The Enthusiast {closed}

The chair tilted back precariously as a blond scrolled through Esper, a smile on his face at the video of vintage memes popped up on his feed. Two glasses of water sat in front of him, waiting for another person to show. Occasionally, he'd throw a glance out the window only to get sucked back into his social media. His head bounced along to some unheard song, lips forming half words and his foot bounced to the beat. Shepard watched a familiar face enter through his peripherals, the smile grew into a grin.

"Come on, Shep. You know we're not in the 20's anymore, right?"

Joanna could see his old, stale memes through the window. Her stomach growled from the moment she entered the door and she was quick to steal the seat beside him, swiping the nearest menu into her grasp and leaning in closer to him. "I think you've been hanging out with Stephen too much." A slight, teasing smile touched the corner of her lips.

"Ha! Who? Me?" The blond quipped, letting go of his leaning chair to put it back on all fours. "Stephen has been sending me old memes, and this compilation was on Esper." Shepard sniffed, shutting down Esper with a flick of his wrist, the Unity Link going dark. "They age like fine wine, Joanna." The boy reached for his cup of water and stuck his nose over the water as if he was doing a wine tasting. Pinky in the air, and a mock snobbish look adorning his face. "Ah yes, 2016. Good year for vine, yes very nice." There was a redness to his face, he was trying not to laugh.

She hid her laugh behind the back of her hand and slammed down a few menus she'd pulled out on her way in, although she already knew what she wanted. Joanna did him a half-curtsy from her seat. "Well, you're so obviously the expert," she mused, making a small mental note in the back of her mind to check out those mean memes later. "Are you ready for the big day tomorrow?"

Shepard let out a deep sigh and buried his face into his hands. "Dad has been reciting his speech to me all day." The blond rested his head into his arms, running his finger over the condensation on his glass of water. "He has it pretty much down, I just needed to get out of the house. I could probably recite the entire speech to you right now." His blue eyes traced over to the menus, suddenly sitting up and spinning to face Joanna with a beaming grin. "So, I decided I needed a bit of excitement today--" Shepard leaned in, only a few inches from Joanna's face, hardly realizing how close he actually was. " I'm going to take the CroftBurger challenge!" He leaned back, an extremely proud grin crossing his face. "And you are here to cheer me on!"

"Yeah, no thank you - I've heard enough of my own dad's grand speeches, I don't need to listen to your dad's too." With a cheeky grin, she waved Shepard's playful offer clear away from her. Joanna pushed her own menu aside, already with half-a-mind to order a bacon burger when Shep came flying in, close enough to where she could just barely feel his breath on her...

She'd been holding her breath until he leaned back, but it didn't occur to her that it did. Jo half-expected him to go falling back out of his chair, laughing to herself. "You're going to get yourself killed, you mean. If I must, I'll gladly record your last words for you." The summer suppressed another giggle, flagging their server down.

"Ah, my last words. I'm going to have to make the memorable, huh." Shepard made a thinking face, scratching at an invisible beard. No, he definitely had a beard, i-it was still peach fuzz though. Hell, his dad had a hard time growing one. No fair. As soon as the waiter came by, Shepard beamed up at them. "Croftburger please!" There was no hesitation in his voice, the determination continued as he glanced back at Joanna for her to make her order. "Make those my last words, Jo. It's short but ironic."

She smirked. [i]"It'll look nicely in-graved into your tombstone, yeah." Joanna gave the rest of her order and began playing around with her unity link, a little sparkle showing at the rim of one of the links. "I just hope you know there's no way the other's arten't going to see this." A small red light went off, indicating that she was recording his every move.

It didn't take as long as she'd thought it would for the monstrous burger to fall before him, a true mountain, left beside a cascade of fries. And there she sat with her tiny little bacon thing. It paled in comparison.

"I want you to know, I believe you can finish at least half of it."

Their server grinned.

"You have thirteen minutes and fourty-six seconds... On your mark, get set, go!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. I can feel the love." Shepard responded sarcastically, he had been planning this for as long as taking the challenge existed. Anyone would be a fool to take on the monster of a burger by eating it as is. There were no rules on taking it apart. Giving the camera a 'v' for victory with two fingers, Shepard put his plan into action. He pulled the buns off to the side and began eating the parts of the burger that would not fill him up immediately. It was sooner rather than later when his jaw got tired, the ache stretching from his lower jaw then into his neck. Who knew eating food could make your entire mouth cramp up?

