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They’re finally in hyperspace, leaving Bogano for Zeffo, after spending way more time planetside than Greez knows Cere intended or wanted, but when the teenage jedi you pick up from a trash heap of a planet collapses after only two hours of exploration, well, you have to make some adjustments to the plan.
Cal Kestis is going to make him go grey fifty years early he just knows it, and he doesn’t even like the kid yet! But having him come back to the Mantis, muddy and pale and insisting he was fine, only to collapse seconds later, his lips blue – which Greez had no clue what that meant until Cere told him later when the worst of it had been taken care of – scared another twenty years off his life.
He knows Cal is pale for a human of his color, the result of being on an overcast, rainy planet for five years, but he doesn’t think white is supposed to be so literal. His face had been bloodless, his eyes bright and shiny in pain and fear. The only color he had was his hair, his eyes, and the huge splotch of dark blue and purple that was revealed when Cere forced his shirt up to show off his broken ribs.
Broken ribs!
He went galivanting on a new planet with broken ribs! Fighting wildlife! Climbing things! With broken ribs.
When did he get them? Did he fight that Inquisitor with them? Wheezing and wincing as he blocked attacks from that awful red blade. Greez might not be Force sensitive, but even he got the heebie-jeebies from that thing.
But now he’s fine.
Well fine-ish. Greez had an ancient bone-knitter in a storage crate – it’s not as fast and not as nice, but luckily he also had some of the good pain meds even if they were slightly expired. Cere gave them a dubious okay and nothing bad happened! So, it took two weeks for his ribs to heal instead of six months at best. Greez broke a rib once when he was much younger and not as handsome, and it hurt like a son-of-a-gundark. The worse pain he’d ever experienced. He doesn’t understand how Cal managed.
(Cere had looked so sad when Cal, mildly delirious and wildly panicked, kept insisting he was fine, I’m fine. She’d brushed his sweat soaked hair from his forehead, her hand lingering, and said you don’t have to be. It wasn’t enough to sooth him. Instead, he just passed out.)
Probably some weird Jedi magic thing.
It’s just – Greez wishes he could say that the broken ribs (and hiding them!) and the awful way Cal’s face twisted in panic were the worst of it. But he’d gotten a good look at the kid’s torso and, well, he’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to be able to count a human’s ribs like that. And scars.
Greez slowly stops stirring the porridge on the stove as he remembers the various scars littering his skin. He’s a kid. A sweet, if slightly exasperating kid who might be minutes away from scrapping the Mantis – which he won’t if he knows what’s good for him – and no kid should have scars like that. Pockmarks of what can only be molten metal that burned through his clothes. Jagged lines. A puncture wound through his shoulder, large and deep enough puncture doesn’t seem quite right as a description. Impalement wound?
His stomach rolls sickeningly. He shakes his head, turning his attention back to the porridge. Okay, enough thinking about that.
The pot is almost done when he hears a thump and a shuffle and the ‘fresher door clicking shut. BD-1 comes into the galley, looking dejected at being locked out of the ‘fresher. Greez doesn’t understand how a droid can look so much like a kicked tooka. He sighs, curses himself, then pats the counter. BD-1 perks up and hops into the space he indicated.
“Stay right here,” he orders. “Don’t go climbing all over my clean galley, getting droid oil everywhere. I’ll bring the food to you.”
And quickly, no one can accuse him of being a big ol’ softy like he knows Cere will. Cal is still a bit up in the air about whether he’s comfortable enough to tease him like that. Kid is jumpy as hell.
BD-1 happily scans what Greez offers. It starts with the porridge, with him telling the droid the ingredients, then somehow turns to him presenting each ingredient separately. How is this his life? How – ?
Greez turns and freezes at the sight of Cal at the doorway. He looks his age for once, hair still mussed from sleep, a pink pillow indent on his cheek, a smile on his face that’s a mix of amused and fond.
“You’re not supposed to be that quiet,” Greez says. BD chirps a hello to Cal before going back to scanning the Uldan orange Greez cut up for him – for Cal actually.
Cal laughs, a low, raspy thing. “Says who?” He wiggles his sock-clad foot and that brings Greez’ attention to how…dressed down he is. Stripped of his poncho and rigger’s vest, he’s wearing a stained undershirt with his work suit unzipped halfway and the arms tied around his waist.
He forces himself to not stare at the branching scars on Cal’s right arm. They look like lightning strikes. That sick feeling in his stomach appears again.
“Says me,” Greez finally gets out, hopefully it doesn’t sound as strained as he feels. Based on the way Cal’s eyes narrow, no luck. “I gotta know where you are, kid. Gotta make sure you’re not messing with my ship when I’m not looking.”
Cal glances around with a hum. “I don’t know. A lot of this can go for a good credit somewhere. It’s tempting.”
