A LOVE LIKE OURS
Barriss Offee's eyes were the bluest things Ahsoka Tano had seen in her life.
She was sure that she could stare at the Mirialan forever if allowed. And on those rare occasions in which the serious and polite Barriss deigned those around her with a smile, Ahsoka would feel like everything was right in the galaxy. There were no separatists, no war, no Sith, no battle droids, no death—only Barriss' eyes, curving like a crescent moon above her cheeks and illuminating the room.
It was the late evening and they were out in the temple gardens. Barriss was training while Ahsoka was observing. For learning purposes, of course. To learn what, precisely? Well, for example, what was the purpose of Barriss' robes if they clung like that to her chest? Anyone with eyes—and probably some without—could see that they left nothing to the imagination, perfectly delineating the exact shape of each breast on the Mirialan's torso. It was a ridiculous garment, thought Ahsoka for the nth time. Not that she would ever want Barriss to get rid of it.
Barriss shifted smoothly into a defensive stance, spinning gracefully while stepping backward, her lightsaber drawing arcs in the air with a precision and elegance rarely seen even in the more adept knights. Ahsoka sighed wistfully at the beautiful display.
"You seem tired," Barriss said, standing straight and powering off her lightsaber. "Would you like to have some tea in my chambers?"
"Yes!" Ahsoka replied instantly, wincing internally at how eager her tone had been.
Forming attachments was forbidden to Jedi. Ahsoka knew, very clearly, that this crush she had on Barriss could get her expelled from the order. No one could suspect anything, least of all the object of her misguided affections. Well-mannered, studious, solemn Barriss Offee would probably offer to escort her out of the temple herself.
"Let's go, then," Barriss said, smiling gently at Ahsoka.
She stood up quickly, returning the smile as they began walking side by side. How was Ahsoka supposed to avoid attachments when her master and Master Luminara had seen fit to team her up with such a pretty girl? Maybe, maybe, it was all a test, and everyone could actually see how appealing Barriss was and they were using her to push Ahsoka's mental resilience to its limits. Well, if that was the case, it was working. Very, very well.
Ahsoka sat cross-legged on the floor while Barriss brewed the tea. Personal Jedi chambers were bare of any items considered excessive or luxurious, but a small wooden table and a tea set weren't thought as such, even by the most ascetic amongst the order.
Watching the Mirialan in such a domestic context weighed heavily on Ahsoka. She didn't regret following the path of the Jedi, but acknowledging everything she would have to give up to do it still pained her at times. Moments that could be construed as romantic, like this one, could never be hers.
"Would you like some sweetener?" Barriss called over her shoulder.
"Yes!" Ahsoka agreed. Too hastily. Again.
Once Barriss turned around to serve the tea, Ahsoka rolled her eyes at herself. What was wrong with her? Even if they weren't Padawan learners, someone like Barriss would never want to be with someone so childish.
After a minute, Barriss approached the table with two steaming bowls of tea. She set down Ahsoka's first and then sat cross-legged across the table. The tea smelled delicious, but that wasn't what Ahsoka wanted to praise in this very moment. She wanted to let Barriss know that she had beautiful hands. Of course she couldn't, under any circumstances, say that, so she opted for the obvious small-talk instead.
"It smells delicious, as always."
"Thank you," Barriss said, offering a kind smile and a slight bow of her head.
Ahsoka lifted her own bowl to her lips in order to conceal her ogling eyes. Mirialan hands were practically identical to Togruta hands, except for their skin color, so there was no doubt in Ahsoka's mind that her fixation had nothing to do with with Barriss' being exotic or anything of the sort. Conversely, it had everything to do with the fact that Ahsoka was irrevocably attracted to this particular Mirialan girl. More than any two magnets could ever be attracted to each other.
"And it tastes just as well," Ahsoka remarked after taking the first sip.
"I'm glad you like it." Barriss regaled her with another smile.
They fell into a comfortable silence as they placidly sipped their tea. Or at least that was what any random onlooker would have perceived. In reality, Ahsoka was carefully observing Barriss' every movement, committing to memory everything about the Mirialan that she possibly could: How her long, thin fingers held the bowl daintily, and the bob of her throat as she swallowed each sip of this floral tea that Ahsoka had barely tasted, immersed as she was in other thoughts.
Barriss shifted her posture slightly and Ahsoka's attention immediately honed in on the curve of her waist as she did. Not to mention how her hip strained against the cloth of her skirt. Again, was the purpose of Barriss' robes to torture Ahsoka? Because at times it certainly seemed like it.
After a few more calm minutes, Barriss stretched her arms above her head, pushing her chest forward and arching her back. She let out a little groan as she did, and Ahsoka felt like the room had grown hotter all of a sudden.
As if the Mirialan's clothes weren't tight enough, seeing the material strain like that against her chest nearly had Ahsoka's eyes bugging out of her head. She wanted to trace the curve of that spine with her fingers, with her hands, with her tongue…
Ahsoka panicked, scared for a second that her lurid cravings had reached the Force. That had been a bit much. Each time, her imaginings grew clearer, bolder, hungrier.
Fortunately, after giving Barriss a cursory glance, Ahsoka noticed no change in her disposition. She managed to relax a little. To keep the charade up, she carried on sipping her tea and pretending that this thing between them was a companionable silence.
