 000, 000, 000. Probably not.

It's probably some sort of ungodly hour at the the moment the silence is killing him. He knows he's being selfish again, but he wishes someone was up to keep him company. Maybe even someone to close the door behind him when he throws in the towel. And he wants to. The temptation to surrender to sleep, to rest, to the meds is painfully tempting.

Weakly he shakes his head, his eyes fluttering open stubbornly. No. He promised. He's okay. He's not throwing the towel in. Not just yet. But still. He's tired. He's so, so, so, so tired that he wants to fall back to sleep, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep until he finally well rested and can go back to doing the things he's used to doing.

As he lies in his bed, in limbo between being awake and asleep, he wonders if the great-writer-but-shitty-person got his letter. He wonders if maybe he becomes a less of a shitty person and more of a good one and writes him that eulogy for him so that maybe one day when she's old and wrinkled she can have her prefuneral and hear his thougths that are no longer disoranized stars, but a beautiful constellation for her, and her only.

He wonders if she'll ever truly understand that she's the real hero. He wonders if she'll ever realize that all she gave him the love he had always wanted. He wonders if she'll ever know what honour she was able to give him the last few weeks despite what's happened. He wonders if

;_;_;_;_;

Come undone, surrender is stronger
I don't need to be the hero tonight
We all want love we all want honour
Nobody wants to pay the asking price

Disclaimer: I own neither the song, nor the book. The awesomtacular John Green owns the latter, FFH the former.

Song: Undone

Artist: FFH

So thanks for reading the latest installment of the 'Sing for Me' series. As some may know, 'Sing for Me' is a group of one (or potentially more) shots based on a song. I hope that you enjoyed my first TFIOS fanfiction. Don't forget to tell me what you think in a review.

-Moony