Suddenly, Shepard stopped mid-bite to wince. 'I think I bit my cheek.' Blue eyes glanced at Joanna through the pain. The meat from his plate was gone, as well as the toppings. But the buns and the large pile of fries were still in the way. He had four minutes and thirty seconds left for the challenge, and he was already feeling full. Tilting his head back for a moment, forcing back the urge to throw up, the blond carried on with part two of his plan. He had to eat the starch as fast as possible. Opening the bun, Shepard piled the fries onto it, smashing the top one down as hard as he could to flatten the mountain of fries. "I am going to die."

Time was counting down, and sweat had beaded around his head, not having time to actually chew everything properly, he almost choked a few times. Yet, as soon as the last bite was down his throat, the blond slammed his hand down on the table.

"Done!"

Thirteen minutes and forty-five seconds.

"Holy shit." He definately had that urge to throw up. He did not feel too hot.

All the while the monster was being vanquished, Joanna sat leaned back, amused, nibbling away at her own food. The further he dove in, the more she found herself gravitating toward him, leaning forward until the point she was resting on her knees, staring him down as he mowed on through. Well, you can't tap out now! It hadn't taken her much longer to get invested. She looked from him to the clock and back to him again, patting her palms on the table. "Hey, you're almost there!" She held her breath and -

"Time!"

And...

... He did it.

She gasped and jumped on her feet. "Oh my God, Shep! You actually did it!" A thrilled laugh escaped her and she threw her arms around him.

Shepard was still a bit dazed when Joanna wrapped her arms around him. However, not quite dazed enough to not know Jo was hugging him. If he was honest, she had probably hugged him thousands of times in their life, but they never ceased to make him blush. Yet, this time his blush was hidden behind the red of his face, the exhaustion of the jaw was enough to hide away his cheeks. For the briefest of moments, he rested his head on her shoulder through the hug, tired.

However, as soon as she pulled away, the blond felt a lurch at his stomach. Yikes. Had to get out of there. "Hey let's do that picture thing--" He carefully stood up, giving Joanna a look of woe. He had every chance to be excited he finally did it. But he also had every chance to be so tired and potentially sick he had to force a smile for the picture. As soon as everything on the wall was sorted, and Joanna's meal was paid for, Shepard took her by her hand and pulled her out of the burger bar, trying his best not to do anything too hasty. Yet, he couldn't keep it in for long. As soon as they were a block or two away, Shepard weary pointed at the nearest trash can.

"See that?" The blond didn't have another moment, and he ducked his head over the can, removing a monster of a burger from his gut. "Not a word to anyone, Jo." He managed to say, sinking to the sidewalk, kicking his leg out. "Never again."

Joanna lost her shit the moment he heaved himself into that trashcan. At least he was able to keep up the facade for that long, she'd give him that. "Are you kidding? I'm telling everyone. I've already told Stephen!" It wasn't true, but he'd find out sooner or later. The two of them were so in the closet that she almost hated to come between them.

The student would have offered to pull his hair back or something, if it were any longer like his dad's or whatever, but instead - all she could do was give him a few pats on the back before he slid to the floor. The brunette slid down next to him with a smile, brushing up against his side. "Hey, you're a champion now, remember? The world will remember your accomplishments. Your grandchildren will look back on that photo on the wall someday and say, 'Wow! My Grandpa was so cool, getting all that diabetes!'"

Even as Jo teased him, but she couldn't hide her concern, leaning forward and trying to get a decent look at his face.

"Steph will never let it go. I'm going to die" Shepard let out a sigh of despair, rolling his head to the side and resting it on Joanna's shoulder. He laughed loudly at her comment about his grandchildren, sitting up and pulling his legs in so they were crossed into a pretzel. "Funny thing is," He began, running his hands through his hair. "I realized halfway through..." He paused, burring his head into this hands. "that I left my god damn wallet at home. I had to finish the Croftburger if I didn't want Mr. Andrews to fucking electrocute me."

Unable to restrain himself, the blond burst out laughing launching his head back and burying it back into Joanna's shoulder as if doing it would lessen his embarrassment.