"Did the snowstorm knock out a power line somewhere?" Ezra's voice was tense but at least he wasn't doing anything to make the situation worse. Zeb didn't want to deal with a bad situation and a freaking out human at the same time.
"Can't be, this place has its own power supply, a whole set of solar panels. I checked 'em myself." Zeb growled, going quickly to the sleeping room. He had a glow rod in with his own supplies and he found it, clicking it over to the lantern function and carrying it back out before they lost what little light was coming in from outside."
"… Could the storm have knocked out our solar panels?" Ezra asked, and Zeb flattened his ears back, thinking.
"… Maybe. Or maybe a circuit overloaded somewhere and it's a quick fix." Zeb tried to be optimistic, searching for an interior panel.
"If it is the solar panels we can't do anything tonight, or, well, you can, but if you fall off the roof and knock yourself out I'm not in any shape to haul you to a med center." Ezra said hoarsely. In the dimmer light from the glow rod he looked worse than before. Humans were a little unnerving with their tendency to change color when hot, or cold, or embarrassed, or bruised, or anything else and Ezra hadn't been looking too great even under the regular lighting. The way he looked now, if he hadn't already been sitting down Zeb might have worried about him falling over.
"I'm not going up on the roof. I can at least see if they look like they're damaged. You ok without the light?" Zeb hated the idea of just waiting around, not knowing what was actually wrong. If it was something he could fix, going the whole night without power just because he didn't bother to look at all would be incredibly irritating.
"Yeah, if I need it I've got another glow-rod in my bag. I can find the bedroom without getting lost, even in the dark." Ezra waved a hand. "Just don't make me come out after you or you'll owe me big time."
"Not planning on it." Zeb hauled on his outdoor gear, taking his time to bundle up before he grabbed the light, heading out into the snow.
The only good thing about the problem was it was immediately obvious. The solar panels should have been clearly visible, internal heaters keeping them above freezing so the snow that stuck to them melted and dripped off to be filtered and added to the building's water reserves. Instead they were thickly coated with snow, enough snow they had to have been gathering it for hours. Zeb cursed to himself, heading back inside.
"That was quick, either that's really good or really bad." Ezra said, coughing dryly into his hand after raising his voice.
"The panels are covered in snow, looks like their de-icer's not working." Zeb grumbled. "Bet it was running off the battery for a while and that finally gave out. "
Ezra groaned at that. "So even if you were to clear the panels off or get the de-icer working, there's no sunlight to provide any power."
"Not until morning." Zeb started to take off his gear and then settled for brushing off what little snow there was. The place was decently insulated, but even then the heat wouldn't last all night. There was a moment of guilt when he realized he'd let out a good bit of the heat when he'd gone in and out, but there wasn't exactly any other way to check on the solar panels.
"So we wait it out." Ezra sounded resigned. "You said there were Sabbac cards?"
"Yeah." Zeb found the cards, taking a seat close enough play, setting the light nearby where they could see the cards in the glow. He bit back asking if Ezra wanted to just go to bed instead. Ezra wasn't a kid, even if it was tempting to think of him that way, and there was a fine line between helping him out when he needed a hand and treating him like he was incompetent.
Ezra sounded close to normal while they played at least. They did it often enough to kill time back on-ship that it was easy to forget they were in the middle of nowhere in a snow storm. Ezra got up at one point to grab his jacket and wrap up in a blanket from his bunk, huddled down in the chair but still energetic enough to accuse Zeb of dirty dealing between sniffles.
After a while though it became harder to ignore the dropping temperature. Zeb tucked his hands in closer to warm them between hands and Ezra had gone quiet outside of what little he needed to say to keep playing. Zeb finished the hand and started gathering up the cards, giving in to the inevitable.
"Know it's not that late, but karabast, the dark makes it seem like it. I'm going to bed." Zeb stood up, watching Ezra.
"Yeah. Good point. You mentioned something about heavy duty sleeping bags? Unless I imagined it last night." Ezra stood up, staying tightly wrapped up in the blanket.
"I did, hope they're as good as they're supposed to be." Zeb grabbed up the glow-rod, carrying it for both of them as they walked the short distance to the bedroom.
"Me too," Ezra said, a little too feverently and Zeb paused in getting the gear out. He hadn't noticed it when Ezra was playing cards, but Ezra was shivering now, clutching the blanket tight around him.
