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fangirl-inthe-outer-rim · 1 year

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Lazy Morning

Cal Kestis x Reader

Summary: You and Cal have a lazy morning.

A/N: It's been a while since I looked at my star wars fics. I have advanced my writing so much and you will see once I actually get started on my Survivor fic. Hope you enjoy this one no matter how old it is!

“Ugh,” I groaned after being roused from my slumber. Those on this junk planet were already awake and clearly didn’t care about how tired I was. Suddenly, A hand came into view and slapped me in the face.

“Mmhmm huh?” Cal beside me had just woken up.

“Cal!” I watched as he jerked up, he was definitely more awake now.

“Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean to do that!”

A huge grin spread across my face. Cal followed suit. Giggling, Cal fell back on the bed as the laughter to consumed him. I had curled up due to the intense feeling in my stomach.

Once we had calmed down, we had curled up next to each other. I rested my head on his chest with an arm around his waist. He had his arms wrapped around me and rested his chin on my head. We lay there for a few moments basking in the presence of each other.

“Prauf and I are working on the star destroyer that came in three days ago.”

“Yeah? I’ll be there too I think. I’m helping Osira and the crew with cutting the wing.”

“Sounds like the both of us have an exciting day ahead of us.”

I snickered as we both climbed out of bed. There was no struggle in getting ready. Even if our space was small. We’d perfected the motions over the past two and a half years we’ve been together. As I brushed my teeth, I thought of the moment when I met Cal.

(:)

I was late. I was so late! Kriff, my boss is going to kill me! If I had actually gone to bed when I was supposed to I wouldn’t be in this predicament. But no, I let the girls talk me into going out on the odd chance that I’d meet someone. It was a great night and I sort of met someone. I probably won’t see him again. Since I didn’t have any way of contacting the man. I don’t even think I remember his name. Oh, what was it? Cam? Caer? Ugh, I can’t remember! I need to stop thinking about him and hurry up and get to work.

It was as if fate had a funny way of messing with me. I got to work which started out with an earful from my boss. Then I was shipped off to help out one of the riggers. The irony didn’t fully set in until I reached my post for the day.

“Hey, um… I’m supposed to be helping you out today.” I cautiously approached the man kneeling on the ground. I couldn’t really see him because of a shadow.

When there was no reply I spoke again, “Excuse me? Did you hear me, sir?” Yet again there was no response. That is until I heard a chuckle to my left. An Abednedo stood there watching the exchange.

“He can’t hear you. He’s got headphones on.” The massive Abednedo moved closer to the man and me. “Name’s Prauf. This oblivious idiot’s name is Cal.” My eyebrows drew. I knew that name from somewhere.

“Hey, Cal! You got someone here trying to talk to ya!” With Prauf’s booming voice, Cal finally moved.

Standing up and turning around, the man, looked at Prauf. “What’d ya say, buddy?”

“This one’s been trying to get your attention for a few minutes now”

Cal turned to me and his eyes widened. I followed his movement. This is the man from the night before! The one from the bar. I knew I recognized the name.

“I didn’t think I’d see you ever again. I don’t mean that in a mean way. I just… We never really exchanged any information.”

“Yeah, no. I get it. I felt the same way too. I uh, was told to come help you. I guess the force has a way of bringing people together.” At the mention of the force, Cal’s eyes widened but soon returned to normal.

“Heh, no kidding.”

(:)

“Hello, Y/N, come back to me.” Cal waved his hands in front of my face.

“Oh, sorry. I zoned out.”

“I can see that. What were you thinking about?”

“Just how we met.” I heard Cal snicker, “What?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just how that worked out.” Cal, with a grin, pulled me closer, “I’m glad it happened though.” With a light peck, Cal let me go.

I quickly finished in the bathroom as Cal ran around our place looking for some clean socks. I simply walked into our bedroom and found a pair of socks and presented the socks to the man. With a grumble, Cal took the socks. Now ready, we said our goodbyes and went to our posts.

