posting this tonight because i'm getting v v drunk tomorrow and would forget so here you go losers
also if that pic at the top and the whole nylon photo shoot didn't prove to you that lauren is a Big Bottom™️ then you're #delusional
-
May 13th, 2017
When there's a knock on her bedroom door, Camila frowns over at it, not expecting anyone to come over today. And, you know, nobody ever knocks. Sofi, Sinu and Dinah all walk in like they own the place, and her dad pretty much never comes up to her room. "Um... come in?"
Her bedroom door pushes open, and Lauren walks in, sending her a shy smile. "Hey. I hope you don't mind, but your mom kind of ambushed me and asked me to stay for dinner tonight."
"Oh," Camila frowns as Lauren closes her bedroom door and sits down next to her. Admittedly, even after giving Lauren a chance, she'd felt awkward around her, so she'd been avoiding her. "Well, um, that's fine. How are you?"
"I'd prefer it if you didn't avoid me," Lauren admits, and Camila shifts uncomfortably. "I know you don't trust me, and part of me... part of me also doesn't trust me."
Camila raises her eyebrows. "What?"
"I don't know. It's like... it's like I don't trust myself. There's a part of me that... that's still scared, but not scared of my feelings for you. It's like... I'm scared of losing you. Of hurting you," Lauren comments, and Camila beams, because she knows that's her Lauren. "But I'm going to prove that part wrong. And I'm going to prove you wrong, because I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to do things right. But to do that, I need you to stop avoiding me."
If she's being honest, Lauren thinks that the other part of her, the girl she'd technically been, the one who'd left some kind of lasting mark on her, is almost like a representation of the person she always wanted to be. The brave one, the one who owns her sexuality, the one who isn't afraid of holding a girl's hand in the street.
It's comforting, in a way, to know she has that in her. To know that maybe she always had had it in her.
Camila sighs. "I wasn't... avoiding you. I just didn't reach out."
"Let me take you out," Lauren suggests, ignoring her words for the most part. "Obviously not tonight, because Sinu roped me into dinner, but... soon. For a proper date."
Camila raises her eyebrows, admittedly a little surprised by the request. "You want to take me on a date?"
"I thought that was obvious," Lauren comments, shrugging. "I mean... you're still my girlfriend, right? We never... we never broke up."
"Well, I mean..." Camila bites down on her bottom lip and shrugs. "I didn't know if you really wanted... this to be that. Since you don't have feelings for me. Only a part of you does."
"It's always been me, Camz," Lauren frowns at her, and when Camila feels a hand on top of hers, she jumps a little in shock. "I've always... I might've hated myself, Camz, but I never hated you. Every part of me has feelings for you."
When Camila's mind jumps to the dirtiest meaning possible, she snorts a little, trying to hold back her laugh. "Thanks?"
Lauren frowns, but catches on to what she's laughing at and shakes her head. "Oh, god, no, I didn't mean it like that."
Camila laughs even harder and shakes her head. "Okay, Lauren."
"I mean," after a few moments of hesitation, Lauren smirks a little, "it's still not a lie."
Camila blushes, but looks away from Lauren, not wanting the older Latina to know the effect she has on her. So, she elects to change the subject. "Are you looking forward to a proper meet the parents thing? You know, as my first girlfriend, they'll probably going to interrogate you."
Lauren beams when Camila says as my girlfriend. "Well, I am quite the charmer, so I'm not too worried. But anyway, you never answered my question. Can I take you out on a date, Camila?"
Finally, Camila smiles, nodding. "Yeah. You can."
While she's still a little uncomfortable with the idea that it's Fifth Harmony Lauren, she knows that her Lauren is in there, and that's who she's doing it for. Her Lauren is probably the one influencing Fifth Harmony Lauren to do things right.
It's definitely not like Dinah said. It's definitely not that Fifth Harmony Lauren had been in there the whole time, influencing this Lauren, even if she wasn't aware of it. It's got to be the other way around, because Camila can't believe that Fifth Harmony Lauren had ever had feelings for her. Lauren had always been so unattainable, and Camila had made peace with the fact that Fifth Harmony Lauren could never want her.