"You know, be even warmer if we layer them and share one." Zeb suggested, hoping Ezra wouldn't put up too much resistance to the idea. He knew exactly how stubborn Ezra could be, but it was blasted cold.
"You really think I'm going to be able to squeeze into a sleeping bag with you?" Ezra sounded skeptical, but it wasn't outright rejection and Zeb took it as a good sign.
"They're big enough a Hutt or two would be comfortable sleeping in 'em." Zeb unrolled one to demonstrate, it wasn't even that big of an exaggeration. When coming up with one size fits most equipment places either guessed human or went with larger species assuming that better too big than too small. He'd wanted to be sure he'd fit in the provided sleeping bags in case of a situation like this one, and he'd been pleasantly surprised. Then again, for a task like snow removal humans might not be the first pick for hiring and whoever kept the building stocked would have bought appropriately.
"Guess it w-would be warmer." Ezra talked stiffly, sounding like he was trying not to let his voice waver when he shivered and Zeb took that as close enough to a yes to start stuffing one of the bags down inside the other and gathering up the rest of the blankets to form a nest at the top. With two they couldn't use the built-in hood, but this would work just as well to hold in the heat.
Zeb stripped down out of his cold weather clothing, and even with all his fur it was still unpleasantly cold as he crammed into the sleeping bag, squirming around to get comfortable.
"You know I'm probably not going to be pleasant to sleep beside, right? It's not my fault if I get snot on you, so I better not hear any complaining." Ezra hesitated, standing there and shivering.
"I know, get in here." Zeb held the sleeping bag opening for him, giving him an impatient look. Ezra finally stripped down to his underclothes under the blanket, trying to expose as little of himself to the cold air as necessary as he crammed in beside Zeb.
Zeb tucked the blankets around the opening to the sleeping bag to keep the heat trapped before shutting off the glow-rod. Not that there was much heat to trap yet, but it wouldn't take long for the small area to warm up with both of them in it. Ezra made a token effort to stay scooted to one side of the sleeping bag before he gave up, pressing against Zeb's side and sniffing wetly.
If it hadn't gotten so cold, Zeb wouldn't have even suggested something like their current arrangement. He wasn't exactly eager to end up as a snot-rag, or deal with the restless sleeping habits most sick people had. As it was though, he would have worried about Ezra's ability to stay warm enough in a sleeping bag by himself while sick. It was a relief when Ezra finally stopped shivering, relaxing against his side. Even if that moment was followed by a flurry of loud sneezes that made Zeb unbelievably grateful that Ezra had remembered to bring the bathroom tissue with him when coming to bed.
Finally Ezra settled into making the soft stuffed up snores that signaled he was dozing at least and Zeb let himself relax as well, closing his eyes and drifting off to get what sleep he could before morning.
Zeb woke up to the now far too familiar sound of Ezra coughing. One part of him wished he could do something to help, the rest of him wanted to just put a pillow over Ezra's face for some peace and quiet. It wasn't like he hadn't known what he was getting into though and Zeb turned his head a little, blinking blearily at the light coming in from the other room. It took a minute for the significance of that to penetrate past the sleep fog, and then he was slowly hauling himself out of the nice warm sleeping bag and grabbing for his clothes.
He knew Ezra couldn't help it, and he knew it had to be worse for Ezra actually having to be the one sick, but sharing close quarters hadn't been fun. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd woken up to Ezra coughing, or sneezing, or trying to blow his nose quietly and failing. Somehow knowing it would be a jerk move to get angry at Ezra for it made it all the more frustrating.
"Need my help with the solar panels?" Ezra spoke hoarsely, not making any move to leave the sleeping bag just yet.
"Doubt it, you stay put, if I need you I'll come get you." Zeb finished pulling on his winter gear. If Ezra was healthy he'd probably have enjoyed dumping him out of the sleeping bag, but he didn't want to risk Ezra getting any sicker. Even if Ezra said this was normal for a harmless illness he didn't like the idea that it might suddenly stop being normal and harmless and he'd be the one responsible for it.
"Fine with me." Ezra scrunched down a little more in the sleeping bag, pulling the outer blankets closer to make up for the loss of Zeb's body-heat.
Zeb made sure everything was zipped up, snapped, and otherwise as bundled up as he was going to get, taking one last jealously annoyed glare at the softly snoring pile of blankets before heading out into the snow.
