"Dude, remind me why we're doing this again."

It's just before six on a Monday morning; Ryder and Jake are walking down an otherwise empty McKinley hall toward the gym. "Because Sam wants us to work out so we look good for the Men of McKinley calendar," Ryder says.

"No, I know that. I mean remind me why we agreed to it."

It's a good question. Neither of them is a morning person, and it's not like an extra workout or two or five is going to make any difference anyway. Jake and especially Sam are going to look good no matter what, and even Blaine...It's not that Ryder thinks Blaine is bad-looking or anything, it's just that his muscles aren't as big or defined as, say, Ryder's (objectively! not that Ryder's full of himself!), and yet Sam—the very person so obsessed with the workouts—finds him completely irresistible.

"You don't have an answer; that means I'm going home and going back to bed." Jake turns toward the exit.

Ryder grabs his arm. "No, come on. We agreed because it means a lot to Sam."

"So? The dude is crazy."

"No, he's not, he's just...Look, if something was important to us, he'd do it. Even if it meant waking up early."

Jake gives him an extremely skeptical look.

"Besides, I bought new gym shoes. I'd hate for them to go to waste."

"If you bought new shoes for this, you're as crazy as Sam," Jake says. He looks down at Ryder's feet in his worn, scuffed Converse and adds, "Actually, the crazy thing is that you'd make up a lie as stupid as that. Those are absolutely not new."

"No, these aren't. The new ones are in my bag."

Jake eyes the bag with continued skepticism. After several seconds he announces, "I still think you're bullshitting me."

"Seriously? Well, you can see what's in here when we get to the gym," Ryder says, giving his duffel a little shake. "If you see I'm not bullshitting, you have to go through with all the early-morning workouts this week."

Jake hesitates; he studies Ryder's face for clues as to whether he's lying or not. "I accept, mostly because now I'm curious. But I still have to get something if you are bullshitting. If there are no new gym shoes in there, then..."

"Then we leave," Ryder finishes for him.

"Hell no. Nothing's stopping me from leaving right now. If you're lying, I have to actually get something, and it has to actually cost you something." He starts back toward the gym while still mulling what he wants to ask for; Ryder quickly catches up to him. "Fuck, I'm too tired to think of something really good," he says after several moments of silence, save for their footsteps echoing in the hallway. "Just...well, okay, you have to bring me coffee every morning for the rest of the week. Not coffee from your house, you have to go out and buy me coffee. To my specifications."

"Deal," Ryder agrees. Jake's coffee order is simple—dark roast, a little cream, no sugar—but even if he'd be inclined to make up some wildly complicated order just out of spite (which, let's be real, he totally would), Ryder is not lying about the shoes.

At the end of the hall, Ryder pushes open the locker room door and loudly calls out, "Blaine?" He's walked in on Blaine and Sam making out too many times to not announce his presence when entering a room they're both in—to not announce his presence to Blaine specifically, because Sam doesn't always care enough to tone it down. It's not that Ryder is homophobic, it's just that seeing those two getting hot and heavy can kind of ruin his day. He and Jake wait just inside the door until they hear Sam's soft voice (probably complaining about being interrupted) and Blaine's loud one telling them to come on back.

"Ryder's so psyched for this he bought..." Jake trails off as he and Ryder turn into the row of lockers Sam and Blaine are standing at. "You guys didn't finish already, did you? You look kind of flushed."

"Dumbass," Ryder mutters under his breath. He turns to his locker to concentrate on his combination instead of on Sam, pink-cheeked and slightly sweaty, t-shirt pushed up enough to show his abs.

"Oh, what did you buy, Ryder?" Blaine asks.

Ryder doesn't look at Blaine; he knows Sam is standing behind him with his arms around his middle. "It's not because of this," he says, though it isn't entirely true.

"Or maybe you didn't buy anything at all and you're just psyched to be buying me coffee all week."

"What?" Sam asks, seeming to tear his attention away from his boyfriend for the first time.

"It's just a..." Ryder makes the mistake of glancing over at the happy couple. Sam is actually paying attention to him and somehow that's worse because Ryder knows he's going to sound like a complete idiot now. "Jake thought that I'd lie for some reason about...It's just really dumb, I just mentioned I got new gym shoes, and Jake just...had to make it this whole dumb thing." Ryder notices he's used the word dumb twice, pretty much back-to-back. It's pretty appropriate, actually.

"Oh, let's see!" Sam manages to make it seem like he's excited for Ryder's dumb shoes, which maybe means he really is, because it doesn't seem like the kind of thing Sam would bullshit about.

Or the kind of thing Ryder would bullshit about, and he's offended at Jake again. But he ignores that and focuses on the fact that Sam wants to see the new shoes. Not that they're very exciting or anything, but he sets his duffel bag on the bench, unzips it, and pulls them out.

Sam nods at them approvingly. "Nice! What are those, Adidas?"

Jake looks at them for no more than a second or two. "Obviously they're Adidas," he scoffs. "What was your first clue, the Adidas stripes?"

"What the hell, Jake?" Blaine asks.

Ryder was about to say the same thing; he sort of wishes Blaine hadn't beaten him to it. "Yeah, don't take it out on Sam just because you thought I was lying and I wasn't."

"Whatever. Why are you acting so weird?"

"Oh, I'm being weird? You're the one who accused me of lying about having new shoes...as we were on our way to get changed. Like, how dumb do you actually think I am?"