Tags (Add yourself here!): None yet...

#cal kestis x reader #Cal Kestis x You #Cal kestis #Prauf #star wars fallen order #star wars: jedi: fallen order #Star Wars Fanfiction #Star Wars fanfic #Cal Kestis fanfiction

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doodlingfoolishness · 7 months

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Day 5 of Dank Farrik Drabbles Inktober, prompt “caf.” Cal gets a hold of caf for the first time and Prauf is Concerned

#inktober #Jedi: fallen order #JFO #JFO fanart #prauf #cal kestis #Bracca #dank farrik drabbles

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fanfoolishness · 11 months

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a heavy thing (Jedi: Fallen Order)

Cal realizes that grief catches up to you, whether you're ready or not. Cal tells Merrin about Prauf. Set about 1 year after Fallen Order, with some early hints of Cal x Merrin (but Cal is mostly oblivious). Angst, catharsis, grief, hope, friendship. ~4100 words.

Sparks showered overhead, and Cal flung up an arm to deflect them automatically. They bounced harmlessly off his thick leather glove and oiled poncho, scattering into the dark. He watched them arc away like stars streaming into hyperspace.

He left the sparks behind, scrambling from platform to platform, crawling through narrow passages between debris, watching the ground yawn away before him hundreds of feet below. Just another day as a scrapper. Another morning on rainy, brutal Bracca.

Cal settled into his work easily. There was a rhythm to be found in the labor, one he could sync to the music from his old audiobulb, a hand-me-down from Prauf. His ears hummed with music, though he couldn’t figure out the song. It was fuzzy and muted, like it was coming from a distant moon.

That was a little odd. He thought he knew all the tracks, had listened to them until the albums wore thin and the music skipped in places. They didn’t sound like this.

He shrugged away the confusion and tore into the wrecked metal beneath his hands, torch flaring, the smell of acrid metal and burning duraplast choking him even through his breather. He knew how to do this work. He could do this work until he died, if he had to.

Torch, torch, cool, break. The components could be separated out, sorted; everything that had a pattern could be unraveled if you went about it the right way. Cal pulled out thin laminated layers of duraplast, revealing working electronics beneath. Decent scrap.

“Hey, kid, not bad,” Prauf said, leaning over his shoulder. He looked just as he always did, the friendliest face on Bracca. Cal looked up at him and grinned in surprise.

“Hey,” he said, and something felt heavy in the way he said it. He shivered, but he didn’t know why. “It’s -- it’s really good to see you, Prauf.”

“It’s good to see you too, kid. How goes the day? Decent? Eating enough?”

“I’m fine,” Cal protested. “You don’t have to nag me.”

“Sure I do. I’m great at it, aren’t it?”

“The best.” Cal glanced around, realizing the evening lights had come on for the night shift. That was weird. He thought it was morning. “Hey, is everything, um, normal to you?”

“Normal’s only relative.” Prauf chuckled, the sound unmistakable even over the sounds of an uploading probe droid and a lightsaber hum. “What’s up, Cal? You’re acting weird.”

“Prauf!” Cal cried, shoving his friend out of the way with the Force. Prauf staggered and the Second Sister went tumbling. Her red lightsaber flared out and she got to her feet, panting. “Prauf, look out -- I got this!”

Master Tapal’s broken saber hummed to life in his hand, blue blade shining out bright in the sluicing rain. Trilla’s lightsaber met his, the hums discordant and pained. Then his saber was his own, reforged, double-bladed, green blades singing out. Cal fought, his hands straining, the Force flowing around him in an endless sea. He gave himself over to it, and he fought with a double strike, a swift parry, a thrust; he whirled, he danced, he leapt. There was only the Force, and the urge to protect Prauf. And then Trilla was gone.