"Perfect, I'll start making plans," Lauren flashes her a grin, resting her head on Camila's shoulder. After a few moments of hesitation, Camila curls an arm around Lauren's waist and pulls her closer. "Anyway... how are things? Lucy told me she's been... well, forgetting a lot."
Camila sighs. "Yeah, it's been getting bad."
"I'm sorry, Camz," Lauren takes her hand and Camila feels butterflies, telling herself she's doing it for her Lauren, not the Fifth Harmony one. Because they're not the same. "I know how frustrating it is. But... at least you've got people around to remind you, right?"
Camila shrugs. "You had Dinah. You guys were just too dense to realise."
"I was a little suspicious of her one time," Lauren admits, "but, you know, I shrugged it off, considering I thought I was losing my mind."
"I told Dinah within like, two days of being here." Camila tells her, laughing a little. "At the time, she said she believed me, but I could tell she was like alright, what kind of prank are you pulling here? And, I mean, I know it's not technically my world, but I'm kind of... warming up to it."
Lauren looks a little sceptical, and Camila knows that Lucy has probably accused Camila of getting sucked into this, just like she'd convinced Dinah. "Don't you miss making music? Lucy- well, she told me... she told me you left Fifth Harmony. Is that true?"
Again, it takes a few moments for Camila to remember whether she did or not. "Yeah. I did."
Lauren watches her carefully. "Why?"
"Why do you think?" Camila snaps without thinking, and Lauren looks more than a little taken aback. "Sorry. I left because... because..."
"You don't remember?" Lauren asks, concerned, "That's a big thing, Camz..."
"No, it just took a few seconds." Camila is quick to brush it off, and answers Lauren's question. "I left because I wanted to make music. My music. Actually get to use it as... as like, a therapy, to express everything I had to keep bottled up, because it's not like I could talk to any of you about it. It was a toxic environment for me. You guys wanted me gone, and the fans wanted me gone, so what's the point in staying?"
"I never... I never wanted you gone," Lauren buries her face into Camila's shoulder and wraps her arms around her waist, giving her a tight hug. "I know things weren't... great. But I didn't want to get rid of you. I just never knew what to do or say around you after everything and you never seemed like you wanted anything to do with me."
"Look, I know that Lucy's probably told you that I'm getting too invested in all of this or whatever, but can you blame me?" Camila tries to justify, sick of people making judgements. "I actually have you guys here. Mani and Ally barely spoke to me, and now they're two of my best friends again. Everything is just so much happier and easier here. And if I'm stuck here, I might as well embrace it."
"But if you're not stuck here, you're just going to be crushed when you get back," Lauren points out, and Camila ignores that. At this rate, she thinks she's more likely to forget than she is to ever get back to where she belongs. "Look, I know what it's like, okay? You're on the brink of forgetting everything that makes you you, and it feels like you're running out of time. But it's not hopeless. We can figure everything out and get back to where we all belong."
Camila just frowns, another thought popping into her head. "Wait... if you didn't know I left, then when did you come here?"
"The night I was outed. The night Lucy and I were outed," Lauren sighs, shaking her head. "Why is that important? We need to be thinking about-"
"You weren't there when I left the group." Camila monotonously states, her mind reeling. "Which means... the things you said... they were some other you saying them?"
"No, it's like what Lucy said, like... there, a part of me is missing. A part of all of us is missing, but we're still functioning like people. Just... not one hundred percent ourselves. Like we're kind of... empty, but not completely empty." Lauren explains. "Why? What did I say?"
"Just that I'm a manipulative bitch who only cares about myself and you can't believe you were ever friends with me." Camila bitterly answers, squeezing her eyes shut. "But if you weren't there for that..."
"I don't think you're any of those things," Lauren murmurs, looking her in the eyes, "but I can see why in the heat of a moment like that, I could say something along those lines. Especialy with like... half of my entire sense of self lost somewhere else. I mean, when Lucy told me you left the group... it hurt. It made me angry, because I felt like even though we'd all gone through so much together, with people constantly trying to fuck us over, that at least we had each other. But if you left... it made me think maybe you were like the people who wanted to tear us down. But I don't believe those things at all."
