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Soooo coooold.
More of the blanket managed to find itself around Anakin's curled-up form that was currently shivering underneath the layers, so many duvets and sheets not really helping in the slightest. It seemed like the amount of covers being applied didn't matter – the freezing temperature stayed the same.
Squirming around again, he shifted so one blanket was overlapping itself, trying to cocoon himself to generate heat. Or maybe if he bundled together more tightly that would have a better effect... Yet the Jedi soon realised no things did such difference. He debated going and getting more covers, or turning up the temperate entirely, but the thought of getting out of his quarters to go to different parts of the ship made him shiver even more. Yes, his current position was cold, but that seemed more like walking out into a blizzard, for Force's sake!
"Screw that," Anakin muttered with most of the blankets covering with mouth, eyes slit into envious daggers at the inanimate objects. Yes, R2, I'm looking at you. He merely glared down jealously at the recharging astromech powered-down in the corner who would never feel the chilling discomfort that was space's heat-less void.
Anakin vaguely remembered leaving Tatooine for the first time, and how cold space had seemed at that point. Now the chilling, biting air was similar to then, but much different also... Back then he was leaving the only climate he ever knew (one that had too massive suns, even!) and entering a totally unexperienced one.
But for some inexplicable annoy reason, either his core temp or the Resolute's air-temperature regulating thermostat was totally off (Anakin had an almost certain suspicion it was the latter, because his body being pathetically inadequate at staying warm just stoopa.)
To think, he was simply going back to his everyday atmosphere since leaving Felucia for a month campaign, and yet it felt like dipping into an ice pool of Hoth after visiting Tatooine – or something as equal as cold, at least... (He wasn't that experienced on snow worlds, but could you blame him? Pfft.)
He really didn't get why this ordinary return trip made him feel so weird.
An incidental stray moan escaped his lips when another wave of coolness bit his body, more out of annoyance at this point, because how dare the atmosphere drop so thermostatically low in his presence. He was convinced the Admiral took a detour and they ended up on Orto Plutonia again. The sensation wasn't anything as dramatic like a snowstorm, or being submerged in freezing water under layers of thick ice after failing to walk across it (like that one humiliating time as a Padawan, when Obi-Wan had tried to teach him what it meant to be "mindfully and bodily graceful". He was probably betting on the fact that Anakin would recklessly rush across the frozen pond, as to prove his point about the younger Jedi not being 'dexterous' and 'nimble' and other sophisticated Obi-Wan words, to complete the task – whatever it had been.)
No, this was more of a body-numbing ache, like his blood has turned icy inside his veins and limbs were starting to go intangible. He felt blue, like physically blue. He wondered if it was possible to know that your lips and eyelids had lost their colour.
He didn't spend too much time thinking about it, however, 'cause he seriously didn't care, and the only thing worth this focus was the lack of heat, so he began mentally strategising how to repair the broken heat-regular aboard this hunk of floating ice in space.
"...Mhm, what are you doing?"
Weirdly enough, he stopped suddenly shuffling throughout the sheets and froze (heh, he sneered at the deities of the universe). Anakin sheepishly blinked bleary eyes at the Togruta who hung her head off the top bunk to look at him, lekku dangling. Her eyes peered, slitting into harsh lines that screamed, man was she not happy about being woken up from her beauty sleep at 0100 hours.
"Uhh, nothing..?"
Ahsoka still had a clearly not amused face in the slightest, and Anakin deduced that yep, she was very pissed that his ruffling of the sheets annoyed her in her blissful unconsciousness state.
"Then what's your problem, Skyguy?" Ahsoka sighed, and if there was an attempt to address and speak to Anakin as her mentor and superior, it had eroded the moment she became rudely awoken from sleep. Anakin payed no attention to the lack of formalities, as that just really wasn't them anyway.
"There's no problem," Anakin huffed, so Ahsoka rolled her eyes and flopped back onto her bunk while he tried to make a ball of himself from his bunk below hers. He shuffled around for several for moments, until Ahsoka seemingly couldn't take it anymore.
"Seriously? What's wrong?" Her face, tired and admittedly very mad popped over the top bunk again just for two dark eyes to glare down on him with incredible scrutiny for a sixteen-year-old. Anakin liked to think he taught her the art of perfecting the resting-bitch-face and 'im gonna kill you' face himself. Obi-Wan would not approve...
Anakin pouted (less murderous than the 'im gonna kill you' face, and instead taking to adapt the 'this is unfair and I hate you' face). His expression then morphed into something less annoyed altogether, and took to bitting on his blue lip hesitantly. "Does the temperature seem colder than usual?" he asked.
Ahsoka, not expecting that to be the issue for the reason of her Master's restlessness, tilted her head. "What? No?"
Anakin sighed, and ignored that nagging voice in his head that whispered his screwed-up issues would only amount to the suffering of others if exposed from the safe entrapment of his mind – his deep psychologically problems that stemmed from abandonment and emotional repression would be adhered to another day, but not in the wake of tonight's 1AM, where he said kriff that, it was too damn cold.
"It's freezing!" He exasperated, then flushed with the embarrassment at the realisation he sounded like a whiny youngling. "...You know, more colder than it normally is," he added quietly, pouting slightly – yeah, that didn't really help disproving the whole sulking child thing.
"Uh..." Ahsoka raised a marking, confused. She looked at him like he had officially announced he was moving to the Dune Sea of Tatooine and grown another head just for the hell of it. "I never really thought it was cold in the first place..?"
Embarrassment forgotten, Anakin huffed again, propping himself up on his elbows to face her more clearly. "So its only me who can feel this definitely-very-noticeable antarctic temperature?" He asked defensively.