The roof was slippery and the wind was worse without the building blocking some of it, but at least the snow had stopped falling. The cause of the problem was immediately visible, the cord for the panel defroster had snapped. There was no way to tell how long it had been broken without frequent snow storms to need the defroster. It was a quick enough repair and Zeb thoroughly taped the spliced together wire before putting it back inside the electrical panel and brushing his hands off. He started to head back down off the roof before pausing. He groaned, hanging his head and glad he was the only one out there to witness his near-screwup. With no battery charge there was no way for the defroster to come on, which was the whole reason he hadn't even attempted it the night before. With a long-suffering sigh Zeb started carefully brushing snow off the panels to expose them to the sunlight.
Zeb shook off the snow like he was shaking water out of his fur before coming inside. Once he got about half of the panels cleared the defroster kicked in, the wet snow starting to slide off the rest of them. Inside the air was still chill, but the heater was already kicking on.
He eyed the chairs, seriously considering a nap. Ezra would be fine, and with some space between them he shouldn't be woken up every few minutes. Instead he heaved a sigh, checking the bedroom.
"Power's back on, I'm going to make a supply run. Stay out of trouble until I get back." Zeb prodded the blanket lump until he got a sleepy acknowledgement, and then headed back out to the equipment shed to grab the bike.
Zeb absolutely trusted Ezra when he said he didn't need any sort of medication to handle a cold. He also knew the absolute last thing he wanted to do was spend another night being kept up by all of the various… sounds Ezra was unable to help making when he was sick. There had to be medications for humans to manage the symptoms, and the sooner he got Ezra well again the sooner he could get a decent night's sleep.
"Where's your medicine section?" Zeb had done a cursory circuit of the store and found most of the supplies he wanted, but he hadn't seen anything that looked like medical supplies.
"Sold out." The person running the store looked apologetic.
"Sold out?" Zeb grumbled and set what he'd managed to find on the counter.
"Yeah, off season means fewer shipments and any sort of medicine gets snapped up quick. If it's something bad you can catch a transport to the Imperial Medical Center." The guy kept talking as he bagged the items.
"He said it's a cold, was hoping you'd have something for that." Zeb figured it didn't hurt to explain it.
"Best to just wait it out then rather than deal with all of that if it's just a cold. Good luck with it." The shopkeeper said.
Zeb nodded, taking the bags and heading back to the bike to make the long drive back.
Ezra was awake and had moved back to the chair with a blanket, roll of bathroom tissue, and the cards. He didn't look much better, but he wasn't buried in the sleeping bags like some kind of hibernating animal and Zeb was going to take that as a good sign. He looked up at Zeb's entrance, tugging the blanket tighter around him at the draft from the door. "Good trip?"
"Eeeh, not bad. Could have been better." Zeb set the bags on the counter, starting to sort through them. Not that there was a whole lot, but even without any medicine in them he was glad to have made the trip out.
"Beer and porn shops closed because of snow?" Ezra teased, and even as rough as his voice was the playful tone was back.
"Didn't check. Did find out that the only place to reliably get any medicine around here is the Imperial medical center." Zeb snorted at that.
"You didn't need to go out for that." Ezra said immediately, and glancing over Zeb could tell he looked guilty.
"Did need a few other things though, and thought it wouldn't hurt to check." Zeb tossed a new roll of bathroom tissue his direction. "Saw you'd nearly gone through a roll before."
"Can't really help that." Ezra mumbled, pulling some off to scrub under his nose.
"You don't need to apologize for being sick you know." Zeb took one of the cans of soup he'd been able to find at the store, opening it up to start it heating.
"I know that." Ezra said, but he still sounded like it hadn't quite clicked.
Zeb snorted lightly, getting the hot soup into a bowl and putting in a spoon, carrying it over. "Real convincing. Here, I know I didn't have to go out, but I wanted to."
Ezra reached out to take the bowl, cupping his hands around it. "I don't really think you wanted to spend this time having to put up with me while I'm sick, or having to take care of me. "
"Wouldn't be my first choice, but since it happened I want to make sure you're taken care of. You'd do the same for me if I needed it, that's part of being a team, part of being friends." Zeb patted Ezra's back carefully.
"I… yeah. Yeah I would. Thanks." Ezra took a careful sip of the soup, but he seemed like he'd relaxed some.
"Good. Now that we've got that cleared up, the store may have been out of real medicine, but I know a few tricks to getting over a mild illness that we can do with what we've got right here." Zeb said brightly, getting a suspicious look from Ezra.
"What kind of tricks?"
