Bound To You (camren au)

back on my feet, part 2

"I am sneaky," Lauren said, brushing her hair behind her shoulders. "My plan went off without a hitch."

"And you couldn't have just asked me to play original music for you because...?"

"Because you would've said no!"

"Please." Camila was still laughing, tapping her fingers along her guitar as she rocked back and forth. "You know I can't say no to you."

It came out a little too honest, and she was totally expecting Lauren to throw another barb back, but instead Lauren's pale green eyes shone with fondness and she wrapped her arms around Camila, nearly knocking her guitar out of her lap. "You're the best," she said, right in her ear. "Sorry for being a little asshole."

Camila rolled her eyes and pretended like she wasn't completely and totally infatuated. "I forgive you, dumb bitch."

Lauren sat back on her knees. "So you'll play a song for me?" she asked cheekily.

"I hate you so much," Camila said, but her fingers were already settling on the frets of her guitar.

-

In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea. The only song Camila could think of at the time was, embarrassingly enough, one she had written about her dad.

"I thought you didn't get along with your dad," said Lauren.

"This was before I realized he was a homophobic dickhead," Camila explained.

She managed to find the chords and the words and the melody and suddenly she was fifteen again, and her dad was hero, and she never even wanted to get out of Kansas. She was happy being what everyone wanted to be. She thought she'd grow up and marry a man and have her father walk down the aisle with her. She never thought she'd have cut off all contact and the last words she heard from her dad were angry voicemails on her phone of him calling her horrible things that she just couldn't manage to delete.

Yeah. So. Bad idea. When she finished she could even feel her chest getting tight, and she inhaled deeply to try and stop her tears. Christ almighty, she was embarrassing. "Sorry," she said to Lauren, setting her guitar to the side. "God. Sorry. I didn't mean to get all weird. It was just - I haven't really written a complete song and stuff since that one, so-"

"Camila." Just the sound of Lauren saying her name like that was enough for Camila to want to break down, so she let Lauren sweep her up in a hug, shutting her eyes and taking in the familiar scent of Lauren's perfume. "It's okay," Lauren murmured. "It's okay. You're allowed to be sad."

Lauren pulled back so she could stroke Camila's hair out of her face in that characteristic caring way of hers that made Camila feel soft. "Look," she said. "As someone who has also had issues with their parents - not to compare, obviously, I'm just saying - can I give you some unsolicited, possibly inappropriate advice?"

Camila loved the flighty, bouncy, bubbly Lauren who lived her life without a care in the world and rambled on about the most inconsequential, stupid things- but this version of her, serious-eyed and utterly sincere... well, maybe she also loved this part of her a tiny bit more. She laughed a little, despite herself.

"It's not unsolicited if I'm asking," she said weakly. "I'll take what I can get." Plus, she knew, above all, that there was probably no one in the world who understood her as much as Lauren did. Not just because of their collective daddy issues, but because they were the kind of friends who could basically read each other's minds, who could communicate without saying anything at all (although you'd find them hard-pressed to shut up around each other). There was just a level of understanding there that nothing could replace.