“Cal,” said Prauf behind him, staring with admiration. “You -- you beat her. You’re --”

“A Jedi,” Cal said, and he swallowed, standing tall. He switched off his lightsaber, clipping it back to his belt where anyone could see it. He was done hiding.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Prauf asked quietly.

“I wanted to,” Cal said in a rush. “You don’t know how hard it was, not to tell you. I know you always figured something was wrong. And I knew --” He flung his arms around Prauf, scarcely reaching past the Abednedo’s waist., but he hugged him tightly anyway. “I knew you wouldn’t tell anyone. I was just so scared… I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”

“Kid. Cal,” said Prauf, patting him on the back, then embracing him. “You got nothing to be sorry about. You were incredible.”

“I had to save you,” said Cal desperately. It was important that he say this, important that he explain. He didn’t know why, but there was something dark around the edges of his mind, something nagging and painful he didn’t want to look at. “You always look out for me, Prauf. You’ve always been my friend. I couldn’t let anything happen to you --

“You won’t,” Prauf said. “That’s what Jedi do, isn’t it? Protect people? I’m proud of y--”

And Cal woke up.

Merrin found him on the sofa, huddled in the corner.

Greez and Cere were sleeping, the Mantis on autopilot. Cal had been sitting here alone with only the emergency lights on; he’d even left BD charging in the engine room.

“You are not sleeping again,” said Merrin, and Cal nearly flew out of his skin. How had she managed to sneak up on him? Then again, the dimmed cabin made it a lot easier. He hunkered back down in the corner, tucking his hands into his lap.

“I wasn’t tired, that’s all,” he lied.

Merrin merely raised an eyebrow and settled a few feet away on the couch, giving him a quizzical look. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that she knew he was lying. The past year or so on the Mantis had given her plenty of time to get to know him, and he’d always been bad at actively lying, anyway.

“Well...I was sleeping,” he amended.

Merrin cocked her head. She usually needed less sleep than the rest of the Mantis crew -- sometimes he almost forgot that he and she weren’t actually the same species -- and it wasn’t uncommon for Cal to find her prowling around when he couldn’t sleep. Tonight felt different, though.

“Something felt off,” Merrin said. “I came to investigate, and I found you.”

“You could sense me?” Cal asked, amazed.

Merrin wrinkled her forehead. “I cannot sense you the same way I would sense a Nightsister,” she explained. “But there is something now, after our time together. A connection. It felt troubled tonight. I came to see if I was right.”

“I think I know what you mean,” he said. There was something there. It was different, the way Separatist and Republic tech was analogous but not identical; his connection to the Force sometimes felt sideways when it came to Merrin, like a part of it was lost in translation. Yet he could catch glimpses of her sometimes in his focus, shining bright and fierce, and it was getting easier to see her that way the longer they knew each other. “I see you too, sometimes. It’s -- good.” He’d wanted to say comforting. Beautiful.

She gave him a crooked smile. “Yes, it is.”

He smiled back, but it was clumsy. Now that he was no longer alone, he could feel anxiety creeping up, bubbling up in his heartbeat, the pit of his stomach. The dream pounded in the back of his mind, realer than real.

He could almost feel the way he’d hugged Prauf, if he thought hard enough.

Had he ever gotten to hug him like that before?

“You don’t look well, Cal Kestis,” said Merrin. “Tell me what troubles you.” She drew her bare feet up on the couch, leaning back and fixing him with that unsettling gaze that always made him feel like he was on fire. Sometimes he liked it, in a way he couldn’t describe. But tonight all he wanted to do was hide.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You are lying again,” she said mildly.

“Is that Nightsister magick? Being able to figure out when I’m a bad liar?” Cal asked.

Merrin laughed, a sharp, barking sound. “No. That comes from knowing you for more than five minutes.”

Cal tried to laugh, but the feel of it in his throat was horribly close to a sob. He stifled it, looking down at what he held in his hands. His old audiobulb, the only thing from Bracca he’d managed to take with him besides his clothes and his lightsaber.

