#ckw2026

[flammabel]

Cal Kestis ~ Jedi Fallen Order

- Cal Kestis Week Day 6 - Echo

[shiny-good-rock]

my meager, unfinished contribution to cal kestis week 2026 for the "mantis" prompt, which i also realized wasn't even one of today's prompts. day 1 was yesterday rip. NAILING IT lmao

anyway i don't know why but i really, REALLY like in fics when cal is on the couch, whether he's sleeping or injured or whatever. it's just a fun image to me so i wanted to draw cal just hanging out on the couch

this was the first attempt in a very long time at drawing geometric, perspective-y stuff, and it's not perfect but for a work doodle, i don't hate it. (-:

[digital-grim]

Cal Kestis X Jedi Reader (Day Five Prompt: "You want me to do what?")

"Quick, kiss me." He blinked, the panic in his eyes shifting to pure, unadulterated confusion. The red-headed Jedi stared at you as if you’d just suggested levitating the entire wall. “You want me to do what?” A Coruscant dead-end, a squad of approaching stormtroopers, and a very flustered Cal Kestis. What could possibly go wrong?

Tags: Second Person POV, Reader-Insert, Fluff and Angst, Coruscant Underworld, On the Run, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Only One Bed's cousin: Only One Dead End Alley, Kissing for Cover, Mutual Yearning, Quick Thinking, First Kiss, Post-Order 66, Hurt/Comfort, Soft Cal Kestis, Idiots in Love, Open Ending

The lower levels of Coruscant smelled of ozone, recycled air, and despair. The endless hum of speeder traffic was a constant, oppressive drone overhead, but down here, in the shadowed canyons between monolithic towers, the sound was muted, replaced by the distant echo of bootsteps, Imperial bootsteps. You and Cal had been moving like ghosts for days, a pair of wanted specters haunting the undercity. Cal Kestis, with his shock of ginger hair and the telltale hilt of his lightsaber hidden beneath a ragged poncho, was a beacon for every stormtrooper patrol. You, a fellow Jedi on the run, knew the feeling all too well.

The strategy was simple: keep moving, never stay in one place for more than a few minutes, and use the teeming masses as a cloak. You’d ducked into a dozen little shops: a droid parts vendor, a stall selling questionable meat skewers, and a dimly lit tapcaf playing tinny holographic music. Each time, you’d linger just long enough for the white-armored patrols to clank past the transparisteel windows, their helmeted heads swiveling in mechanical unison. Cal’s tension was a live wire beside you, his hand never straying far from his concealed weapon.

“Just another couple of spacers down on their luck,” you’d mutter, pulling the brim of your own hood lower. Cal would nod, his jaw tight, his bright green eyes scanning every exit.

But the net was tightening. A routine patrol had somehow turned into a coordinated sweep. You could hear the amplified voices echoing down the alleyways. “By order of the Imperial Security Bureau, halt for inspection!” They were corralling you, herding you away from the main thoroughfares and into a labyrinth of service alleys.

Your breaths came in short, sharp gasps as you ran, Cal right on your heels. The alley narrowed, the walls closing in, covered in grimy pipes and flickering emergency strips. You took a left, then a right, hoping for a cross-passage, a maintenance hatch, anything.

Dead end.

A high plascrete wall, stained with years of runoff, loomed ahead. The only features were an overflowing dumpster and a single, flickering glow panel that cast everything in a sickly yellow light. Behind you, the methodical, marching footsteps grew louder. A squad. Maybe two. There was no shop to duck into, no crowd to blend with. It was just you, Cal, and a wall.

Cal spun, his back to the dead end, his eyes wide with a panic he was trying desperately to master. “We’re trapped,” he breathed, his hand moving to his poncho. “We have to fight.”

Fighting meant blaster bolts, lightsabers igniting, and an immediate alert to every Imperial within ten levels. It meant capture, or death. There had to be another way. Your mind raced, discarding possibilities as fast as the bootsteps grew closer. And then it landed on the one thing a Jedi wouldn’t think of, the one thing the Empire’s faceless enforcers would overlook.

You turned to Cal, the plan crystallizing in an instant. “Quick, kiss me.”

He blinked, the panic in his eyes shifting to pure, unadulterated confusion. The red-headed Jedi stared at you as if you’d just suggested levitating the entire wall. “You want me to do what?” The incredulity in his voice was almost louder than the approaching stormtroopers.

There was no time for debate, for gentle persuasion. The first white helmet was about to round the corner. With a roll of your eyes that was equal parts exasperation and fondness, you closed the distance between you. You placed a firm hand on his chest and pushed him back against the cold, damp wall.

