Lance spends roughly two minutes trying to find the strength to open his eyes. With inner willpower he pulls out of fear, he peels his eyes open, whimpering when he sees the glaring green light of his digital clock on his bedside table. How could he already have to get up? His room was still dark. The world was still dark.

He wants to fall back asleep. God, does he want to just throw his head underneath his blanket and go back to floating in his dream. He thinks about all the shit he's going to have to deal with if he shows up late to practice. Extra laps. Teasing from his teammates. It's all a headache. He lets out a muffled groan.

The urge to kick his legs childishly is strong but his body is still limp with exhaustion. Join the swimming team, his parents said. You love swimming Lance, they said.

Lance rolls over onto his back and rests his arm across his eyes. He lets out a sigh. Okay. It's go time. He opens his eyes, slowly blinking to adjust to the darkness. Even after over 8 years of doing competitive swimming, he will never get used to morning practices.

He throws the blankets off his body, squeezing his eyes shut when the biting cold air whips at his skin and sits up on his bed, bare feet touching his carpet. He fumbles to turn on his bedside lamp and lets himself get adjusted to the now brightly lit room. Ah, that's a little better. A yawn escapes from his lips. Damn, he's tired. He rubs at his eyes and gets up to do some stretches. It's one thing he knows that helps to wake him up in the morning.

After that, it's just his morning routine of hygienic duties and getting dressed. He throws on some sweats and his favorite blue hoodie, a warm long sleeve underneath it all. It's September and it's starting to get cold. And well, Lance gets cold way too easily so he's got to be prepared for the worst. Once he's dressed, he makes sure to put his extra set of clothes and shoes in his swimming bag. Because walking around campus with socks and sandals is definitely not a good look. He's got an image to maintain after all.

And now to the only bright thing about the morning. Breakfast. He treads softly to the kitchen, careful as to not wake up Hunk. The lucky guy doesn't have class until 10.

Lance sets a pot of water on high and measures out how many oats he is going to dump in when it's time. Lance blinks at the clock on his oven. 5:15 am. No matter how many times Lance thinks about it, this isn't right. Waking up so early is just not morally right. He lets out another yawn and dumps his oats when the pot begins to boil. He stirs it tiredly and lowers the heat, going to cut some bananas. Never has Lance felt like an old man than he does when he's making oatmeal at 5:15 in the morning, with three to five yawns every other minute.

Lance turns the pot of oatmeal off, pours it into a bowl, then goes to get his banana slices. Yay, breakfast time.

He sets the bowl down on the table and he unlocks his phone, scrolling through his missed got a snapchat from Niko. The video opens up to his baby niece smiling widely at the camera, gurgling cute sounds at him. The corners of his lips tug up a little, absentmindedly. Wow, Laura has definitely growing up. Lance was pretty sure he got some sight of two teeths popping out from her bottom gums. When was the last time he saw her? He facetimed Niko a few weeks ago but she's already gotten so big. Lance shakes his head in awe. Babies, man. He takes bites of his oatmeal in between looking through his snaps, making sure to scoop up bananas too cause bananas are bomb.

He opens up the snap from Hunk last night, the eerie emptiness of the science building at 9pm. " I need to eat and everything is closed fml" Lance smirks at seeing the second snap, Hunk staring blankly at the camera in complete I am done with this BS fashion. Taking a night class must definitely be hell for his bestie since the food court closes at 8pm on Fridays. Something that still pisses Lance off. If Lance could get paid for how many times he's sprinted to the hall to get food with his points and was promptly shut out his freshmen year, he would be a very very rich man. After night practice too. Those were the worst. It felt like the hunger was trying to escape his body after night practices. And then he had to trek over to the dining hall and eat the same thing he's eaten for three months. It sucked. Well, now he has a kitchen so he's able to make his own food. At least when he gets the time. These days it feels like he has no time.

Lance goes to scoop another bowl of oatmeal and just hears a clink. He glances down and blinks in surprise when notices it's empty. Well, dang.

He gets up and sets his dish in the sink, filling it up with water so it's easier to wash later. He glances at the stove and see's it's 5:30. The train leaves in less than 10 minutes. Lance curses and rushes over to the shoe closet, grabbing his running sneakers, Nike sandals be damned. He's going to have to book it to the train station.

Lance's eyes flit over the kitchen and living room. He's got his backpack, gym bag, phone... Keys. He needs his keys. He scans the living room table and the counters in the kitchen before he remembers he had left his keys in his room. He sprints there as quietly as he can and swipes them from his bedside table, leaving his door open and turns off the kitchen light. He unlocks the door and relocks it, swiftly turning to where his bike is locked on their patio. He puts in Aleja's birthday and shoves his lock in his backpack, hauling his bike down the stairs. Trying his best to keep his eyes on the stairs so he doesn't eat shit. He plops the bike down on the concrete and gathers his bearings. Okay, he's got like seven minutes to make it to the train station.

