a/n: so this is a bit of a jumbled mess but it fits the theme lol anyways enjoy bc i've been working on this since last year finger guns

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Lance was a happy man. He always looked at the bright side of things too. Lance was upbeat, genuine, and always up for a good life, but he was very fragile. He didn't look like it, and he didn't act like it either, but he was. He was a paper man with a steel shell. His shell was about to come undone.

The brunette was a senior at his high school and was a quarterback for his school's football team. His school had just earned a great victory that would take them to the state championship, and the after party had just ended. Now Lance was back at the field and he wasn't in a good mood. Lance had his helmet in his hand, the only thing in the stadium being on the stadium lights that just went off on a timer. He had his helmet in his hand, and the rest of his gear in his car.

Once Lance got to the middle of the field, he dropped his helmet. He stared blankly at the earth before him and got lost in his mind. His fingers messed with the loose strands of his worn out (lucky) jersey and his brows furrowed subconsciously.

"What if people knew?" Lance asked himself, "What if they knew what was inside? They knew all my worst fears and strongest desires? Would they use it against me or pull me up?" His talking got shakier, but he laughed and flared his arms up, looking up, "Is that what you want?" The volume of his voice increased, "If anyone's out there -- anyone at all! Is that what you want? To know everything? Well, this is it! This is all the shit that's been boiling up inside and has terrified me for years! So use it against me, drive me into the ground, I don't care! I really don't care!"

Nobody was there, so Lance didn't know who he was talking to. God? Jesus? The guy operating the lights? Some religious omnipotent being? Lance didn't know himself, but if anyone was there he was making sure they heard as he aired out all of his dirty laundry. All it took was one shaky breath for Lance to start his emotional tangent.

"Dyslexia is depressing, incompetence is isolating, popularity is polarizing, dumbness is dulling, football is failure, recognition is restricting." Lance started to murmur to himself, pacing around in circles with his hands entangled in his hair, "The outside world is disorienting."

Lance's mind flashed back to a certain scene that would always stick out in his mind. It didn't go away, and it never would. This memory had haunted Lance ever since it had happened. Memories of the crowd, memories of the faces he saw, memories of every little microscopic detail; like how bright the lights were shining, or that there was a loose strand on Number 36's left shoulder, or how the pounding in his head was only getting stronger by the second.

Lance was running up the field, football in his clutches and the sound of the audience cheering on his every step filling his ears. The boy was running faster than he ever had before, shooting like a bullet down the field with a wave of burly, buff teenagers chasing him. Something that Lance knew about those guys was that they wouldn't catch up to him. This is because Lance had something the rest of the people chasing him didn't have: agility.

Right before Lance made it to the touchdown zone (I don't know football lol dont come for me pls), the words painted on the field started to come off of the grass and mix themselves up, jumbling together inside his head. Lance's eyes widened and his pace started to slow down. The teenagers behind him couldn't catch up before Lance tripped on a trap the other team had set. The once-running teen plummeted onto the ground.

The world around Lance spun. He looked at the ball roll away from him, the ball having two versions of itself in his mind. To top off this state, he had multiple boys topple onto him. He looked out at the crowd emotionlessly. The look of worry that had washed across the crowd was something he would never forget, no matter how disoriented he was at the moment. Lance let out a scream as a final guy hopped onto the dog pile before his world spun for a final time and he went limp.

"He was so close. . ." Lance's eyes narrowed at the part of the field where he'd gotten tackled, "But he missed his chance. . . Just like he misses every other chance that he comes across." Lance's fingers separated, body strained, "Just throw the ball!" He exclaimed, "Throw the ball, Lance! It's not that hard! Throw it and win the game. . . Or just let words on a field distract you and lose the game for your school, team, and pride. And hurt yourself doing it."

Lance had hurt himself bad when he had fallen. He'd dislocated and fractured his right shoulder (least of Lance's worries, but people had to write stuff for him for weeks!!) and had gotten a concussion. He was in a sling for a few weeks. Anyways, by this time, Lance had his arm outstretched to the part of the field where he'd fallen, eyes watery and face full of an unexplainable sadness.

"You threw away your chance. . . You let everyone down." Lance muttered

With those few words, he fell to his knees. His face contorted into a somber, desperate frown as his body started to heave. Empty sobs left his mouth and his hands slammed onto the fake grass. Lance's arms felt weak and his balance was waning. Eventually, he slipped onto his forearms. He balled his hand into a fist and hit the ground. He hit it, and hit it, and hit it over and over again.

Lance's empty sobs grew louder. His body was shaking and tears were rolling out of his eyes. His mouth was wide open and his whole being was in the midst of spilling itself out onto that empty football field.

"People don't know that I hate myself. They don't know how much of a screw up I am behind the scenes -- no one does! But if they knew I did, they would love it because people love seeing others suffer and picking at the insecurities. They get satisfaction knowing they're not the only ones but are too shameful to admit it. People love laughing at people hating themselves. People get famous for it! People get money and gold for hating themselves, but what do I get? I get isolation and silenced because if people knew that I hated myself, they would love that but they would hate me. If people knew, I'd get shamed and publicly humiliated, but that's fine. It would be fine because people move on so quick that they forget the damage that their words had on someone else. . . On me!"

"But that's fine!" Lance exclaimed, looking up at the sky before falling onto his back, "That's fine! It's 'relatable'. People relate and it makes you seem like less of a superhuman and more like a person. It's fine! Just tell everyone and they'll--" Lance let out a long breath, cheeks puffing.

His chest descended as he let that puff of air he was holding in out of his system, "they'll laugh. . ." Lance started laughing himself, a sadistic smile forming on his face, "What am I doing here? Sulking about something that happened a year ago, but still haunts me?" His smile slowly died off, "Something that still wakes me up at night. 'Get up, Lance! You have to get up and keep going! Brush it off!' Coach Shiro just yelled at me. . . He didn't understand. . . But who did? Wasn't it hard seeing one of the strongest players foil at the sight of any danger?"

Lance rolled his eyes at himself and slowly got up. He looked down at the ground he'd just been standing in. A bit of fake grass had been pulled out of the turf and there was a small dent of where his feet had been planted for so long, but it was rising. Lance looked around, his eyes soon landing on the helmet.

Number 42. Lance gulped, "You're the worst of all. . ." He muttered, "You're supposed to help me but instead I got a concussion and some failed scholarships." He kicked the inanimate object, watching as it rolled a few feet away from him.

The brunette sighed and rubbed his temples. He went towards his helmet and clutched it tightly in his hands, stumbling back to his car (where he'd fall asleep in until sunrise). Once Lance had made it to the car, he unlocked his little used Honda Civic and plopped into the drivers seat. His eyes glanced up at the air freshener, then he looked at a small picture sticking up on the dashboard.

The picture had his mom, nana, papa, cousins, brothers, siblings, and so many others in that picture. That's when Lance remembered. When Lance questioned why he ever did something -- football for example -- all he had to do was look at that picture of his family and that's when he was brought back to Earth. He didn't do it for himself, hell no. He did it for them. His family.