He let out a soft 'oof' of surprise, but before he could protest further, you captured his lips with your own.

For a second, he was rigid, frozen in shock. Then, instinct, or something deeper, something you’d both been too busy running to acknowledge, took over. His body relaxed against the wall. Your other hand came up, tangling in the soft, ginger strands of his hair, holding him close. The kiss deepened, a desperate, convincing performance that quickly blurred the lines between act and authenticity. You could taste the faint tang of the ration bar on his lips and feel the rapid beat of his heart against your palm. His own hands, usually so sure and capable, fumbled for a moment before settling on your hips, gripping the fabric of your jacket. You could feel the rapid beat of his pulse where your thumb brushed his jaw. The world narrowed to the warmth of his mouth, the slight scratch of his stubble, and the quiet, desperate sounds neither of you fully stifled.

The boot steps rounded the corner and halted.

You didn’t pull away. You poured everything into the kiss, the fear, the exhaustion, the unspoken camaraderie of shared survival. You explored his mouth, a silent promise and an apology all at once. Cal, after his initial shock, responded in kind, his hands coming up to grip your arms, not to push you away, but to anchor himself.

From your peripheral vision, you saw the glow of white armor. You heard a muttered, electronically distorted voice. “Ugh. Just a couple. Move along.”

A gruff laugh. “Get a room, you two.”

The bootsteps resumed, fading back down the alley the way they came, moving on to hunt less romantically preoccupied prey.

It took another long moment after the sound had completely disappeared for you to break the kiss, pulling back just enough to rest your forehead against his. You were both breathing heavily, though not from the run this time.

Cal’s eyes were wide, his face flushed beneath his freckles. The alarm was gone, replaced by a dazed, vulnerable wonder. He searched your face, his lips still slightly parted.

“That…” he started, his voice a hoarse whisper. “That was…”

“The only thing I could think of,” you finished, your own voice not much steadier. Your hand was still in his hair.

He didn’t move to dislodge it. A faint, incredulous smile touched his lips. “It was a good think.” He paused, the smile fading into something more serious. “A really good think.”

You didn’t move from the wall, from the circle of each other’s arms, hidden in the shadows of the dead end. For the moment, the galaxy and its wars felt very far away. The only thing that felt real was the warmth of him against you, the ghost of the kiss still on your lips, and the unspoken truth now hanging in the air between you: some things are worth stopping running for.

[mikkalia]

I successfully wrote a fic for cal kestis week! Yay! (maybe I can write one more??? anyway...). inspired by @iwishtocountthestars's preference for dark-side-not-inquisitor Cal:

I want dirt under my fingernails | bodecal | 1,017 #Dark Side Cal (a very misleading tag tbh) Who's there to catch you when you fall?

( ckw26 Day 4 "Why are you looking at me like that?")

Bode finds him up on the roof, alone and kneeling in the middle of a freshly weeded garden bed. His knees are dark and muddy, dirt is caked under his nails, and he looks…peaceful for all that he’s hardly ever at peace. Cal glances up at his approach, squinting in the sunlight that’s at Bode’s back, and he smiles like he always does, like Bode is the best thing he’s ever laid eyes on. It makes Bode’s stomach slip pleasantly, something he gave ignoring a long time ago. “Does Greez need me?” Cal asks. He shakes his head silently, still working up the courage. Call climbs to his feet, his knees cracking, and stretches, arms reaching high to the sky. The hem of his shirt rides up to expose a sliver of his belly. Bode watches and admires. They’re not normally in direct sunlight like this. It’s a silly realization, sure. But on Jedha they’re usually wearing hoods and face covers against the relentless sun and sand. On Koboh they’re in the Forest Array, shadowed by trees and rocks, or in Meditation Chambers. Rarely does Bode get to admire the shine of Cal’s copper hair or appreciate the amount of freckles on his face and shoulders (and his stomach). Or get to see the glint in his eyes. – Oh.

[digital-grim]

Cal Kestis X Co-Parent Reader

Day Seven Prompt: Free Day

Tags: Second Person POV, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Yearning, Found Family, Co-Parenting, Grief and Mourning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Domestic Fluff & Angst, Force-Sensitive Reader, Tanalorr as a Sanctuary, Cal Kestis Needs a Hug, We're raising a child together now, Shift from pining to partnership, Open Ending/Hopeful Ending

Jedha’s dust had barely settled in their lungs before the galaxy tilted on its axis. One moment, Cal Kestis and you were sharing a quiet, breath-held glance across the Mantis’s common area, a silent conversation of almosts and not yets. The next moment, alarms screamed, blaster fire painted the ancient stones, and Bode’s betrayal carved a wound so deep it seemed to swallow the stars themselves.

