Bound To You (camren au)

free me, free us

this story is a pure fever dream fantasy born out of too much free time due to quarantine. also me watching burlesque like 10 times and watching 3 seasons of glee in a week. glee is going to be mentioned way too much in this fic, i'm warning you now. it's like REALLY excessive

clearly i don't know anything about burlesque so let me have my artistic liberties LMFAO this story is just stupid marginally angsty bubbly!Lauren oblivious!Camila songfic-y fun

also ally and lucy are sisters for plot convenience reasons

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When Camila first moves to Los Angeles, it's definitely a culture shock. She grew up in a tiny town in the midwest, where everyone knew everyone and it was much better to blend in than stand out. And Camila was an expert at fitting in. She was polite and peppy - a cheerleader, on student council. People loved her. People expected that she'd grow up and go to community college in their town, and get married to the quarterback, and pop out little peppy kids and raise them and never, ever move away. That's what her mom did. It was just what made sense to her town.

So when she got into UCLA, and she packed up all her shit and left - left everything, her friends, her family - everyone was shocked. All her friends from the cheer squad texted her repeatedly. Her dad was furious. He probably wouldn't have let her go at all.

But it was her mom who gave her all the money for school, who was the only one who saw her off when she packed her car and left. The only one who was ever truly on her side throughout everything. To this day, two years later, she is the only one who still texts Camila from time to time to check up on her.

And that's just fine with Camila. Because two years later, she is immensely enjoying her life.

UCLA is a fucking dream. Actually, to Camila, everything about LA is a fucking dream compared to her hick hometown. The weather is always sunny, the people are all fascinating, and it seems like there are always new places to go and new things to do. She feels like LA will never be able to bore her.

She gets along well with her roommates, and all three of them work at this coffee shop just a few blocks away from campus where they also do live music. Camila works as a barista but she's also one of the regular performers, and her boss tells her that she always gets the most tips out of everyone. Camila loves singing, loves performing - it's, like, her one true passion. She never really thought about pursuing it but it's just something she loves to do.

It's on a Thursday night when she's hanging her apron up so she can go up on that little stage with the guitar where that changes for her.

"Camila." One of her coworkers comes in the back room, the beat-up guitar they all use in her hand. She passes it to her. "You're performing tonight, right?"

"Yeah." Camila gives the guitar an experimental strum. It's already tuned. "Am I going on right now?"

Her coworker nods, and Camila comes out of the work lounge so she can step up on their tiny little stage set up against their back wall. The sun is setting outside, and the way the performers are set up isn't really dramatic - they don't even introduce them, they just stand up there and provide the live music. Sometimes people pay attention, sometimes they don't. Camila has learned not to care about it that much.

So she gets up there, taps her microphone, and begins to play one of her favorite songs to perform - Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn. It's supposed to be acoustic with the guitar and such but she always goes way harder than she needs to be, belting incredibly loudly, riffing whenever she can. So that's what she does, even in her ripped jeans and beat-up Converse; she sings like she's performing for a sold-out stadium instead of a dinky coffee shop where people are barely paying attention.