#kalvan

My headcanons about their breakup are mostly dependant on 2 other contextual headcanons

1. Kallus and Jovan were together for 4½-ish years from 18 BBY - 13 BBY

2. Kallus' deployment on Onderon took place in late 14 BBY

3. Kallus is from the lower levels, whereas Jovan comes from a generationally wealthy family of mostly doctors and lawyers.

It's 14 BBY. Jovan is currently stationed on Coruscant, doing beurocratic officer shit. It's boring - a lot of financial stuff - but it's stable, and it keeps him close to family. Kallus, who is in the midst of ISB training, tells him he's being deployed to Onderon. The news worries Jovan greatly, Onderon isn't exactly known for its safety, but Kallus is quick with the "you're getting worked up over nothing"s and the "I'll be just fine"s, always accompanied by a loving hug or a soft kiss.

Kallus seems confident enough, and besides, he was always a stronger fighter and a more daring risk-taker than Jovan ever really was, and it's paid off for him so far. Perhaps he really was just worrying about nothing.

Still, after Kallus leaves, Jovans' worry doesn't subside. Even though he knew this - the deployments, the months away, the worry - would happen, but it's more offputting than he thought it would ever be.

When he gets the transmission from imperial HQ on Onderon, he could only figure the worst. To his relief, Kallus was alive (thank the STARS), but none of the other news was good. Kallus had been paralyzed- a rebel attack, the details of which Jovan didnt have the clearance to know- he'd had an emergency surgery, which was successful, but he would be bedridden for some time to recover before starting physical therapy. He'd be transferred back to Coruscant in the meantime for his medical leave.

Kallus was cleared just a day before Kilians funeral, a ceremony he attended reluctantly on crutches that he could barely balance on because he refused the wheelchair he really should have been using. He didn't say anything the whole day, save for the "I'm sorry" he muttered to Kilians parents when they'd approached him.

As the months went by, Jovan was forced to dawn on a terrible realization: Before leaving, Kallus had been vibrant, spontanous, and ever the optimist. He'd smiled easily and laughed loudly. The Kallus that came back was... different.

At first he thought it was the grief- he and Kilian had been close, closer that Jovan and Kilian had been that was certain - but as time passed, Jovan couldnt help but wonder if that was it.

Some days, Kallus was unnervingly quiet, his eyes focused on something far off and distant that Jovan couldnt see. Sometimes he reminded Jovan of a fragile porcelain doll that would shatter if it were dropped.

Some days he was borderline neurotic, his mornings spent stressing over how far he'd fallen behind in his ISB training, his afternoons spent staring at a datapad full of said work, and his nights spent doing his PT excersizes until his muscles ached and his body grew fatigued. With the way Kallus had begun tossing and turning in their bed, Jovan figured that was Kallus' alternative to a restless sleep.

Some days - the "trick days" as Jovan called them - Kallus acted just the same as he did before he left, as if nothing had changed in the slightest.

The worst days were the ones where Kallus cycled through all of the above, sometimes so quickly that Jovan just couldn't keep up.

Across all of it, though, Jovan couldn't help but notice the anger. Kallus never yelled per say, he hadnt done that since Jovan had first met him, but now his temper was thinly veiled and unpredictable. The eye rolls and the scowls grew more frequent, and his lighthearted sarcastic quips had become blunt remarks without so much as a smile to accompany them.

If Jovan had been the same man he was when he and Kallus had met, perhaps he'd have worried more. Perhaps he'd have tread lightly, been more gentle, and soothed Kallus back to sleep when he woke up thrashing. If he were the same man Kallus fell in love with, perhaps he'd have been more patient, more understanding, and less inconvenienced by it all. Perhaps he'd have sat with Kallus and tried to see whatever far-away thing he focused on, instead of waving his hand in front of his face until Kallus responded. Perhaps he'd have been less worried about breaking the porcelain doll if he'd handled it with gentle hands.

The issue is that he'd not been the man he once was in some time.