Before, it was all stolen moments. Lingering looks that lasted a heartbeat too long, fingers brushing when passing a tool, only to snap back as if scorched. You’d make an excuse, checking for a cut, comparing calluses, just to hold his hand, and then the heat would rush to your faces, the contact broken with a nervous cough. You both knew. Friends don’t stare like they’re trying to memorize the flecks of gold in someone’s eyes. Friends don’t lie awake in their bunks, the narrow corridor between you feeling like a chasm, aching with the unsaid want to bridge it. But the Empire offered no room for softness, no time for revelations. The want was a luxury, a secret flame banked beneath the urgent survival of the day.

Then, Jedha erupted. Cere’s alert, the crushing realization of their compromised sanctuary, and the frantic flight, it all blurred into the stark, unforgiving moment in the Archives. Bode’s blaster. Master Cordova falling. The fight that chased them across the stars to Tanalorr ended not with peace, but with a child’s trembling hand in yours and the weight of a dead man’s daughter in Cal’s arms.

Kata.

Suddenly, the delicate, unspoken thing between you and Cal was buried under the immediate, monumental task of keeping a little girl alive, helping her breathe through the grief. The hands that ached to intertwine now busied themselves with preparing meals, mending torn clothes, and building a makeshift crib. The longing glances were redirected, softened, into watching over Kata’s fitful sleep.

To the group’s surprise, especially Cal’s, you slipped into the role with a natural grace you didn’t know you possessed. While Greez fretted about nutrition and Merrin weaved gentle, magical tales, you became a pillar of quiet routine. One evening, as Kata fussed in your arms, you settled into a chair, a flimsy plastic storybook in one hand. With the other, you gave a slight, focused twitch of your fingers. A few of her colorful toy tooka-cats, left on the table, stirred. Then, they lifted, beginning a slow, waltzing rotation in the air above her, glowing softly with a gentle nudge of the Force. Her crying hiccupped to a stop, wide eyes following the dancing toys. Your voice, low and steady, began the story of the Lost Star-Turtle, and by the time the turtle found its constellation, Kata was asleep, her breath even, cradled against your chest. Cal watched from the doorway, his own heart a tumult of grief and awe, the sight stirring something profound and painful in his chest.

The days bled into weeks on Tanalorr. The immediate dangers faded, replaced by the rhythm of caregiving. But the space between you and Cal, once charged with potential, now felt vast and filled with the ghosts of what could have been. The unspoken thing had not vanished; it had been pressurized, packed down into the quiet moments after Kata was finally asleep, when the Mantis was still save for the hum of the ship’s systems.

One such night, deep into the ship’s artificial cycle, found you both in the lounge. Greez was long in his bunk, Merrin meditating in her quarters. Only the soft glow of the console lights illuminated the space. The silence was a solid, tangible thing, stretched tight over years of friendship, months of unvoiced desire, and weeks of shared, devastating parenthood.

It was Cal who finally broke it, his voice rough from disuse. “You’re good with her,” he said, not looking at you, his gaze fixed on the starfield outside the viewport. “Really good. I… I didn’t expect it. I didn’t know you had that in you.”

You leaned back in the chair, the leather creaking. “Neither did I. It just… felt like the only thing to do.” “It’s more than that,” he said, finally lifting his gaze. The exhaustion there was profound, but so was a raw, vulnerable curiosity. “You were a natural. The way you used the Force… not as a weapon, but as a comfort. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Cal’s lips. “The mobile was a good trick. She loves that.” He paused, the silence returning for a long moment, heavier now. “Maybe… maybe you could show me? Sometime. How you do it. How you’re so… calm.”

“Anytime,” you said, the words feeling both like an offering and a lifeline thrown into the chasm between you. “It’s not about being calm. It’s about focusing on her, so you don’t have to focus on… everything else.”

The truth of that hung in the air. Everything else. Cordova’s death. Cere’s sacrifice. Bode’s betrayal. The Empire still out there. And this… this tangled, aching, beautiful mess of feelings between the two of you, now woven inextricably with the care of a child you were raising together.