And so he hauls ass, his legs pushing at the pedals as fast as he could. They ache in protest after a minute but Lance can't think about it too much because it definitely won't be as bad if he shows up late to practice. The neighborhood is a blur as he whips down the streets and swerves like a madman. He slides to the left onto the bike lane to avoid a little kid walking on the sidewalk. He raises his butt from the seat, pushing his legs even faster. It's around a minute later when he takes a corner and arrives at the train station. He heaves a sigh of relief when he notices the familiar suits waiting on the platform. They haven't left! Within seconds, he gets to the bike lock station and locks Blue up, and he dashes to the platform, chest heaving and mouth dry. He grabbles for the water bottle in his gym bag and downs it, some water leaking from the corners of his mouth. He wipes it away with the back of his hand.

He knows he should be embarrassed about running late but Lance doesn't really care too much at the moment, thank you very much.. He rests his hands on his knees, breathing deeply. He feels a smile creep up on his lips. He lets out a whoop and a fist bump. That was awesome .

He feels a smug smirk pull at his lips. Who's the man? Yeah, he's the man.

That must have been a record time. If there was one sign that today was going to be a good day, this would definitely be it.

"Martinez!"

Lance closes his eyes in dread at the call of his name. The temptation of submerging his head into the water is too high as he feels steps come closer to him. . How many times today is he going to be called out today? Has it even been an hour since practice started?

Begrudgingly, Lance looks up at his Coach, who's glaring at him. Sigh., "Yes, Coach?"

"Martinez, I don't even know what that was." Coach Williams says in exasperation, "but I know it was awful. You need to keep your pace or you'll burn out."

Ha, too late.

Coach sighs, putting her hands on her hips wearily,"Try it again and this time, keep your breathing pattern consistent."

Lance nods firmly, lips tight. He shakes himself. Come on, Lance. He hops out of the pool and onto the spring, waiting in anticipation with his teammates for when the whistle blows. God, he hates this moment. It's like the personification of anxiety but like whatever you're anxious for actually occurs.

You'll do fine, Lance. Just breathe. He takes a slow breath, counting to three in his head. He looks to his sides, peering at his teammates. They all seem so focused and prepared. Lance shook his head and kept an ear out for the whistle.

He hears the blow and dives into the cold water, kicking his feet as hard as he could, whipping his arms over and over until he no longer feels the ache. The water was smooth against his skin and he revels in it. He tries to not feel the presence of his teammates in the lanes beside him but he keeps having these mental images of him sliding behind them all. After what he feels like is forever, he reaches the other end of the pool and he takes off his goggles, puffs of air escaping his mouth in fast intervals. For a minute, he thinks he is off the hook. He nearly lets out a sigh of relief before he hears the shout of his name to his left.

He looks up at the ceiling, giving himself two seconds to restrain himself from snapping back.

He looks over to his right and Sammy is shooting him a sympathetic smile, something like pity in his eyes. Yeah, Lance doesn't really need that right now. Lance gives him a thin quirk of his lips and shifts his eyes away.

And so the lecture begins again. Lance listens with silence as Coach tells him where his weaknesses are. What he needs to do better on. What he needs to keep in mind. He knows she means well, but he doesn't want to listen anymore. He knows he's not doing well. He just wants her to stop talking. But he can't tell her that. So he sits there in the pool, listening to all the ways where he's falling short.

Once Coach leaves, Lance just sits there, thinking about how wrong he was about having a good day. And it wasn't even 8 am yet. This time, Lance does submerge himself under the water, just for a moment of peace and quiet. He thinks about his bed and how long the rest of his day is going to be and the fact that he has to go to night practice too.

Lance takes a seat on the bench and rubs his towel over his hair thoroughly. The last thing he needs is to go and catch a cold because of wet hair.

He reruns the entire practice in his head and as he recalls every interaction with his coach, the pit in his stomach gets heavier.

A sigh escapes his lips and he scrubs his hair harder, as if he could scrub the thoughts away,

Again, Martinez. Do the set again. Again. Again.

He sighs lowly. What a rough practice. He sits up straight, yanking the towel off his hair. He just wants to go eat three plates of food and sleep for the next four hours. But he has his stupid history class. Fuuuuhhhh.

"Damn, Lance was Coach riding you today or what?"

Lance looks up and sees Sammy walk by him, towel wrapped around his waist. He stops at his locker, unlocking it.

"Nah, she just yelling at me to hide the fact that she really adores me" Lance coos sweetly. " She can't be too obvious about favorites Sam Sam."

Sammy crows, "Favorites? Ah, man you're giving yourself waaaay to much credit. You're like number 10 on a list of 5"

Lance squawks, hitting his chest with his palm in mock hurt, "That hurts. But I'll let it slide this time since you're obviously masking your jealousy."

