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Obi-Wan looked down at his chronometer and scowled.
Anakin had promised to meet him in the Resolute’s main conference room at noon to go over their plan for the next planetary campaign, but seeing as that was nearly forty minutes ago, he doubted Anakin was going to keep his word.
“Blasted boy,” he muttered to himself, turning off the holotable as he marched out of the room. “This marks the third time this month he’s been late to one of our meetings.”
Really Obi-Wan should have expected this- there were a plethora of times where Anakin would run full speed into a hangar, skidding on his heels in front of his men to deliver a briefing that he’d overslept- but sheer annoyance had him striding towards his former padawan’s quarters, ready to give him a lecture long overdue.
The potential jabs swarmed in Obi-Wan’s mind ranging from, “I’ve given you a million and one chronometers over the years and I bet you’d still manage to lose one if I tied it to a ribbon around your neck”, to, “I don’t have the slightest idea as to why you were even permitted to be a knight considering your lousy attendance habits”, but when he punched in the keycode to Anakin’s personal quarters and the door opened, the lights were off. The room appeared to be empty (save for the random scattered piles of droid parts that he claimed to be an ‘organized mess’).
Obi-Wan was about to turn around- Anakin spent most of his time laying under the underbellies of ships in the hangar anyways, that’s where he should have looked first- but just as he went to shut the door, a hacking cough followed by a wheeze came from the heap of blankets on Anakin’s bunk.
Oh no.
“Padawan?” Obi-Wan rushed over to the coughing blanket pile and made out what looked to be the outline of Anakin’s shoulder. Carefully, he turned the young man over, revealing Anakin’s pale, sickly face out from under the blanket.
His eyes were red and puffy as they stared miserably into Obi-Wan’s, and even though he must have been curled up under every spare blanket aboard the Resolute, he was trembling. It reminded Obi-Wan painfully of when he was first brought to Coruscant as a child and he was always so cold. No amount of cloaks draped over his tiny shoulders could stop the silent chattering in his teeth, not until he was better accustomed to the planet’s climate.
The image of a younger, more vulnerable Anakin twinged at his heart, and without even thinking about it he pressed the back of his hand to Anakin’s forehead.
Warm.
“What’s the matter with you? He asked, his anger dissipating into a mixture of concern and confusion. Anakin didn’t get sick often- living on Tatooine with limited medical care for the first nine years of his life gave him a better immune system than most of the temple kids- but when he did fall ill, he fell hard.
“S’rry, Master. I just don't… feel good.” Anakin rasped. “Something’s w-wrong with my voice.”
He sounded as if someone had ripped his vocal chords from his throat and wrung them out like a wet rag. Just in one sentence, his voice fluctuated between a hoarse and gravelly whisper and a weak, airy breath.
“Sounds like laryngitis,” Obi-Wan muttered. “Have you been sick?”
“‘S just a cold…”
“And when did this cold start exactly?”
Anakin shut his eyes for a brief moment to think, his mouth pressed into a thin line before he held up six gloved fingers.
“Six days?!” Obi-Wan gawked. “You were sick for six days and didn’t even think to tell any of the medics? You know this ship was built with a medbay for a reason, it isn’t just for decoration.”
Anakin groaned again, trying to close his eyes and roll over to face the wall, but Obi-Wan had a hand on his shoulder to keep him still. “You can’t sleep now. I ought to take care of you first.”
Anakin responded with a low, irritated grumble. He didn’t like it when Obi-Wan went all mother hen on him, he preferred to suffer in silence. Yet he didn’t put up too much of a fight when his old master’s cold hands wrapped around his biceps and lifted him up into a sitting position, tucking pillows under his head to keep him propped up.
“You need to tell someone next time,” He said absentmindedly while he re-arranged Anakin’s blankets. “When you let a cold go untreated for so long it gets worse like this.”
“Ugg, where's ‘Soka?” Anakin choked out to change the subject, his last syllable fading out into a hoarse whisper as his face contorted in pain.
“Really, you mustn't talk right now.” Obi-Wan sighed. “The last I saw her, she and Captain Rex were in the refectory stocking up on caff and ration bars. I think your young charge hoards the ration bars in her quarters for some reason. I’ve seen her leave with arm-fulls of them, which is just impractical. They taste much better when they’re from a new shipment, not stale from being stuffed under a mattress or wherever she hides them.”
Anakin shook his head. “The meat ones…. are for her. They don’t come in as often so she- she-” his words sputtered off, interrupted by the harsh barks of his own coughing fit.
Obi-Wan was quick to climb up onto Anakin’s bed and press a hand against his back, bracing him against the violent coughs racking his frame. Everything about Anakin was exaggerated, as if he and all his qualities were scaled up to fit his remarkable midichlorian count, and his colds were no exception. He was either in perfect health or hacking his guts out until his face turned purple. There was no middle ground with Anakin.
“Stars, Padawan, that would put even General Grievous to shame.” Obi-Wan muttered as the coughing died down and he settled for rubbing Anakin’s back in slow, careful circles.
It wasn’t often that he provided this kind of physical comfort. Usually an emotional display like this would have Obi-Wan stiffening his shoulders and awkwardly clearing his throat, looking for the best way to escape the situation, but as Anakin fell limp against his shoulder, sniffling miserably, a kind of parental instinct fell upon Obi-Wan. He couldn’t help but hold his friend close to his chest until the awful trembling calmed down.
“I’ll call Ahsoka and ask her to bring us some medicine.” Obi-Wan whispered, knowing that he couldn’t bear to leave Anakin now, even if it was just to venture to the med-bay. “You need some sort of dextromethorphan. Water also. It’s best that you drink a lot right now to keep your throat from getting too dry.”
Anakin just nodded. “Wanna… wanna talk.”
“Well here,” Obi-Wan let go of Anakin- still sitting as close as he could to him- and used the force to float one of his datapads and styluses over to the bed. “You can talk using this.”
Anakin, moving sluggishly slow, grabbed the device and began to write, glaring at Obi-Wan from over the screen as if his miserable condition was somehow his fault. When he was done, he handed the datapad over.
It read, “This is torture. Talking is my favorite thing to do and now it’s been barbarically ripped away from me. How am I supposed to bother you now? I fear my existence has lost all its meaning. I might fall into an existential crisis like one of those droids that can’t complete its main programming objective.”
Obi-Wan looked up from the note to his former apprentice who was staring at him, waiting for a response. Obi-Wan just rolled his eyes. “Yes, whatever would we do without your endless chatter?”