The Togruta scoff at what must be her master finally losing his sanity at the ripe old age of twenty-two. She shrugged smugly, and wasn't at all helpful. "Yep, must be." She casually deducted, and flopped back onto her bed, as if to end the conversation. She closed her eyes and left her Master to deal with his coldness alone before a thought popped into her head. "Hey maybe it's a Human thing. I have a lower core temp, so maybe you're just not resilient enough to the lack of heat."
Anakin scoff in feeble retaliation, taking offence as she knew he would have but not caring in the slightest. "Pfft, I'm plenty resilient."
"And dramatic..."
"Hey!"
She leaned over once again to take in his form that was downing in sheets and blankets. Furrowing her brows, she studied him – his pale, sweaty skin; feverish cheeks and trademark infamous bitch-face scowl.
"What?" He asked, and hid his half of his face in the blankets because being analysed by his Padawan silently making mental remarks wasn't really appreciated.
"Wait..." She muttered in a quiet, different tone from the tired, annoyed one she spoke in before. Something like realisation hinted her voice, even so much as concern – now wasn't that a shock. "Are you alright?"
He rolled his eyes, not looking at her. Apart from nearly dying of hypothermia in what obviously had to be Orto Plutonia's arctic atmosphere (...okay, Ahsoka could be right about the 'dramatic' thing), he was. "Yeah. Why?"
"You look kinda pale, bit flushed too," Ahsoka supplied, gesturing to his face with a hand that now hung of the side of her top bunk.
"How can you be pale and flushed at the same time?" Anakin glared at her from underneath the blankets. He was fine, obviously the problem was with the ship's heating, or that they had just reached a particular vast fuel port that he wasn't made aware about, and said unscheduled fuel port wasn't within any star in proximity, and somehow Togruta were immune to the lack of heat sensation. Yes, that was a perfect deduction, General Skywalker. I've practically solve one of the many mysteries of the universe.
Ahsoka shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know, you're a human here. Ask your own biology. Togruta don't even blush, you know."
"Jealous or something that human skin can change colour?" Anakin smirked, steering the conversation away from where it was intentionally headed. Knowing that this was Ahsoka he was talking to, he probably wouldn't have that much luck.
"Are you kidding? You can blush slightly, congratulations. I'd only be impressed if you could go full on chameleon."
Anakin pouted that cold pout again, the one that Obi-Wan would have trademarked as the 'Youngling Anakin had deemed the universe unjust and his face shows it' pout.
Ahsoka front flipped down from her top bunk (pfft, show off) and hung swinging from her hands, before she dropped right next to Anakin's bed. She further inspected him with scrutinising eyes that made him squirm under her gaze. She even went to lay a hand to his forehead before it was smacked away with a huff of, "Hey, quit it! I'm fine, thank you, Grand Healer Ahsoka."
She hummed inquisitively, squinting her eyes further in fake apprehension. In patronising seriousness, she boldly announced, "I have established an upmost final executive deduction, Master."
He rolled his eyes. "That you stole Obi-Wan's entire vocabulary without any knowledge of how to use it?"
She closed her eyes and ignored him in what was probably a dramatic pause, yet with the absence of violin strings and suspenseful piano music that always accompanied hysterically bad holo dramas. "I'm sorry to tell you this; but you, Anakin Skywalker, have a cold."
Anakin scoffed, "I don't get sick."
Ahsoka continued her doctoral facade, nodding fake understanding dotting her featuring. She put a too gentle hand to his shoulder in what he guessed was her understanding bedside-mannerism approach. "I know that this is hard to accept, Master, but you will get through this."
"I'm serious!" Anakin slit murderous daggers at his apprentice, regretting his existence all the way back to when she first stepped off that gunship.
The Togruta sighed, dipping her head in false sorrow, doing holo actors all over the galaxy proud. She even turned her head to stare out at the dark abyss that was space's empty void, completing the whole soap opera hospital drama scene in what he guessed was supposed to be anguish. "Denial is always the first st–"
"Ahsoka!"
"What?" She snapped her head from the window and battered innocent eyes towards her Master, breaking character for the first time in what felt like eons and Anakin was too cold and sweaty and uncomfortable to be relieved at this point.
He sniffled – but hell if he was going to admit he had a runny nose now that he thought about it, 'cause screw you Ahsoka, that doesn't prove shit. Yeah, he literally didn't feel so hot, but getting sick was something Anakin Skywalker did not succumb to, let alone accept – oh, imagine the insanity!
Ahsoka's slight sly smile of upturned lips and knowing eyes met her masters annoyed pouting, yet tired and feverish expression. She softened her gaze, and lay a hand on his shoulder, completely absent of false concern, and Anakin didn't have the effort to shrug her away even if he wanted to.
"I'm going to sneak into the Med Bay, get some fever reducers and some blankets, and tell them I have contracted a minor Fallucian bug from the last campaign. Sound good?" She smirked at her foolproof plan, and Anakin just rolled his eyes but was secretly thankful. Like hell we would admit that either.
She really should have know. The Hero With No Fear doesn't simply fall prey to the common cold. He always has to take it ten steps further and get himself shot, exploded, stabbed, maimed, tortured and half-dead from the joys of war and battle, that a simple insignificant virus was more of an embarrassment than an affliction. In Anakin Skywalker's book, it may as well be go big or go home – near to dead or mortally injured, while everything else was just a plain burden on everyone else, she figured. Huh.
"Really, I'm fine," he sneezed.
"Yeah, I know."
She sighed and continued on her quest to the Resolute's Medical Bay.