“What is that?” Merrin asked curiously. She scooted closer, peering down at what he held in his hands. The hair tucked behind her ear fell into her face, and he was surprised by a sudden quiet urge to reach out and tuck it back for her.

Instead he held out the old audiobulb. Its weight, once as familiar as his lightsaber’s, felt utterly foreign. He hadn’t picked it up since he’d packed it away in the engine room, after his first visit to Bogano. So much else had happened afterward that it had fallen away from his mind the further they’d gone from Bracca.

How could I forget him?

“It plays music,” Cal said thickly. “It’s something I used to listen to back when I was on Bracca.”

“You do not speak of Bracca often,” she mused. “It’s where Cere and Greez found you? Where you hid from the Empire, and broke down starships?”

“Yeah.”

There was so much more he wanted to say. His chest ached with it. He wanted to tell her -- to tell anyone -- about long nights where he couldn’t sleep, where he played music into the morning until his ears ached, where Prauf and the rest of the crew looked out for him. Even as a Padawan -- no -- as a child -- he’d sensed it, the way the others tried to keep him from the most dangerous work as long as they could. They’d seen a short, shellshocked kid join their ranks, and they’d taken him in, Prauf chief among them. He wanted to tell Merrin all of it, but instead he just fiddled clumsily with the device in his hands.

Merrin looked concerned. “You’re being strange, Jedi.” A faint smile pulled at one side of her mouth. “More so than usual.”

Cal brushed the earphones with his fingertips, feeling the spots where the padding had worn thin. It used to leave a scrape in his right ear if he wore them too long; he remembered that now. There was a faint patch of maroon still present on the right earphone, and he scratched it off with his fingertip, watching the dried blood flake away. He let out a long breath.

“I had a dream,” he tried. “Couldn’t sleep after.” But that was hard to say, made his chest feel tight, his hands feel weak. Why is this so hard?

Because I’m afraid. Afraid to miss him.

“Cal?”

Cal pulled his knees up to his chest and set the music player down between him and Merrin. He wrapped his arms around his legs. “Did I ever tell you about Prauf?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Your friend, yes?” She reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, and he leaned into it, breathing more steadily. “He was very dear to you, wasn’t he?”

He shouldn’t feel so scared of this. Shouldn’t hurt like this. It’d been over a year since he’d lost Prauf, since the Second Sister killed him in a fight that wasn’t one at all. He’d been able to talk to Cere and Greez about him just a few days after it happened; he told them he’d lost a friend, that Prauf had sacrificed himself for Cal. He’d been able to face it then. Why was this different?

He talked, and the words spilled out of him. “When my master died, when everything fell apart, Prauf -- He found me. Way back when I was in line to sign up for work in the scrapyards. He vouched for me when I didn’t have a chain code, helped me learn what I had to do… he was there for me for years. And that last day, he --” He couldn’t say it out loud.

He saw what I was. He knew what it meant. And he didn’t turn me in, and it got him killed. If I’d known more, if I hadn’t broken my connection with the Force, hasn’t lost all of my powers, maybe I’d’ve been able to save him --

He didn’t say any of that. It was too much. Instead he said, “Trilla killed him. It wasn’t even a fight. She just stabbed him, and he was gone.” He looked away, breathing hard. “I thought I was over this. But this dream…”

“I see them,” said Merrin, her gray eyes going distant. “My sisters. They visit me at times. They are more than memory, but yet not themselves. When they come, I am so happy to see them -- to know that I am not alone. Yet when I wake, the loss is all the keener for the closeness we shared then. Was it something like that?”

“I think so. This time I saved him,” Cal said softly. “I didn’t hide. I fought Trilla, showed myself and my lightsaber. I told Prauf who I really was. A Jedi. And he was… proud of me, Merrin.”

“Was he proud of you before, too?”

Cal looked down at the audiobulb. “I… I wish I knew. I hope so.”