He'd become impatient, his tolerance for inconvenience having run thin some time ago. He'd become entitled, entitled to answers, to time, to explanations that Kallus didn't have to words for. He grew frustrated and completely irrate with Kallus' unpredictable moods. He didn't get how even after Kallus went back to work at the ISB headquarters; even after he could run, jump and climb just the same - if not better - than he had before deployment; even after he was completely physically recovered in record time, he was still acting WEIRD. Jovan didn't get it. It pissed him off more than anything. Kallus was pissing him off.

He wanted ANYTHING from Kallus, any answer, any explanation, any reaction he could get. So yeah, he pestered, complained, and moaned and groaned, but it was fine. Or at least he figured it would be fine. He and Kallus always poked at each other here and there. That was how they were. Even when they'd first met, when Kallus jabbed at Jovan for his rambling, his prissyness, and his soft hands that had never seen a day of work in his life. Jovan jabbed back about Kallus' messy hair, bad handwriting, and general lack of decorum. They'd joked and poked since the times when they were young and starry-eyed, and none of their friends were dead. They'd always jabbed. So what if what he was doing now was pointed and passive agressive, so what if it was snappy and pissy? So what if he started arguments on purpose every now and again? This was no different.

Or so he thought.

Turns out, Kallus did not appreciate the pestering and poking and complaining and the moaning and groaning. At all.

Their last month was spent getting into clashes that would put either one of them on the couch more often than not.

Eventually, Kallus became thoroughly fed up.

It had been late- late enough that Jovan was sure the following argument woke the neighbors- when Jovan asked (asked is a kind word, perhaps accused is more befitting) if Kallus even loved him anymore because he had come home an hour and a half late, held up at ISB HQ doing whatever kind of work a senior ISB officer had to do on Coruscant. Kallus had responded something along the lines of, "Sometimes. When you dont make it difficult."

(Kallus hadn't meant it, not really, even if it had been.. maybe.. a little bit true. He'd said it to be mean and snappy in the same way that Jovan had been. He'd regretted, only slightly, but apologizing was never something in his wheelhouse).

The argument from there was far more one-sided than Jovan would have liked to admit, his yelling at Kallus about "what the fuck does that mean?!" Falling on deaf ears as Kallus made for their room. He'd gathered clothes, which Jovan protested since "they're not YOUR clothes, I bought them all!" Kallus jabbed back that no, Jovan had not bought them because he was using mommy and daddys credit card. So, instead of Jovan accusing Kallus of staying with him for HIS money, he accused him of staying with him for his PARENTS money.

Wrong response.

Jovan immediately recognized his fuck up as Kallus stared at him, his face a kind of hurt-angry-sad that Jovan had never seen before. Kallus scoffed and shoved past him, stating that he was leaving. Jovan, his blood having completely drained from his face, scrambled and bolted for the front door to their apartment, standing firmly in front of it. He blocked the controls, rambling out a chorus of, "I didn't mean that," "I love you, you know I love you," and "please don't leave." It was a struggle that had no reward. Kallus was just barely taller than Jovan, but he was bigger and stronger from not only years of training they both endured in the academy, but also the rigorous routine he'd imposed on himself in the past months after he'd stopped needing physical therapy. Shouldering Jovan out of the way wasn't difficult for Kallus, even when Jovan clawed at the doorframe like a feral cat being ripped from a tree branch.

Jovans fingers slipped, and he'd stumbled as Kallus pushed past him. He'd tried to grab for Kallus' duffle bag, crying out that same, "please don't go, we can talk about this -" but Kallus was already out of arms reach. The door opened, and then it closed, and Jovan was alone.

Jovan hadn't cried in a long time (omitting when he got the trasmission from Onderon), but that night, he sobbed. He sobbed until he felt like he was choking on his own tears until his head hurt and his chest ached. He cried until the morning sun peeked through the curtains - the green ones that Kallus had picked out - and the sound of morning traffic began to buzz outside the window.

He'd collected himself as best he could before he commed Kallus. Both times, it went unanswered, and both times, he left messages. He kept them short - he knew Kallus wouldn't listen to the whole thing if it were too long - just asking to talk, that he was sorry, and an 'I love you.' Jovan just figured that maybe Kallus just needed some time apart. Maybe he needed a quiet night to himself. He never said he and Jovan were breaking up, just that he was leaving. That didn't mean forever, right? They'd been happy for so long - FOUR YEARS for stars sake - surely Kallus wouldn't throw that away? Right?