"Oh, yeah definitely." Sammy laughs, pulling his shirt over his head. "Man, what did you do to her? Shit on her desk or something?"

Lance smirk falls a little but perks himself up and shrugs nonchalantly. "Beats me." He knows his performance isn't at his best. He knows he can do better. "Maybe, she didn't get her morning protein shake."

It's a weak deflection. He's pretty sure that Sammy knows it is too. He doesn't bring it up though. Lance doesn't have the strength to actually say that he knows he's been slacking out loud.

Lance hangs his towel in his locker before shutting it. He double checks that his gym bag is zipped up tight. "Anyways man, I gotta go."

Sammy looks at him over his shoulder, with a raised eyebrow "You don't wanna go grab breakfast? I'll be done pretty soon." He raises up his shoes indicating how close he is to being finished but Lance isn't really up for talking right now.

"Nah, I gotta go do something real quick. I'm gonna grab breakfast a little later," Lance lies. He gives Sammy an apologetic smile.

Sammy looks over at him curiously and shrugs, "No worries. See you at practice later?"

Lance nods and chirps, "You know it."

Lance throws up a peace sign before sliding his gym bag over his shoulder. He pulls his hoodie up over his head, nodding at his other teammates before leaving the locker room.

He loves swimming, he always has. It's the one hobby from his childhood that he actually stuck with, something that actually got him a scholarship to come to this university. But ever since the school year started, he just didn't feel anything anymore. The more accurate description would be that he doesn't want to feel what he's feeling so he ignores everything and pretends he doesn't care about it. He cares a lot though. Not even because he is on a minor scholarship, but because he takes pride in his skills as a swimmer.

It's just easier to swallow his failure when he tells himself he doesn't care as much.

He doesn't really know how to explain what he's feeling. He's not improving and it's like this cycle of working so hard but not seeing any end result. It's discouraging and it fucking sucks. And with Coach constantly ripping him a new one, he leaves practice more irritated than optimistic.

He thinks about how some of the freshman are doing so well already and how even with his own peers, he's falling behind.

He messes around on his phone, taking the long way to the dining hall so it could look like he actually had something to do. His stomach gurgles and he presses his hand to it. Damn, he is starving.

He walks a little faster. He's not all the way sure of how much time he has left before he has class. He looks at the time, small white numbers let him know he still has around 40 minutes until class. Nice. He perks up when he gets a snap from Pidge.

As he's about to open up a video from Pidge, when he's knocked over on his shoulder. The force of it knocks him off his feet, and he trips over his one feet and falls flat on his ass. What the hell.

He rubs the side of his butt and looks up promptly, and notices some guy kneeling on the grass. And yeah, usually Lance is a courteous guy and would ask if the person was okay. But today, well today has started off already as shitty and this guy hitting him was just not cool.

"Hey man, you got eyes right?" Lance calls out, " Why don't you learn how to use them?"

"Funny coming from you." says the stranger, already getting up, and dusting his knees off. Lance is stupidly glad he has grass stains already. That's going to be a pain to wash off.

Lance waits a moment, waiting for the person to elaborate. They look up at him, and raise an eyebrow, "You had your eyes glued to your phone. Why don't you use your own eyes?"

Lance scoffs, "Dude, I know it doesn't sound like you're blaming your crash and burn on me right now"

"Dude," the guy says mockingly, "I'm just saying you're a hypocrite. And I didn't crash and burn, I just bumped into you."

Lance is baffled. He gestures to his position that is oh so obviously on the ground. "I'm on the ground!"Lance exclaims.

The guy shrugs, "Guess you're light."

Oh, no this guy didn't just….

"Excuse me?!", Lance shouts, rising up from the ground. He points at this…. This… jerk, " I am not light. I am 160 pounds of pure toned muscle."

The guy looks up at him up and down and skeptically says,"Yeah…. Sure.."

And this once over isn't something that Lance is just going to let slide. Lance isn't at his best right now, he didn't bother changing out of his sweats and hoodie because he feels like shit and wanted the world to know it. His good outfit can wait for a better day. Anyways, he knows the clothes he is currently wearing are tragically big on him which means he looks like a coat rack but that is besides the point. Lance knows he's toned and really, he is about to spit that back at this jerk when he let's himself take a look at the guy closer.

He's around Lance's height. Fair skin.. Lance pauses, that frown looks a little familiar. Lance takes in the glare, oh yeah he knows that glare. It's freaking coffee guy. It's freaking Keith . Lance couldn't tell at first because he's wearing a beanie that covers his signature mullet but now it's no mistaking him. It's the supreme Asshole.™

And really, Lance is not surprised. Who else on this campus can be so completely rude? He stares at the guy and huffs out a sardonic laugh. His life can't be for real. "Are you really not going to apologize to me?"