“Ghosts are funny things,” said Merrin. “They have long haunted me. I do not fear them, but what they bring with them, that can be truly frightening.”

“You? Merrin, you aren’t afraid of anything.”

“Do not be so sure,” she said. She held out her hands, and green magick flared and roiled between them. Cal watched in fascination. He never tired of this, of seeing how her gifts with the Force were so different from his own.

Upon her palms a tiny storm unfurled. He watched, and a faint vision showed itself: shadowed figures, bursts of light. He didn’t understand it fully, but as the vision unfurled, a powerful wave of loneliness and loss washed over him.

“It’s like the echoes,” said Cal. “They feel so real in the moment, but afterwards, the emptiness… sometimes it’s hard to bear.” He still got nauseous, if he thought too hard about the devastating echo he’d had from Trilla’s lightsaber.

“Ghosts leave us hollow,” Merrin said. The green magick flickered and faded away, and she dropped her hands into her lap. “They pretend to show us the way it used to be, but seeing them a little sometimes hurts more than seeing them not at all. And that sorrow is a heavy thing, Cal. It is so heavy.” She gazed at him, and her eyes were bright with tears. She blinked them away.

“I know,” Cal said. “I understand.”

“Yes, you do.”

For a moment, they were quiet, and the ship hummed comfortingly around them. Cal tried to remember that he was here on the Mantis, with Cere and Greez, Merrin and BD, those he trusted with his life. They’d all saved him, one way or another. Just like Prauf had, over and over again on the rain-choked Bracca scrapyards.

The dream rolled over him again, and he saw himself for an instant the way he really was that night, a scared kid in an adult-sized poncho, swinging a lightsaber he hadn’t dared use in half a decade, running on sheer instinct and the will of the Force. That Cal felt far away; a Cal who couldn’t even meditate, who couldn’t reach for the Force without flinching, fearing, hurting. He felt like another person now. He felt like a Jedi again.

That was something to hold onto.

“Tell me of your friend, Cal,” Merrin said, reaching out to pat his leg. He startled at her touch, an electric jolt. “I see the sorrow is still with you. Perhaps if you share it, it will not weigh so heavy, or for so long. I know that when I first told you of my sisters, my visions of them eased. There are still times when the grief feels as new as ever, but… that is rarer, now.”

“I’m glad, Merrin,” Cal said. He laid his hand on top of hers. It was warm, her skin soft and silken. “I -- I can try.”

“Cal Kestis,” she said sternly. “You have taken on the secret base of the Inquisitorius. You have fought mighty beasts on backwater planets. You have slain the giant Gorgara of Dathomir. Do not tell me you are frightened of your feelings,” Merrin said with a smirk, but her eyes stayed kind. She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “I know you are. But tell me anyway.”

He took a deep gulp of air. Her I know you are rang in his ears. She was right. But maybe he could do this. Maybe he should.

Maybe that’s why he had come out here in the first place instead of laying awake in his bunk in the engine room.

Maybe he’d been hoping someone else would wake up and find him.

Cal tried to figure out where to begin. It seemed harder than it should, but he guessed he hadn’t had a lot of practice. “Well… you ever seen an Abednedo?”

“I have not.” She shifted back into a cross-legged position and pulled her hand away, but gave him an attentive look.

“They’re about seven feet tall, and Prauf was taller. Big guy. But a soft heart.”

“You must have looked minuscule beside him.”

Cal groaned, leaning back against the sofa and stretching his legs out. “Come on, Merrin, just because I’m not as tall as a Nightbrother doesn’t mean I’m short.”

“To one of his height, I am sure you were absolutely tiny,” she said, shrugging.

“That’s a lot coming from you,” said Cal with a laugh.

“My height is not under scrutiny here,” Merrin said primly. “But come, we are talking about Prauf. You say he had a soft heart. What did he do?”

