Bound To You (camren au)

walls i built up became my home

tw for mention of eating disorders

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"Oh, look who's back on their bullshit."

"Shut up!" Camila shrieks while Lauren lobs a MAC lipstick in Dinah's direction, but they all have excellent reflexes and so Dinah dodges easily. She's right, though. They're so back on their bullshit.

Camila and Lauren have been thick as thieves again for the past few weeks or so, so intense and inseparable that it's almost like how it was when they first became best friends. Sure, Hailee still likes to have Camila home most of the time, but occasionally she'll be out for work and so Camila will go over to Lauren's apartment and they'll bake and play card games and watch stupid shows and tell each other stories.

Just the other day they watched all the Twilight movies together and kept up a very raunchy and sarcastic running commentary that had them both in stitches (not to mention Camila making fun of Lauren for how much she genuinely enjoyed those movies). Then Camila insisted that they watch all of Gossip Girl and they spent a very long time talking about how it would've been so much better if everyone was gay. Lauren practically worships Serena. Camila's always been more of a Blair girl herself, but to each their own.

"You know in the books it's basically canon that Blair has a crush on Serena," Camila tells her. "They kissed and everything." Okay, so, she's like one of the only people in the world that's actually read the Gossip Girl books.

Lauren shoots her a squinty-eyed, disbelieving look. "You read the books," she says, grinning at Camila. "Oh my god. You're such a fucking dork."

Camila scowls but then they both end up cracking up because that's just what they do.

And- no. Lauren still hasn't found it in her to offer an explanation for everything that happened in the CVS bathroom with the negative pregnancy tests, but Camila isn't going to push her, because- because, well, sometimes she forgot exactly how much, but she and Lauren were forever connected on this whole other level that made it so they understood each other even if they didn't know every single thing about each other's past.

It was just- they were better together. And Camila would be there for her when the time came. Camila would be there for her, always.

"Hey." Camila laces her pinky around Lauren's before Lauren can throw another horrendously expensive makeup product at Dinah. "Shopping tomorrow?"

"Sure." Lauren flashes her that slightly crooked smile. She's somehow gotten her hands on Camila's hooker coat and is wearing it over her sports bra and Nike pros. It still manages to look better on Lauren than it does on Camila.

"Cabello."

"Stop," Camila groans, because there's only one person who calls her by her last name, and when she whirls around to kick at Ariana for doing so she stops short when seeing the expression on her face. "Um." She blinks. "Are you... are you okay?" Ariana looks a little mad, maybe. Camila's skin starts to get itchy like it always does when she's paranoid, which has sort of been a lot, lately, because she's gotten into the habit of trying to read people's expressions because normally that's the only way she can tell if her girlfriend is upset with her.

And Ariana looks upset. Maybe. Maybe angry. Camila scratches at her cuticles to find they're already sensitive from bouts of bad Hailee days last week.

"Are you mad?" she asks, hooking her right ankle around Lauren's for some semblance of comfort, because when she's agitated she likes Lauren close. Even just the ridges of the bone above her foot is slightly reassuring. Her skin is near-perpetually warm.