The guy frowns to think about it, like the asshole that he is, "Sorry. I guess?" He shrugs nonchalantly and Lance mocks the shrug. Puh!

And there he goes again with the confused frowns and half-hearted apologies. It's like he was raised by snakes or something.

"You guess?" Lance huffs, hands on his hips, "You're just a trip aren't you? I mean, first you humiliate me at work, then you bulldoze over me like I'm roadkill. What's next? Actual murder?!"

The guy just blinks at him.

"Oh my god!" Lance shouts, "you still don't remember me do you?" This guy can not be real! Lance is going to lose his shit!

"No….?" and for a split second Lance thinks the guy is just messing with him when he sees a certain brightness in the guys eyes up but Lance thinks he might have imagined it. "Have we met before?"

Lance's eyes bug out incredulously, but he takes a deep breathe, his body sagging in defeat. He rubs at his temples, "You know what. No. You're just going to give me a headache." And he points at Keith, "Actually, you know what." Forget this guy, honestly. Lance is having kind of a terrible morning already and this guy is just rubbing the hurt into his pride even more. He picks up Keith's skateboard that's a foot away from Lance.

"Hey, what are you-"

And Lance just chucks it a few feet away from the both of them. He stares at it for a moment as it rolls down the small hill. Lance claps his hands in delight.

"What the hell!" Keith shouts behind him. He looks about second away from lunging at Lance. Whoops.

Lance grins at him."That's what you get for not apologizing!"

Lance shouts as he walks away from Keith. "And I lift too, asshole!"

"What, like 10 pounds?" counters Keith, a mocking sneer of his face. "You look like a chopstick!"

Lance whips his head back and glares, "Well at least I don't have a mullet!" It's not the best insult he could think off the top of his head but it's something.

Lance catches the guy rolling his eyes at him before jogging over to his skateboard.

And chopstick? Is that guy serious? Lance is toned . He's a swimmer. It's part of the whole deal. Lance scoffs and rubs at his biceps absentmindedly. There is some definite definition there. The guy just caught him on a bad day when he was slumming it.

Whatever. There is no point in letting the opinions of this guy get to him anyway. Now, it's time to go get some food. Lance rubs his hands in anticipation. He's been more than delayed. His stomach gurgles again and Lance starts to walk faster to the cafeteria, the promise of food already filling his thoughts.

After breakfast, Lance makes his way to his history class, and he genuinely tries to stay awake but fails. He catches up on the Z's he missed out on because of swimming practice. The rest of the day goes like that. He goes to class, eats lunch with Hunk and Pidge, goes to swimming practice, eats dinner, studies and knocks out. It's routine at this point.

Nothing is changing and Lance is getting restless. Hopeless. Mostly just resigned. He isn't improving in swimming. He hasn't done all the amazing things he imagined he would do in college. Which really wasn't much. Just to go and see stuff. Meet new people. Get laid. Or actually, date someone.

These sorts of thoughts always hit him when he's zoning out of his work. Lance stares at his notes for his Marine Biology class and scrubs his face tiredly. Ah, he's getting too into his feelings. He gets up from his seat and stretches. Time to do some night time routine and go the hell to bed.

Lance heads to the pool for a late night swimming session. He acquired a key from a trusted resource his freshman year and it's been his little secret ever since. Maybe, if he puts more practice in, he'll start to see some changes. Maybe 12 mandatory practices a week and morning practices just aren't cutting it anymore. He'll just go for an hour. He is an individual medley swimmer which means all the pressure and focus is solely on him. It's no relay, there is no pinning a loss on anyone else. This is all him. Lance wriggles his fingers and sets a timer for three minutes and takes a deep breathe, wriggling his arms before he dives in. The water is cold and Lance heart jolts at the shock but he quickly becomes used to it. He keeps his breathing bilateral like his Coach keeps drilling to him. Breaststroke, freestyle, backstroke….

Thoughts begin to seep in and he envisions himself as an audience member. He imagines how slow he must be going compared to other swimmers. How even though he's just as tall and strong as most swimmers, he seems to be just not enough.

His voice starts to sound like Iverson's and a feeling of just wrongness begins to pool in his stomach. He stops moving forward and just turns and rests on his back, his body swaying back and forth with the movement of the water.

He's always thought that swimming was his thing. Where his older brother has Futbol and Aleja has volleyball, Lance was just the swimming guy.

He thinks back to when his mom told him stories of when he was a baby, how he always had the most fun when he was in the water. He never cried when being given a bath, always splashing water, eyes in wonder as it splashed onto his face. Lance stares up at the ceiling of the pool gym, wondering when the one thing he was supposed to be good at became the thing he dreaded to do.