“What didn’t he do?” Cal said, shaking his head. “He kept me off the worst jobs as long as he could. Gave me the easy stuff until I figured out what he was doing, around… fifteen? Sixteen? He finally let me start doing the more dangerous stuff when I called him on it, but he never liked it.” He thought back further. “He used to sneak me extra meal vouchers, sometimes. He said I needed them more because I was still growing.”

“He cared for you. Like the mothers of my people cared for us when we were young. He sounds kind.”

“He was. He gave me this,” Cal said, gesturing to the audiobulb. “He figured out somehow I wasn’t sleeping. I think I fell asleep on the job once; couldn’t sleep the night before. He came back a few days later with this and told me to listen to it to help stay awake. He’d get me more songs for it sometimes.” His eyes stung unexpectedly, and he rubbed at them, blinking back tears. “I brought this out here because I thought I wanted to listen to it… but I’m not ready, Merrin. I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much now. I was -- okay -- when he died. I didn’t feel like -- this.”

He tried gesturing to his chest, gripping the front of his undershirt until the cloth tightened.

“It may have been shock,” Merrin said. She scooted back from him, stretching out on the couch and resting her heels in his lap. “Forgive me, but it is getting late. I am still listening.”

“I know you are.” He crossed his arms over his chest and yawned, exhaustion creeping in despite his blurry eyes. “Shock?”

“You had so much to try to understand so quickly. I know I was not there, but it is not as if you rested while the Inquisitors chased you. You had to move, so you did. I know. I had to survive on Dathomir also. The time to mourn my sisters was rare and stolen,” Merrin said, and she closed her eyes, her face slipping into sadness. “It caught up with me in its own time. Perhaps Prauf’s loss is only truly finding you now?”

Cal closed his eyes too. The Force wrapped around him, tantalizingly near, but he resisted its call; he wanted to be here with Merrin. As difficult as the conversation was, he could feel that it was -- fixing might have been a strong word, but it was making something better. The pain was shallower, more distant than it had been when he first awoke.

“I don’t know why now,” Cal said, his speech slurring slightly. “We’ve been so busy fighting the Empire. I haven’t thought about Bracca in a long time.”

“I don’t know why either,” said Merrin, sounding sleepy. “There is not always a why. I have long thought this. Sometimes, things are random, and that is how they are. Surely you agree.”

“Master Tapal would say that the Force is behind all of it,” said Cal. Master Tapal loomed in his memory, wise and powerful, wearing the faint rare smile he wore when Cal had done something well. “The Jedi view it all as connected. The Will of the Force.”

“I do not know then. Perhaps the Force wishes you to honor your friend’s loss.”

Cal yawned again, shimmying into a more comfortable position in the corner of the couch. Merrin’s feet in his lap felt strange, but welcome, like she was grounding him here. With her here, it was hard to vanish too far into his own mind. And with his eyes closed, some things were easier to speak aloud.

“It was my fault,” he whispered. “Not -- not Trilla killing him. She and the Ninth Sister were both there, and I know I couldn’t have taken them both on. Not where I was with my connection to the Force. But earlier that day… Prauf fell. He would have died, and I used the Force to slow him down so I could save him. Someone must have seen us, it was the only time I used the Force in five years. That’s when they came after me and he stood up to them.” Cal huffed out a sharp breath. “He was so brave, Merrin.”

She considered his words. “You said he fell. What else could you have done but used the Force? He would have been lost then if not for that.”

“I couldn’t have done anything else,” Cal said, and tears squeezed out from his closed eyes, trickling down his cheeks. He let them roll, his arms still tucked tight over his chest. “I just wish -- I wish I could have told him. Who I really was. How much I cared about him. How grateful I was for everything.”

“A person that kind does not do what they do for gratitude,” Merrin said sleepily. “They do it because it is who they are. I see that in you, Cal Kestis. Perhaps that is your friend Prauf, shining through.”

He let his hands fall, landing on Merrin’s feet in his lap, and he bowed his head.