Camila blinks in surprise. "You don't?"
"No," Lauren answers, "I don't. Especially after realising how much your music means to you and how you'd felt like an outsider in the group. I can't blame you for wanting to go."
"Oh," Camila looks around and frowns down at her feet. Eventually, she smiles. "I guess... I guess it's comforting to know that at least you and Dinah aren't really angry at me."
Lauren laughs a little. "All it took was for us to get zapped into an alternate universe."
Camila can't help it; despite herself, she laughs. "You know, if the fans ever found out about this, they'd probably think we all just took a bunch of drugs together."
"Maybe we did," Lauren suggests, laughing a little, "maybe I just smoked some bad weed and this is all my hallucination."
Camila scrunches her nose up in disapproval. "You really need to stop doing that, you know? It'll kill your vocal range. Or, at least, the cigarettes will."
Lauren doesn't comment on most of that. "You know I can hit the chorus in Miss Movin' On here? Not that I'd want to, because that EP is not... not my thing... but still. It's nice to have my old range back."
Camila snorts. "When it's just me and my girls..."
"Sing that again and I'm throwing myself out of the window." Lauren cringes in thought. "You know, my friends made so much fun of me for that performance we did on X Factor to promote it. Oh god, the onesies..."
"You're having war flashbacks?" Camila laughs, but when she tries to think back to the performance and doesn't remember, she bites down on her bottom lip and frowns. "Wish I was."
Lauren holds out her pinky, and Camila frowns, but doesn't have time to question her. "I pinky swear you, right here and now, that I'm not going to let you forget. And if you do... then I promise I'll do everything I can to make you remember. Okay?"
Camila looks at Lauren's outstretched little finger, before she nods and loops her own pinky around it. Admittedly, it's kind of comforting to have another person around to help her remember. "Okay."
"Good." Lauren smiles at her, and Camila smiles back, despite herself. "Anyway, let's focus on something that's a little less depressing."
Camila raises her eyebrows. "Like what?"
"Like that duet we were supposed to sing?" Lauren teases her, and Camila just blushes, rolling her eyes. "You know, it's weird how you picked my favourite song from 7/27... since you don't like me and all that. Just a thought."
Camila gives her a light shove. "Fuck off. And you know I don't... not like you. I was just mad at you, you know? Because of everything."
"I know," Lauren says, sitting up and sending her a smile. "You had a right to be."
Camila's eyes narrow, and she frowns. How can I be sure that this is real? How can I be sure that Lauren actually likes me, that it's not just my Lauren's influence? Honestly, it seems pretty likely that that's the case. Fifth Harmony Lauren had said it herself; 'I can't help it I'm in love with Lucy and not you'. "Well, um, let's... let's watch a movie or something."
After a few moments, Lauren nods, and Camila jumps up from the bed, grabbing her laptop and scrolling through Netflix for a movie, hoping things feel a lot less awkward at dinner.
-
"Are you okay? You seem a little distant."
"Yeah, babe," Lucy turns over with a sigh, looking Nicole over, smiling softly at the girl's concerned expression. "Just a little tired."
Nicole laughs a little, tracing patterns over Lucy's bare stomach. "I mean, I'm pretty tired too, after all of that."
Lucy laughs, shaking her head. "Not like that. I haven't been getting much sleep lately."
And I haven't been remembering anything about my actual life, either, she adds on in her head, knowing she can't tell Nicole about it. They're in the early stages of their relationship, and Lucy is really starting to feel something, and doesn't want to scare her away; announcing that she's actually from an alternate universe would likely destroy any chance she has at a real relationship.
It's times like these when she understands how sucked into this Camila has gotten. In the moments of pure bliss, when she forgets about her situation, it's hard not to be happy.
"What're you thinking about?" Nicole asks her, and Lucy wishes she could tell her everything. "You know you can talk to me, right?"
"Yeah," Lucy sends her a soft smile, "I know. I'm just... thinking about Lauren."
Nicole recoils a little. "Your ex?"