Cal finally turned his head, his green eyes finding yours in the dim light. The gold flecks were muted, shadowed by exhaustion and sorrow, but the intensity was the same as all those stolen glances. “That’s the thing,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper, as if afraid to wake the ghosts or the little girl sleeping down the hall. “When I focus on her, I see you. Teaching her to stack stones. Reading to her. Making her laugh. And it… it confuses me.”

Your heart hammered against your ribs, a frantic echo of all the times his hand had almost found yours. “Confuses you?”

He looked down at his own hands, scarred and capable, now often holding a child’s smaller one. “We… we never talked about it. What we were. Before. I thought we were friends. But friends don’t…” He trailed off, the old, familiar shyness resurfacing, but tempered now by a weary, hard-won honesty. “Friends don’t feel like this. And now, with Kata… it’s all different, but it’s also the same. I still look at you and I…” He shook his head, frustration bleeding into his tone. “What are we?”

The question, finally voiced, seemed to vibrate in the very air of the lounge. It wasn’t just about romance anymore. It was about partnership. Family. A bond forged in war, tempered by loss, and now given shape by the silent, sleeping child in the next room. You thought of the desperate want to kiss him that had haunted you on Jedha, a want that now felt both distant and immediate, transformed into a deeper, more terrifying need, the need to build a life, not just steal a moment.

You took a slow breath, the answer forming not as a declaration but as a shared truth, pulled from the heart of your confusion. “I don’t know what we were,” you said, meeting his gaze fully, the unspoken years of longing laid bare. “But I know what we are now. We’re the ones who get up when she has a nightmare. We’re the ones who decide what she learns, how she grows. We’re… her fathers. And maybe…” You reached out, slowly, giving him every chance to pull away. Your hand didn’t go to his cheek or to intertwine with his fingers. It settled on his forearm, a solid, grounding touch. “Maybe we start from there. And we figure out the rest… together.”

Cal looked at your hand on his arm, then back up at you. The tension that had held him rigid for weeks seemed to seep away, replaced by a profound, exhausted acceptance. He didn’t move into your touch, but he leaned into it, his own warmth meeting yours. The desperate, passionate kiss you’d both imagined in the shadows of the Mantis would have to wait. It was not the time. But in its place was something new: a pact, a foundation. The future was a tangled, painful, uncertain thing. But for the first time that night, you were holding it together.

[digital-grim]

Cal Kestis X Dark Side Reader

Day Six Prompt: Rise/Fall

The air in the collapsed arena tastes of ancient dust and ozone, illuminated only by a steady, defiant blue and a seething, hungry red. Two Padawans who lost everything when the galaxy tore open: one who clung to the light and the memories of Jaro Tapal and one who reached into the void and forged their grief into a weapon. When Cal Kestis faces his dark reflection, the duel becomes a deadly, exhausting debate of philosophy and plasma. But as the blades clash and the words run out, the truth becomes unavoidable: they are too perfectly matched to win and too broken to save themselves. “You took your grief and made it a shrine. I took mine and made it a weapon.” A shadow and a light, destined to clash in a forgotten ruin until there is nothing left but the echo of two bleeding kyber crystals.

The air in the collapsed arena tasted of ancient dust and ozone. Shattered tiers of seating rose like broken teeth into the gloom, and the only light came from the two blades that carved the darkness: one a steady, defiant blue, the other a seething, hungry red.

Cal Kestis stood, his breath a steady rhythm against the pounding of his heart. Across the circle of rubble, you stood, a mirror twisted in a dark reflection. Two sides of a single, scarred coin.

The parallels were a cruel joke of the Force. Both of you had known the warmth of a master’s guidance, only to have it snuffed out before your eyes. As Padawans, you had each felt the universe tear open, leaving you alone in the chilling silence that followed. That was where the paths diverged. In his moment of absolute loss, Cal had grasped for the light, clinging to the memories of Jaro Tapal, choosing to honor rather than avenge. In yours, you had reached into the void and found a colder comfort. The pain wasn’t something to overcome; it was a power to be wielded. You fell, not with a scream but with a grim acceptance, while Cal rose, battered but unbent.

“This doesn’t have to be the way,” Cal called out, his voice echoing in the vast space. His blue blade was held in a defensive guard, its light casting long shadows behind you. “The pain… I feel it, too. It doesn’t have to define you.”

Your laughter was a short, sharp sound. “Define me? It forged me. You took your grief and made it a shrine. I took mine and made it a weapon.” You ignited your crimson lightsaber, the sudden, violent glow painting the ancient walls the color of a bruise. Where Cal’s light was a beacon, yours was a warning. The two illuminations met in the middle, blending into an eerie, shimmering purple that danced across the stone, a visual testament to your intertwined destinies.