“I am sorry, Cal,” she murmured.

“No, it’s okay.” He exhaled. “It just -- it feels good to hear that, Merrin. Thank you. For everything.”

She was quiet. For a moment, he thought she was searching for the right words. Then he opened his bleary eyes, and saw her face in at the other end of the couch, tilted to one side, mouth slightly open. She’d fallen asleep, still with her feet up on his lap.

Cal gave her a tired smile. He leaned back into his corner, closed his eyes, and let himself drift away.

“Hey, you two. Greez has breakfast going. You want some?” asked Cere. “Scazz steak and eggs.”

Cal struggled to wake up, a dream still lingering in the back of his head, but the heaviness in his chest was gone. This time, all he remembered was Prauf and laughter, bad rations and good music. He blinked owlishly up at Cere.

Merrin yawned mightily, kicking her feet off of Cal’s lap without ceremony. “Oh, Cere! Is it morning? Good morning to you.”

“Thank you for not wearing boots when sleeping on the couch,” Greez called from the galley.

“Believe me, Greez, I have learned my lesson,” Merrin said, getting to her feet. “What is for breakfast?” She joined him up in the galley, while Cere gave Cal a questioning look.

“Couldn’t sleep last night,” Cal said. He glanced back at Merrin, then picked up his audiobulb player. “I guess I just needed to talk to someone.”

A flicker of pride crossed Cere’s face, and she held out a hand to him. He took it and she pulled him up to his feet. “Looks like it helped. I’m glad, Cal.”

He tucked the music player into his pocket. Its weight against his leg felt familiar once again. I won’t forget you, Prauf. Not now. Not ever.

He followed Cere up to the galley for breakfast, a song from Bracca playing in his head. He hummed along, and when Merrin smiled at him, he hummed louder.

#jedi: fallen order fanfiction #jedi: fallen order #cal kestis #prauf #merrin #nightsister merrin #merrical #cal x merrin #my jedi fic

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frunbuns · 1 year

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Everything Jaro Tapal Dies not Knowing

Jaro Tapal dies on the day of the purge. He does not know why the clones have suddenly turned on him and Cal, and he never will. He only knows that something terrible has happened, but he will never learn the true scope of this event. How this will shape the future of the Jedi.

He dies in an escape pod with his scared and confused padawan. His padawan who is just a little boy, barely twelve years old and terrified beyond his mind. His padawan who is being so brave in the face of such terror.

Jaro Tapal dies before their escape pod even enters Bracca’s atmosphere.

[Or; Jaro Tapal dies not knowing a lot of things, but most importantly: He dies not knowing the Jedi Order has been destroyed and that there will be no one to take care of Cal when he is gone.]

Read on Ao3

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arodatnak · 10 months

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Prauf and Cal commuting to work.

#jedi fallen order #prauf #cal kestis #child cal kestis

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wearethewitches · 1 month

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Fallen Order never loses its drip - oh HELL YEAH, Trilla looks fucking badaas

#jedi fallen order #trilla suduri #star wars #fallen order #jfo #cal kestis #prauf

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breakfastteatime · 10 months

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Today's request is 'You've got one minute' for @ralndown ^_^

Every time Cal thinks he’s settling into a routine on Bracca, something awful happens. Maybe the Ibis Maw gets hungry for flesh and grabs a tentacleful of unsuspecting scrappers. Maybe a ship that’s been in the same place for two years suddenly decides to collapse under its own weight. Maybe someone breaks something aboard an old terraforming lab and suddenly there’s a bunch of people turned into trees.

Today, Cal’s crew makes it halfway through their shift before the worst, most terrifying siren goes off. Bracca doesn’t have a lot of warnings for incoming disaster, but this one? This is the one they’re all trained to react to in one way, and one way only.

Get out. Get out now or die.

Maybe that’s why the Force left Cal feeling nauseous all day. It’s so useful like that.