Greez jabs his spoon in his direction. “Do not.”
He raises his hands with a laugh. Greez was going to toss him the orange slices, but then he catches the slight tremor in his hands and opts for dumping them on a plate and shoving them towards BD-1. Cal, predictably at this point, dances around taking one until the droid nudges it closer.
Greez makes sure he doesn’t watch Cal eat the oranges, worried if he so much as glances at the kid he’ll stop (it’s happened before). He needs the vitamins, so Greez stares really hard at the pot on the stove. Cere comes out of the cockpit behind Cal, looking more tired than she had when she’d gone inside. She stretches, yawning, cracks her back in a way he knows makes a sound and he’s so glad she’s too far away for him to hear it. Then she says:
“How are your ribs?”
Cal doesn’t respond, too busy scraping the last of the orange meat from the rind. It looks like he’s contemplating eating the rind. Which…okay, a lot of species do that, but Greez doesn’t know if humans usually do. Or unusually. Kid is weird already, what’s one more outside the norm?
Cere frowns as she reaches out to gently touch his shoulder. “Cal – .”
He flinches and twists, fist already swinging. Cere deflects easily, backing away from the potential follow up, but Cal is already wobbling in his seat, one foot fully on the floor bracing himself to bolt, his face paling rapidly then blotching pink in mortification as he stutters out apologies. BD-1 beeps frantically until Cal hooks a hand around him and pulls him into his lap.
“Cal,” Cere cuts in firmly. Cal stops talking so fast his teeth click together. “I’m sorry. I should’ve found a better way to let you know I was here.”
Greez looks from Cal to Cere then back again. Okay, obviously he’s missing something. How are your ribs? was a pretty good way to announce your presence, he’s pretty sure.
In his very eloquent, subtle way, all Greez can manage to get out is, “What?”
Cal’s pink cheeks had faded at Cere’s reassurance, but now they blush a deep red in embarrassment. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Just an old injury.”
“You have a lot of those, kid,” Greez points out.
He sighs – “Full hearing loss,” he says, pointing at his right ear. Then his left, “Partial. I have hearing aids, but they were hurting so I took them out.”
“How did I never notice?”
Cal cards his hands through his hair until it covers his ears. It’s not overlong, but it curls around the top and front of his ears well enough that, yeah, that would hide some sort of device. “I can read lips. You like to over enunciate when you really get going.” Greez narrows his eyes and Cal grins, all sassy and teenager-like that he doesn’t mind the teasing behind that sentence. “I don’t know why they started hurting. I used to wear them a lot on Bracca.”
“They probably hurt then too,” Cere says. She leans against the counter, mug of caf in hand. Greez didn’t hear her move. He cannot have two sneaky Jedi on his ship. One was bad enough. “You got used to it, then went without them while you were laid up, and now your body is remembering they hurt.”
Cal cups his right ear and mumbles, “Maybe.”
Now, Greez is a nosy guy. He comes by it naturally. Some of the things Cal’s let slip about Bracca gives him nightmares and he definitely doesn’t wanna hear about it, but also –
“What happened?” his traitorous mouth asks. Cal furrows his eyebrows. “What happened to your – ?” he gestures at his ears.
“Oh. A bunch of stuff. Old fuel detonations. Deliberate detonations. The shipcutters were pretty loud if you were right next to them. One time some crew left behind their sh-stuff – stuff we used when a shipcutter couldn’t get to small areas and we need to make our own path – and someone else set it off. My ears were ringing. I think that’s the one that took out my right ear for good. I was bleeding.” He sees the horror on Greez’s face and shrugs. “I got really nice headphones after that. My crew pooled scrip together to get me them. They’re pretty good at blocking sound.”
He sounds entirely too casual about it. His ears were bleeding. It’s not life-threatening, but Greez can’t help but picture a small Cal swamped by a poncho, looking sad and pale with all those scars, and his ears bleeding, unable to hear incoming danger. Greez turns around, busying himself with getting bowls. He catches Cere’s eye and she makes a sympathetic face.
“We should stop somewhere before Zeffo,” Cere says. “See if we can’t upgrade them.”
“I’m fine,” Cal insists.
“I have no doubts,” she says. “But I’d feel better if we at least got you some tools so you can maintain them, wouldn’t you?”
There’s a long, telling silence. “Okay,” Cal says somewhat reluctantly. “I don’t have any credits though. I can’t exchange any of the guild scrip I have.”
Greez turns around to see Cere reach out and settle a hand over Cal’s. The kid stares at where they touch with wide eyes, something a little lost, a little broken in his expression.
“Let me worry about that,” she says. “We have the funds.” Cal opens his mouth – probably to protest, but Cere cuts him off. “It’s the least I can do for you agreeing to this mission.”
He presses his lips into a thin line then nods.