"You don't want me to answer that question."

"Guys, guys!" Blaine approaches so close that Jake and Ryder are each forced to take a step back, away from each other. "Look, I know we're not all used to being up this early." He turns to his boyfriend and adds, "Sam, maybe we don't all need to..."

Sam shakes his head dismissively. "If you guys are in a bad mood or whatever, we should just get started, start releasing some endorphins." And then he inexplicably peels his t-shirt off.

Or...explicably, maybe. Sam knows how good he looks shirtless, he knows his boyfriend is there, no doubt all turned on by him. He's probably not thinking of Ryder at all...or Jake, but Jake doesn't care...not that Ryder does care, he just finds it distracting is all, but it's fine, he has other things to pay attention to, like...well, like he has to change his own clothes and not worry about what Sam is or is not (mostly not) wearing. He takes his clean gym clothes out of the duffel and swaps his "school" t-shirt for his gym one and his jeans for his gym shorts, only watching in his peripheral vision as Sam starts stretching, shirtless.

Everyone else is ready to get started—except for Sam, who sort of already has—but Ryder still has to lace up his new sneakers. Blaine leans against the lockers to wait, while Jake sits on the bench next to Ryder. "I always kinda liked the Adidas stripes," Jake says.

Ryder takes this as an apology for being a dick. He doesn't have any particular feelings about Adidas or their stripes—he bought these sneakers because they were the least expensive pair he found that fit—but he appreciates the olive branch. "Thanks, yeah, they're pretty cool."

"Like racing stripes!" Sam adds, without interrupting his lunging.

"Heh, yeah." Ryder finishes lacing the right shoe and puts it on. "I'll be super fast." He starts lacing the left one.

Sam stops doing lunges, thank God. But...he bends to touch his toes instead. Ryder glances at Blaine, just briefly, before he finds himself watching Sam again. He wonders if it's hard for Blaine..not that kind of hard...except, well, yeah, also that kind of hard...He wonders if it's difficult for Blaine—and if it makes Blaine get boned—to watch his boyfriend just casually bend over like that. Like, can Blaine possibly be thinking about anything other than standing behind Sam while he does that, pulling his shorts down, and fucking him? Is that even how they do it, is Sam the one who likes to get fucked or the one who likes to fuck? Or do they take turns? For as not-shy as the two of them are about PDA, and for as often as Sam, especially, just blurts out inappropriate stuff, Ryder doesn't really know a lot about what they do, specifically. It's not like he should care, and he'd be better off not thinking about it at all, but...

"Ryder!"

Oh, Jake was just saying something. "Sorry, what?"

Jake laughs. "I bet that's what you were thinking about just now!"

"No, I wasn't!" Ryder's cheeks feel warm suddenly, even as he realizes he doesn't know what Jake is actually accusing him of thinking about. "I mean, what? I didn't even catch what you were talking about."

"I said you know what Adidas stands for, right?"

"Stands?" Blaine and Sam couldn't have standing sex with Sam bending over like he is now, Ryder doesn't think. Blaine is too short, Sam would need someone taller, someone like...Fuck, there he goes again. No wonder he has no idea what the actual conversation is about. "Huh?"

"Like how Adidas is supposedly an acronym?" Blaine says.

"Yeah, exactly, I think it's literally why Ryder bought them. All Day I Dream..."

"Oh, ha ha," Ryder says, finally getting it. Sarcastically he adds, "Yes, I totally bought Adidas because All Day I Dream About Sam." Jake and Blaine both freeze. Sam slowly straightens up; it's not until he locks eyes with Ryder that Ryder realizes what he just said. "Sex, I mean! I just...Sam was in my line of vision and...I mean, his name starts with an S, so...But yeah, I'm familiar with the actual, supposed acronym: All Day I Dream About Sex!"

"Sex with Sam, apparently," Jake jokes. (But is he joking?)

Blaine laughs and adds, "Same." Ryder knows he's just trying to make the whole thing less awkward, but it actually just makes Ryder super aware that it's not the same at all. Blaine doesn't have to just dream about sex with Sam.

Ryder returns his attention to his shoelaces. That is, he tries to. He sort of forgot where he was in the whole lacing process, and also his hands are trembling a little so it's difficult to force the laces through the holes. He takes a deep breath, glad at least for the excuse not to make eye contact with any of the guys. He doesn't look up at all, in fact, though he is aware, a minute or two later, of Blaine and Jake drifting off toward the weight room.

He's super aware that Sam is still there, watching him.

He gets the shoe laced, finally, and Sam sits on the bench next to him as he puts it on. "Sorry," Ryder says. "Obviously I didn't mean..."

Sam puts an arm around his shoulder and says jovially, "Everyone dreams about sex with Sam, it's okay." He hesitates and then adds seriously, "I mean it. It's okay."

And Ryder appreciates Sam being so understanding—which of course he is, he's just such a good guy—but it doesn't actually change anything. Sam is with Blaine, he's happy with Blaine, and Ryder is just Sam's friend. He knows that's all he'll ever be. "Well, thanks, but it really was just a slip of the tongue."

Sam squeezes Ryder's shoulder and pats it for several long seconds. "Okay." He stands up. "Well, I guess we'll see you in the weight room when you're ready."

"Yeah, I'll be there in a second." Ryder watches Sam walk away and takes a couple deep breaths. He ties his laces, trying to will the words All Day I Dream About Sam to stop echoing in his head, and gets up to join the other guys.