"Not like that," Lucy is quick to make amends, not realising how that would've sounded. "She's just going through kind of a rough patch with her girlfriend. They had a fight and she's really stressed about it, and I want to help her out, but Camila isn't... well, responding to anything I try and do to fix things for them."
"Oh," Nicole settles back down next to her with a small shrug, "maybe talking at them won't help. Just... shove them in a room together and hope they don't kill each other."
Lucy laughs. "Yeah, for some reason, I don't think that'll work. They need to talk properly, but it's Camila I'm concerned about. She's got a lot of things she needs to figure out, and she needs to learn how to put the past behind her. They both do."
Nicole hums. "She's been hurt before, huh?"
"Yeah." Lucy answers, sighing. "Sometimes she acts like she doesn't care, but it's obvious that it gets to her, and that's what stops her from trusting Lauren fully. And it sucks, because Lo really likes her and wants to treat her right, yet neither of them will talk to each other about it. It honestly makes me want to bang their heads together out of frustration."
Nicole laughs. "Why is Camila scared Lauren's going to hurt her?"
"Because..." Lucy strains to remember, "because someone like Lauren had hurt her in the past. Some girl, I think. I don't know, I don't... I don't think I ever met her. So... Camila is scared that it'll happen again."
"That's fair," Nicole hums, "but Lauren wouldn't hurt her, right? Surely she'd know that."
"Yeah, you'd think, but..." Lucy sighs, "everything is going wrong and they're both talking to me about it so I'm just stuck in the middle and it's seriously making me want to punch both of them."
"Leave them to get their shit together by themselves," Nicole shrugs, "I get that you're trying to be a good friend, but there's only so much you can do when someone won't help themselves."
Lucy pauses, before smiling down at Nicole. "I didn't know you were so wise."
Nicole grins. "There's a lot of things you don't know about me."
Lucy hums, tracing patterns on Nicole's bare upper arm. "Hopefully you'll let me learn everything about you."
Nicole kisses her. "I plan on it."
-
"So, Lauren, you mentioned on Karla's birthday you had college plans?"
Lauren watches as Camila tenses, and for a moment, she's a little confused. Aside from the whole being on different ends of the country thing, why would Camila have to worry about college?
"Uh, yeah," Lauren quickly answers, "I got accepted to Columbia on an academic scholarship, so that's pretty cool. I'll be starting there in the fall."
"Something to do with politics, isn't it?" Sinu asks, and Lauren nods. "That's a very practical degree to study."
Admittedly, when Lauren remembered everything again, she was a little shocked. Surely, she'd want to do something creative? For her, at least the real her, she needed that creative outlet, and while she does want to change the world, she wouldn't choose politics over making her own art and putting it out there.
Maybe we're here to leave a mark on these versions of us, too, Lauren considers for a moment, maybe it's a two way street.
Camila looks like she's going to say something about her mom's words. A practical degree, Sinu had commented, and Lauren knows the only thing Camila wants to do is music. But she doesn't even want to do a music degree, she'd said it'd suck all the fun out of it, and Lauren can completely understand that.
Admittedly, Fifth Harmony had kind of sucked all the fun out of it for Lauren. Just getting handed songs to sing, that she almost always felt no connection to, and told to sing and dance like the label's money-making puppets had made Lauren hate something she once loved. Music had become draining work, something she was forced into, and art and painting had taken over as the thing she used to get all of her emotions out.
It's hard to get your feelings out when you're not allowed to sing about them, Lauren thinks to herself, remembering a time when she'd presented some lyrics to the girls, wondering if the label would let them be used, and been shot down.
(Later, when Lauren had been ranting loudly about it in their shared apartment they'd been staying in close to the studio, Camila had told her that she'd been shot down too, about the same thing, and she shouldn't be too vocal about it. Camila had said she should just keep her head down and get by.)
