Nothing made sense anymore. Everything in his head was chaos, a thundering din, noises so loud Anakin feared that if he stood in the middle of the galaxy screaming at the top of his voice, he'd never be heard at all. It shook him, how easily all of that carefully built pretense came crashing down at the first sign of fracture.

Just one rock at a glass house, as his father used to say...

But he lifted his head at Poe's direction, lashes lifting to gaze at the older pilot, but the blue no longer sparkled. "Yeah," he said thickly, "it kinda is, Poe." Again, Anakin bit at his lip. "If it were anyone else but me, she wouldn't care at all."

He shook his head, not meaning to pull away but doing so regardless to pace slightly back and forth. "You could be with anyone else, Poe, and no one would care. Why would they?" A bitter laugh escaped and Anakin slammed the toe of his boot against a heavy crate, feeling the pain shoot all the way to his spine; delicious.

"But because it's me, and I'm supposed to somehow save the entire kriffing galaxy, everyone has a problem about us being together." He snapped around, and now the blue eyes were hard, narrowed as they were. "It's not fucking fair."