Dropping the wires he’d started stripping, Cal follows the others. Prauf’s leading them and he’s already on the comms, listening intently to whatever’s being said. When he stops still and holds up a hand to make everyone else do the same, Cal shivers under the weight of the collective fear around him.

It only gets worse when Prauf starts issuing orders in a sharp tone of voice Cal’s never heard before.

“It’s a chemical leak. A bad one. We’re too deep in the ship to get out in time. Get into your emergency teams, find a room, and seal yourselves in. If we’re lucky, we’ll see each other on the other side of this thing.”

People break off into their groups. There’s no time for goodbyes or good lucks. Cal sticks close to Prauf and Tabbers. He takes a breath and immediately coughs it out, a sharp bite scraping the back of his throat. Prauf grabs him, throws him into a room, and Tabbers seals the door.

It’s not enough. The room, a tiny refresher, has an air conditioning vent high on the ceiling. Even Prauf can’t reach it to close it off. Gas seeps in. Cal hears people coughing and choking from all around, senses their fear and pain.

“We gotta seal it, now!” Tabbers shouts. His eyes stream, coughing hard. “We’ve got one minute before we’re all spitting out chunks of our lungs.” He pulls a wall panel down. “Weld this over that vent!”

“Lift me up,” Cal says. He puts his filter mask on, hoping it will help. “I can do it.”

Putting his own mask on, Prauf grabs Cal, lifting him. Cal plants his feet on Prauf’s shoulders. His eyes burn, so full of tears he can hardly keep them open. Tabbers hands him a sheet of metal and Cal presses it to the vent, welding torch in hand as he covers it up. He can’t keep his eyes open, so he trusts Prauf to guide him, molten metal sealing the panel in place.

“Good job,” Prauf says, lowing Cal down. “Sit, both of you. That gas is light, so we should be safer down here.”

Cal’s feet touch the ground. He drops to the deck moments later, eyes squeezed shut, lungs still rebelling. His mask isn’t doing much to help, but it’s better than nothing.

“Is this shit what I think it is?” Tabbers’ voice is muffled by his mask.

“Yeah,” Prauf replies. Cal hears him sit beside him. “Someone messed up big time.”

“I’d threaten to beat the idiots myself, but I cannae imagine they’re alive now,” Tabbers says.

“What is it?” Cal asks when he can talk again.

“A chemical weapon designed to rot battle droids,” Prauf says.

“Aye, not that it worked,” Tabbers adds. “It’s far better at killing us organics.”

Cal never heard about anything like that. Not that he tells the others. The idea that the Republic would create something like that leaves him nauseous.

“Looks like no one thought to remove the canisters before we started pulling this thing apart,” Prauf says. “Foreman said someone cut off the wrong thing and boom – we’re all breathing in poison.”

Cal doesn’t join the conversation. He pulls his knees to his chest, keeps his eyes firmly closed, and tries not to suffocate in the feelings of so many people dying around him. He pushes the Force away, begs it to leave him alone like it usually does.

“Cal?”

Prauf’s big, warm hand lands on his back. Cal startles, eyes flying open. His vision is fractured by the tears still running, but the burn is easier to manage now.

“You okay?” Prauf asks.

“Yeah,” he says, knowing he doesn’t have to worry about how rough his voice sounds. And then, because he needs a distraction, he keeps talking. “Can’t believe we’re stuck in a ‘fresher.”

Tabbers chuckles. “Get comfy, brat. We might be here a while.”

It’s two days before the foreman gives them the all-clear. The survivors are given a half-shift break to clean up, get something to eat and drink, and then sent back to work to make up for the two days of sitting around doing nothing. Cal notes that their crew is down several people when they meet up to be assigned duties, but no one says anything.

Back to the Bracca routine.

#fic requests 2023 #star wars jedi: fallen order #jfo headcanon #jfo minific #back to bracca!!#cal kestis #prauf #tabbers

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