That's probably why she was the label's favourite. She had the personality, the voice, and she was so young and scared of them that she was easily manipulated, Lauren muses, looking over at the girl in question. It's not Camila as she knows her; Lauren is used to seeing Camila as a confident woman, with probably the best ass she's ever seen, stunningly toned abs, and a jawline that could literally cut her in half. Across from Lauren now is a small seventeen year old, not all bows and dresses like Camila was actually like at that age, but still shy and unsure with lingering puppy fat.
Lauren is a little blown away by how she manages to be so beautiful either way.
"I mean, I was torn between doing my joint literature and politics, or doing something in art," Lauren wonders aloud, trying to convey a creative degrees and career paths are credible and valid and deserve equal respect. "I love both creative things as well as academics, and painting is my creative outlet. I always considered graphic design as a possible career path."
"Well, politics is a much more sensible one," Alejandro says, probably trying to be nice, "it's good you've considered lots of things."
"It doesn't matter if something is sensible or not," Lauren says, and she knows she probably shouldn't oppose her girlfriend's father, but she can sense the way Camila's mood is going sour. "What matters is if you've got the drive and passion for it. Like... I really admire the way Camila has such a passion for her songwriting. The way she's always had that passion for it. That's how you can tell someone really loves what they do; they don't care if it's not safe or sensible. As long as it makes them happy, they don't care how much they make off of it."
Camila bites down on her bottom lip and sends Lauren a small smile. "You really see that passion in me?"
"Yeah," Lauren confirms, dropping her fork in favour of squeezing her girlfriend's hand on top of the table, "I've always seen that passion in you. Ever since the first time I heard you sing. I knew... I knew people were meant to hear your voice."
Camila stares at her in shock, and Lauren hopes this means she's getting through to her. She hopes this means she's proving her wrong. "You really mean that?"
"Of course I do," Lauren easily answers, "I didn't know why whatever powerful force is out there let me be on that journey with you, but I knew you were going to do great things. That we were going to do great things."
Camila looks at her, with tears in her eyes, and for a moment, Lauren forgets that she's sat in front of Sinu and Alejandro and Sofi, because she leans in and kisses Camila. When she hears a throat cleared, she quickly pulls away, sends Alejandro an apologetic look, and picks up her fork, quickly shovelling a forkful of food into her mouth to avoid any questions.
Camila clears her throat awkwardly, taps out a small pattern on the table, before she announces, "Um, so... are we having dessert after this?"
Lauren hears the unspoken oh please god no, and snickers a little. Admittedly, she feels a little awkward herself, but the way Camila is so obviously against this whole dinner is a little amusing. If she felt like it, she'd tease her a little, but she knows she's on thin ice and she doesn't want to do anything to break the small amount of trust she's managed to regain.
What's important here, is fixing things with Camila. Lauren doesn't care how long it takes; she'd wait forever for her.
"No," Sinu answers, "there's ice cream in the freezer if-"
"Perfect, looks like Lauren and I are both done!" Camila exclaims, grabbing Lauren by the wrist and pulling her up. "Thanks for dinner, love you guys!"
As Alejandro opens his mouth to protest, Camila pulls Lauren out of the room, and she lets herself get dragged upstairs. She smirks a little when Camila slams the bedroom door behind them, and says, "wow, I'm really that irresistible, huh?"
"Oh, shut up," Camila rolls her eyes, "you really meant that stuff? About me?"
"Yeah," Lauren answers, knowing that if she wants to fix things, she has to be honest. Honesty is what Camila really wanted from her. "I did. I believe that you're meant to perform your music."
Camila smiles at her. "That... that means a lot. So- um, this date?"
"Yeah," Lauren asks, when Camila doesn't elaborate, "what about it?"
"When are we going to... have it?" Camila asks her. "Soon?"
At the way she's asking, the way she seems enthusiastic about it, Lauren grins. "As soon as you want it."
"Next weekend." Camila practically demands. "But... but if it doesn't... if you run away from me again..."
"I won't." Lauren quickly assures her. "I promise you. I won't run again."
Camila looks at her, and Lauren swears she sees a little flash of doubt in her eyes before she nods and mumbles, "Okay."
Lauren pushes it out of her mind; Camila said she was giving her a chance, and Lauren isn't going to let anything ruin that.
She can't lose Camila again.