You were his shadow. He was the Jedi who inspired hope on the Mantis, the beacon Merrin, Greez, and Kata looked to. He was the light everyone preferred, the proof that goodness could endure. And every time someone looked at him with trust, every time his name was whispered as a symbol of the Rebellion’s hope, it was a silent indictment of your choice. It enraged you. His very existence denied the validity of your path.

With a guttural cry born of that fury, you struck first. A powerful, overhand slash meant to cleave his defense and his righteousness in two.

Cal did the opposite. He didn’t meet fury with fury. He flowed sideways, a leaf on the wind, his blue blade redirecting your momentum harmlessly into the ground in a shower of sparks. It was the essence of your divergence: you attacked the obstacle; he moved with the energy.

The duel became a deadly debate. You circled, blades clashing in bursts of sizzling light and screaming energy.

“Join me,” you hissed, parrying a swift jab. “The Empire offers strength, not hiding. Together, we could burn the past that hurt us and rule the ashes.”

“Rule?” Cal shot back, spinning away from a vicious sweep. “Is that what Master Yulen told you? To seek power over others?” He saw you flinch at the name. “Her death was a tragedy, not a lesson in tyranny. Honor her by protecting life, not dominating it!”

“You protect nothing!” you roared, pressing the assault. “You run, you scavenge, you delay the inevitable! The dark side is the only truth in a galaxy of lies!”

Back and forth you went, a vicious cycle of words and blows. You tried to convince him of the power of surrender to emotion. He tried to reach the Padawan he knew still existed beneath the rage. But the arguments were as locked in stalemate as your sabers. Every philosophical thrust was parried by a lifetime of opposite experience.

And you were equally matched. You knew his Form, the echoes of Tapal’s teaching in his moves, just as he could still see the ghost of Yulen’s graceful footwork in yours. He was stronger in the living Force, drawing resilience from the crumbling world around him. You were fiercer, drawing on a well of pain that seemed bottomless. You were two halves of a broken whole, perfectly balanced in conflict. A blow that would disarm a lesser warrior was met. A Force push was countered by a barrier of equal strength.

The fight did not become a contest of victory but one of attrition. Sweat stung your eyes. Your muscles, once fueled by adrenaline and rage, began to burn with simple exhaustion. Cal’s breaths came in ragged gulps, his movements losing their fluid precision. The brilliant purple glow on the walls flickered with your weary strikes.

Back and forth. Lunge and parry. Accusation and invitation. The purple glow on the walls flickered and swirled like a storm. You were trying to convince him of the liberating truth of power. He was trying to convince you of the resilient truth of compassion. Both arguments fell on ears made deaf by experience.

You broke apart, putting ten meters of shattered ground between you, both leaning on your knees, sabers still lit but drooping toward the floor. The arena was silent save for the sound of your labored breathing and the hum of the kyber crystals, one grieving and one bleeding.

You looked at him, this mirror-image, this living reminder of the road not taken. He looked at you, the ghost of his own worst possible future. In that moment of shared, utter exhaustion, there was no hatred. Only a profound, devastating sorrow for the other and for the coin that could never be whole again.

The path to convince the other had led only here: to a standstill, in a forgotten ruin, with two Jedi too strong to beat the other and too broken to save themselves.

His strengths were your weaknesses. Your patience was thin, your anger a fuel that burned bright but fast. His weakness was your strength. His care for all life, his reluctance to cause harm, was a chink in his armor you exploited time and again, forcing him into desperate defense.

He fought to save you. You fought to awaken him.

An hour passed, then maybe two. The purple light on the walls never wavered, a testament to the deadlock. Sweat sheened both your faces, your breath coming in ragged gasps. You were both strong enough to keep up with the other, and in doing so, you were only tiring each other out, draining the galaxy of two of the last Jedi for no gain.

Finally, locked in a crackling saber bind, faces inches apart, you both realized it. The words had run out. The arguments had circled back on themselves. The blue and red blades hummed against each other, the purple light throbbing like a sickly heart.

“You can’t win,” you panted, the dark side offering a last reservoir of bitter energy.

“Neither can you,” Cal breathed back, his light sustained not by anger, but by a weary, unshakeable hope. “This… this just ends with us both empty.”

The coin, suspended for so long, finally began to fall. The two circles, blue and red, glowed beneath your feet, not as beacons of victory, but as grave markers for the paths you had chosen. The shadow and the light, each defined by the other’s existence, are destined to clash until one can no longer cast the other.