My Favorite Camren One-Shots

You Mean More (than Any Color I Can See)

Lately it seemed like Dinah was rubbing in the fact that all of them could see color now, save for Lauren. Or maybe Lauren was just taking certain comments the wrong way now that Ally had met her soulmate, officially leaving Lauren the odd one out. She wouldn’t admit it, but it was starting to get to her—all of it.

She was getting tired of people saying “wouldn’t this bring out your eyes?” before realizing that she didn’t even know what color her eyes were (unless they were, in fact, the bleak grey she saw in the mirror everyday). She was getting tired of Ally and her never-ending honeymoon phase with Troy. She was getting tired of Dinah’s stupid jokes, and maybe also the fact that she seemed like the only twenty-one year old who hadn’t found their soulmate yet. She was starting to wonder if they had died before she even got to meet them, but hopefully God didn’t hate her that much.

It didn’t seem like he hated her that much, but of course she would meet her soulmate at a fucking concert.

It happened gradually and then suddenly; The scene in front of her slowly become more saturated, and then in the blink of an eye, there were a hundred colors in front of her. Colored lights on the stage were changing every few seconds, but failed to take away from all the other colors around her. Despite the fact that they were nowhere near as vibrant as the lights on the stage, Lauren appreciated every shade of skin around her and every color shirt. Even the greys and blacks and whites looked different than before.

Although she was momentarily taken aback by all the new hues and shades in front of her eyes, it dawned on her then that her soulmate was within eye-shot. There must have been tens of thousands of people in the arena, and God knows how many of those she could see herself. On her right were her friends, chatting away before the headlining band took the stage. In front of her were countless people, though most must have been there before the newly added color range. A trio of girls stood out in the corner of her eye, obviously trying to sneak closer to the stage, and doing a terrible job at the ‘sneaking’ part of it.

“Hey!” she yelled, without thinking. She reached over and grabbed the first girl’s forearm, determined to figure out if one of them was her other half.

All three girls looked up with wide-eyes, realizing they’d be caught. Before any of them could run off, Lauren managed to see the look on the last one’s face and knew she was now seeing exactly what Lauren did only a few moments earlier. The first girl ripped her arm loose before either one of them of could say anything and turned to leave, only to run into the unmoving girl who was still in trance, staring into Lauren’s eyes.

Lauren made her way towards the last girl, carelessly shoving the other two into the seats in front of them. “I’m Lauren,” she breathed.

“I’m, uh, I’m Camila,” she replied, never tearing her eyes away from Lauren’s.

Lauren couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face when the lighting hit them just perfectly enough that she could see the growing blush on Camila’s cheeks. She’d never seen the pinkish color before, but she was already convinced it was her favorite. That was until she looked back up into Camila’s eyes, and saw how they looked like gold with the lights shining on them the way they did. It hadn’t been ten minutes, and Lauren could easily say she was smitten.

It turns out, their honeymoon phase is actually worse than Ally’s and Troy’s. They’re attached to the hip, rarely ever leaving each others sides. If they’re not finishing each others sentences, then they’re kissing, no matter if there’s an audience or not. Dinah’s disgusted, but maybe that’s karma’s way of repaying her for all the times she tortured Lauren over her lack of love life. Ally thinks it’s cute and is more than happy Lauren has finally found someone, but even she gets tired after a few months.

In Lauren’s opinion, their honeymoon phase is just like anybody else’s, it just happens to last forever. She was getting annoyed with Ally after five months, but there seems to be no change with Camila and Lauren at six months, or seven, or eight. Sometimes they fight, of course, but it isn’t long before they’re both taking the blame and whispering “I love you”’s until they’re blue in the face. Dinah will make gagging noises and yell at them to get a room until eventually Lauren and Camila retreat to their bedroom, and at seven months Normani doesn’t even bother scolding Dinah anymore.

Lauren doesn’t think any of them are truly disgusted by their public displays of affections. It’s not like she’s unaware of the fact that she’s neglecting them. It began with a concert they’d bought tickets for months ahead of time, that had sold out by the time she met Camila. Instead of soldiering on for the night without her, she decided to give her ticket away, despite knowing that her friends would be more or less displeased. She also took Camila to singles night, which wasn’t so bad as well except they completely ruined the concept with their constant eye-fucking. Lauren doesn’t waste a second to point out that Dinah and Normani came along to singles night, even though they were a couple as well, but her argument was disputed because they couldn’t help it. Dinah had been friends with Lauren, and Normani Ally long before they’d all gotten together as friends, so it wouldn’t be fair to cut out half of the group (besides, Dinah and Normani had stopped acting couple-y after like, two months).

They’ve all grown to love Camila just as much as they love Lauren, and they love spending time with her. But when it’s Lauren and Camila, you might as well not be in the room, so what’s the point? No one wants to cause any eventual resentment, so Lauren begins making an effort in having alone time with her friends again.

“Separation makes the heart grow fonder, right?” Camila says, pecking Lauren on the lips a few hours their first night without each other since they met.

It gives Camila more time to catch up with Sandra and Marielle, as well as visiting her family. Although the first time is hard, they both slowly but surely get used to not having a warm body right beside them at every hour of the day. After a handful of days without her, Lauren can finally leave her phone in her pocket when she’s with her friends, but it’s always on vibrate just in case.

Her last day of exams turns out to be very stormy, in fact, it’s borderline hurricane weather, and Lauren wants nothing more than to get to her apartment and cuddle up with Camila under a blanket. It’s just her luck that there’s traffic that day, but maybe it’s best she’s not driving fifty miles an hour when there’s hail.

It’s happens gradually again, and then hits her suddenly. The clouds are so dark it practically sucks all the color out of Miami itself, but Lauren can’t help but notice the palm trees growing greyer and greyer by the second. She shakes her head, because it’s ridiculous, obviously. She goes to turn the radio up, anything to distract herself from this dreary weather, when she sees her hand has turned a light grey and there’s no arguing what’s right in front of her.

She barely hears the radio host say something about a pile up about ten minutes away as she frantically fumbles for her phone. It takes her trembling fingers longer to type her passcode than she has the patience for, but the phone doesn’t even ring once before going to an automated voice message telling her the service has been disconnected. She doesn’t even get to hear her voice on the answering machine. Her breathing becomes labored and she squeezes her eyes shut; she’d rather be surrounded by complete darkness than no color, simply because of what it means.

When the other girls find out, the color might as well have been stripped from their worlds too. Dinah never goes back to teasing Lauren about being colorblind, but Lauren would take those days back in a second.