He left another comm that night, his face wet with tears again. He left one more two days after that, following up his "i love you" with "and I miss you."

He never got a comm back.

What Jovan didn't know was that Kallus had cried too. He'd shed tears in the bathroom of his hotel room for no longer than an hour as he put in a transfer request to go literally anywhere other than Coruscant. He knew he would be fine without Jovan - he'd survived 18 years without him, after all - but it stung. Kilian was dead, and he wasn't going back to Jovan, not after tonight. Their relationship was a manageable distraction, but their squabbling was surely a detriment to his work at the ISB. He had nobody but himself to lean on. So he submitted his request to Yularen, straightened himself up in the mirror, took a shower so long that his fingertips pruned up, and fell into a restless sleep in the freshly made hotel sheets.

By the time he checked his personal comm and listened to the teary-eyed messages Jovan had left, he was already off world, headed to wherever the empire needed a fresh-faced ISB agent the most. He deleted the messages off his comm and wiped their photos from his personal datapad. Coruscant and Jovan were behind him. The past was the past, and he wouldn't be caught lingering on it.

TLDR: The empire made them both into worse people, resentment between them built after Kallus returned from Onderon until they both kind of crashed out. Jovan wanted to work things out, but Kallus didn't entertain the idea. At all.

Okay just to start off I do legally have to preface that many of theses thoughts hinge on three fundamental HCs:

Jovan finds his way to the rebellion after his arrest and subsequent prison time

Jovan and Kallus dated from the ages 19-23/24ish. I know a good handful of people like the idea of them having a hookup situation, but I fear that in my mind these two were thinking about RINNGSSS (very casually. A chat or two)(before everything fell apart ofc)

Their breakup was influenced by a number of factors, but the biggest of which being Kallus' intensive work schedule in the ISB, Jovan's single-mindedness, and most importantly, the fallout from Kallus' deployment to Onderon (to my knowledge we don't have a date for when that happens, so I'm placing it at about 14 BBY, so when they're like 23)

I think that as a whole we as a collective tend to characterize Jovan as this kind of like.. sly smooth talker with an entitlement streak, WHICH MAKES COMPLETE SENSE, right like that's almost all we see from him in his source comic so it makes total total sense for him to continue to act that way (I mean, cmon, the guy commited embezzlement kinda just for the fuck of it, that right in character for him ykwim). I think that with that characterization it's really easy to fall into this "Jovan is a shallow asshole who wants to fuck his ex sooooo baaaaadd" thing once we start theorizing about how he fits into the rebellion. (Which, obviously that is a very fun idea to play with— we know jack shit about Jovan so it's like we can go stupid go crazy with whatever kind of dynamic we want, and that is one of many!)

Thing is, I've been thinking about Jovan a lot (too much) lately and one thing keeps nagging me— we are told by Kallus that he'd likely not have graduated the academy if not for Jovan, like we're pretty much told that Jovan went out of his way to help Kallus during their academy years, an act that is decidedly kind in nature, no? And I mean, I'm probably reading way too much into this, but I honestly think that is a sort of indicator that Jovan used to be someone who was selfless and kind, I think it shows us that he wasn't always this 'asshole who wants to commit embezzment' schtick that he's got going on in his source comic.

NOW, one must ask, if Jovan was a kind person how'd he end up like… that, and I will immediatly answer that the empire is at fault because the empire ruins everything idc.

But seriously, the empire rewards selfishness, is shuns emotional maturity and rationality, and I can very easily see him sort of falling into that trap of self-important tunnel vision that so many imps have after he graduates from the academy, yk?

