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Many people assumed Jaden was the crazy one in their relationship. Of course in some ways they were right. Bastion was top of their class and had won numerous awards in science and math. Jaden was barely passing and couldn’t even remember his multiplication tables. On paper they were the cliche dumb wild guy x smart grounded guy in every show, book and movie.
However in real life, that was hardly the case. Jaden was surprised more people didn't notice that his boyfriend was…kind of a freak. Sure he was a really smart handsome freak, but a freak nonetheless.
Bastion would write on everything. Baseball bats, walls, cards, desks, people's arms, and such were not safe. He always had a pen full of ink and a brain full of ideas he had to write down. Jaden’s possessions had slowly been consumed by math equations and hypotheses. He would often accompany his boyfriends rambles with doodles of superheroes or monsters. Eventually his notebook for class was only 2% notes.
He tried to use pencils on most things he didn’t own, putting his faith in those erasers but even graphite would betray him at times. Multiple desks over the years haunted by ghost markings of numbers and science problems. He told Jaden that once in elementary school he had gotten in trouble for using a sharpie to do his math problems on the lunch table. He had also been banned from the library in his hometown for writing constantly in the margins. Nowadays Bastion buys books instead.
He used a pen to write down notes on his arm a lot. The ink would blur and smudge as he filled every spare inch of skin. When he ran out of room he used Jaden. The movements tickled but Jaden found it relaxing. He would tune out the grating noise of his professor and just feel the warmth of Bastion’s hand as it was glided over his arm to write a chemical equation.
Along with a pen, Bastion would always carry his decks. Carrying six decks was already quite uncommon because most people only carry one. Most duelists to his knowledge only owned a few decks in total. However not only did Bastion have way more than six decks, he owned a biblically greedy number of cards. It was frankly too many cards. They were tucked into every corner of his room in every shelf space and drawer. He said he accumulated his collection by accident and that he tried to stay organized the best he could.
From an early age, Bastion was shown how to play duel monsters and became obsessed with strategy and building decks. He would watch hours of people dueling and pester other children with questions about their thought processes. He would trade any dessert item in his lunch for a spare card and would trade for rarer ones. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his main deck, he would always love water dragon, but he soon realized it was more efficient to have more options. He spent weeks experimenting with different cards as a child. Even in the present, Jaden and bastion would sit on the floor and frequently organize their decks and discuss their new combos.
Not only did Bastion carry 6 decks, but these decks were in a vest. This truly felt unhinged to him. 1. because to this day Jaden had no idea where he bought such a contraption and 2. because bastions wore it everyday. All the time on every date and every hour and every moment of his existence, his vest was on. It could be a funeral and it would still be there. Every hug left him with 6 imprints on his torso. Jaden didn’t hate the vest but it made cuddling slightly more annoying. It could be bulky and uncomfortable but any time he tried to take it off, both of them would get distracted by the cards inside.
The thing that always surprised people the most about Bastion was that he didn’t care much for rules. He’d followed them to some degree but he was no stickler; no not in the slightest. Jaden learned this quickly during a game of “never have I ever” where Bastion lost within the first 20 minutes. He had done lots of crime. In fact he did more crime than Jaden. He’d trespassed, shoplifted, vandalized, broken in, driven illegally, smoked underage, drank underage, and more. It baffled Jaden to his core until he remembered hearing that Sherlock Holmes did heroin, would stab notes into his mantel with a steak knife, and would straight up help the culprit get away at times. Maybe smart people needed to break the law and go crazy to balance themselves out. Bastion always claimed that comparing him smoking a cigarette once in middle school to heroin was a stretch but drugs are drugs.
Each story behind the crimes was also so peculiar. Bastion never did the crime by accident and almost always did it for curiosity. Anything Jaden was willing to do for a bit, Bastion was willing to do x10 for science. Bastion was more of a Mythbusters type of person. Which meant he wouldn’t be satisfied with just an educated guess. Bastion could be doing calculus in his room one day and then blow up a chair in the middle of the forest the next. A text saying “I need help with something,” was anywhere between losing his homework folder and accidentally burning off his arm. Jaden liked explosions too but he was not about to risk any limbs for them.
The final flaw was one they both shared, a lack of awareness. Bastion had more than Jaden but the bar was in hell. Jaden once witnessed a girl flirt with him for 40 minutes straight and then directly ask him out only for him to turn her down without realizing her romantic intent. He thought she wanted help with her homework that Saturday but he turned her down because he had plans. He didn’t register it as a date at all. In fact when Syrus questioned him about it the day after, he genuinely told him he had no idea what he was talking about. Now this was something Jaden would usually miss as well but it didn’t end there.
Jaden and Bastion had been dating for about a week. They had been cuddling casually in Bastion’s room and discussing duel monsters. Jaden was curious and asked Bastion if he thought dating for a week was enough time to wait for a couple's first kiss. Bastion said it would depend on the couple and their backgrounds and a bunch of other factors. When Jaden posed themselves as an example Bastion paused and broke it down carefully and concluded yes. Then bastion proceeded to not lean in for a kiss at all and kicked Jaden out of the room before 10 PM because he wanted to formulate a new deck to beat Jaden with and didn’t want him peaking or distracting him.
Jaden brought the story up to Alexis later who told him that unless he just went for the kiss, bastion would never catch the hint. Jaden concluded this to be pretty much factual after he tried one more time out of curiosity. Yet again a failure. Finally after 4 days, Jaden had been caught up with other shenanigans, they had their first kiss. After this kiss they dueled not because Bastion missed another cue but because they both just wanted to duel really badly.
Maybe it didn’t matter how crazy Bastion was or who was the stupid one. All that mattered was that they loved each other.
…
Nah that’s sappy and gross what matters is that they were both really good at duel monsters and both could do sick backflips.