Now, I want you to imagine you're Jovan:

It's 15 BBY, you spend a lovely night with your affectionate, spontaneous, and generally optomistic boyfriend because he's leaving on ISB deployment the next morning. The days (weeks?) go by and you're doing whatever the fuck you're doing on Coruscant until UH OH a transmission???? From the imperial medical center on Onderon????? OH MY BOYFRIEND GOT PARALYZED????? BY REBELS OR SOMETHING???? oh what the fuck???? And so Kallus comes back to Coruscant cause he's in medical recovery probably, and you're like "ayo wtf went down on Onderon" and he tells you the short and sweet of it but…. but smth is off…. your partner has come back different. Like something is off but you just cant figure out what. And so the weeks go by, and Kallus is physically getting better but something is still wrong. Some days he's angry, he doesn't yell, not at you, nor anybody else, but his temper is thinly veiled and unpredictable; other days he's uncharacteristically quiet and avoidant, his attention turned to the ISB work he insists he has to catch up on, it's as if he'd finding every excuse not to talk to you no matter how many times you try; other days he's just the same as he was before he left, completely and utterly the same; and some days he's any and all of the above. And. He. Wont. Tell. You. Why. He's. Doing. That. So yeah, gods forbid you start "nagging", gods forbid you want to know why he's being weird, gods forbid you pick a fight here and there just to see if that'll make him tell you something. Isn't that the whole idea behind a relationship?? To like tell each other things? Communication or whatever?

Now, obviously Jovans strategy (pick fights until he tells me things) from above doesn't help the situation whatsoever, and eventually that tension just builds and builds and builds until they break up. And he regrets it, obviously he does, he was ready to spend the rest of his life with Kallus, sure he knew there would be 'rough spots' when they'd be deployed in different systems, or when one of them would eventually outrank the other (just a bit confusing and awkward tbh), yeah he knew that would be tough, but he was not prepared for whatever the fuck that was.

AND I THINK, he probably applies this logic of like "okay well Kallus changed and he isn't who I fell in love with anymore, and he (the Kallus he fell for) is not coming back, so I might as well just forget it an move on wtv wtv wtv it's fine. It's totally fine. I'm fine"

TIME SKIP TO OUR REBELION ERA

Obviously, being in the Rebellion gave Kallus the opprotunity to heal, not only from Onderon and its subsequent fallout, but the entirety of what the empire did to him— what the empire made him into— even despite the constant struggle and uphill battle that the Rebellion is fighting. Kallus has been able to find people he cares for, he's been sleeping better, he's eating better, he's happier. Without the strict behavioral regulations of the empire, maybe Kallus has picked up some old habits (maybe he still ties his shoes the same, or maybe his laugh sounds the same, the list goes on), and he's able be to more spontaneous and a optimistic than before.

Suddenly, to Jovan, the Kallus he fell in love with and the Kallus he sees in the Rebellion… don't look all that different afterall.

So I think a really interesting path to go down with Jovan and those rekindled feelings he has for Kallus is to look at this from this angle of Jovan almost kind of falling back in love with Kallus over what could have been. He's stuck yearning over a world where Kallus never went to Onderon, or even a world where Onderon still happened but Jovan had the sense to be there for Kallus in the aftermath, maybe that way Kallus would have never become so rageful and vengful and Jpvan would have never become to self centered and flippant. I just think I love this characterizaion of Jovan where he's locked himself into the idea that if things had just been a little bit different, he and Kallus could have really made it.

And I think that's a point where we can make a really distinct seperation from Jovan and Zeb:

Jovan's love is dependant on a nonexistient world where things went his way, it relies on the idea of what could have been, not the reality that the galaxy has given him. Even if he deep down knows that he and Kallus would probably crash and burn just as spectacularly as they did the first time, a part of him thinks that since they're in the same place now (the rebellion) they could treat it as a ground zero, and if they gave it a second chance maybe, just maybe, they could start over and make it work. It's a love that blinds Jovan to Kallus' flaws, it's a love that ignores all realism and rationality, that exists upon the omission of both parties wrong-doings. It's a love based in realatively unfounded idealism that could never actually work.

Zebs love is just the opposite. Zebs love is founded on the respect of seeing Kallus become a better person despite his flaws. Kallus and Zeb have something that Kallus and Jovan never did; Understanding. Kallus and Zeb have accepted that this war is what brought them to where they are today, for better or for worse; they have a complicated history, but their relationship is made possible by the acceptance of that history and the dedication to build something beautiful out of the ugly. I feel like what Kallus and Zeb is not only love, but a devotion DESPITE the odds they started with.

IDK IDK IDK IDK Maybe I'm reading way into things and I'm just going crazy but that's what I have to say on that