"Ahsoka," Barriss said, carefully placing her bowl on the table. "We are friends, right?"
Ahsoka stared. The question had caught her completely by surprise.
"Of course we are," she proclaimed with absolute certainty after a beat.
Uncharacteristically of Barriss, she broke eye contact and instead focused on her own bowl, fingers fidgeting briefly around it.
"May I speak frankly?" she said, gaze meeting Ahsoka's one more.
"Of course," Ahsoka rushed out. She never thought twice when it came to pleasing Barriss. It was a habit that was bound to get her in trouble sooner rather than later.
"I have noticed that recently you've been… acting unlike yourself."
Uh oh. This was bad. Ahsoka frowned.
"What do you mean?" she said, doing her best to keep the nervousness out of her voice. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" It was Barriss' turn to frown now.
"Of course!" Ahsoka giggled, trying desperately to lighten the mood with some frivolity.
Barriss' expression remained serious and focused.
"Would you mind terribly spending the night here? I would like to keep an eye on you."
It took her a second to process the words, but once she did, Ahsoka's eyes widened comically and she felt like her stomach had dropped out of her belly.
"If you don't mind, that is," Barriss added hastily, raising both her hands in front of her in a placating gesture.
"I…" Ahsoka was speechless. Was this a dream come true, or a nightmare?
"I understand if you don't wish to," Barriss said.
To the untrained eye, there would have been nothing to notice in Barriss' face as she spoke. Ahsoka, though, noticed the tiny waver in the Mirialan's gaze. What the emotion was, she couldn't tell, but it inspired in her a need to right this slight, perceived as it might've been.
"I don't mind," she blurted, following blindly that instinctual need of hers to please this girl.
"Oh? Then it's settled." Barriss was smiling again, and right now, Ahsoka couldn't honestly say that she was too worried about the implications of spending the night in this room. "Bring your nightclothes at your earliest convenience, then."
Once she was in her own chambers, insecurity began to gnaw at Ahsoka's thoughts. There was nothing wrong with two females sleeping in the same bed, right? The Council would probably frown upon it, citing emotional attachment, but they could easily wave off the accusation by explaining Barriss' reasoning. Most likely, the Council would follow up inquiring why they didn't visit the infirmary, to which they could answer it wasn't necessary since it was some rather trivial mental matter. Like homesickness. Surely Padawan's were entitled to feel homesick now and then, right? Of course they were, Ahsoka tried assuring herself.
With her nightclothes rolled into a bundle for concealment, she made her way back to Barriss' chambers.
The walk felt like an eternity, and all the way there, Ahsoka felt like everyone she passed by knew what she was about to do. Of course they didn't. They couldn't. Jedi not only kept to themselves but also respected each other's privacy.
When Ahsoka entered Barriss' chambers, she was greeted by a sight that she wasn't going to forget any day soon. Probably not in her entire life.
Barriss was dressed in robes cut in the same shape as her regular Jedi ones, except the material these were made of was thinner. It wasn't quite sheer, as Ahsoka couldn't see through—fortunately or unfortunately, she couldn't decide—but the thickness of the cloth was obvious given how it clung to the Mirialan's shapely figure. Every curve, every bump was hugged tightly, revealing delicious details previously unknown.
Ahsoka swallowed audibly. "Um, can you— can you turn around?"
"Oh, of course." Barriss obeyed, and with her back turned, began removing the cowl she wore to keep her hair tidy.
For a long moment, Ahsoka did nothing, uselessly clutching her nightclothes in her hands. She was entranced by Barriss' hair, watching it spill and bounce around her head as it was freed from the constricting garment.
"Are you done?" Barriss asked, startling Ahsoka out of her reverie.
"Ah!" she yelped. "Not yet, not yet. Don't turn around!"
Barriss chuckled in that reserved way of hers.
"I won't. But hurry up. What have you been doing all this time?"
"Sorry, sorry," Ahsoka said, fumbling to remove her clothes in the most undignified way possible. "I was distracted."
"By what?"
"Your hair."
"Oh." Barriss ran a hand along her black locks.
No, no, no. Ahsoka had been too preoccupied to stop her dumb blabbering mouth. Was her secret out now? Were the exposure of her degeneracy and consequent humiliation imminent? Panic began rising in her chest.
After a beat, she remembered herself through an unexpected flash of clarity, Anakin appearing uninvited in her mind's eye. Ahsoka clearly heard his voice administering an admonishment for her gross lapse in self-control.
Breathe, focus, think, act, she recited mentally. There was no way Barriss could infer all of her wanton desires from a single comment. The sentence had been unrelated to anything specifically romantic. Those words, even if further clarified, could be explained as curiosity, given how Ahsoka had no hair of her own.
"Is there something wrong with it?" Barriss said, uncharacteristically timid.
Ahsoka's reaction to the Mirialan's tone was, predictably, visceral and immediate.
"No! I like it."
"Oh."
Again, some random bystander wouldn't have heard anything out of place, but to Ahsoka's experienced ears, the smile on the other girl's lips was obvious.
"Alright, I'm ready," she said, entirely too pleased with herself for being the cause of that smile.
"Good," Barriss said, her back still turned. She then gestured with one hand toward the panel by the doorway and used the Force to engage the lock and turn the lights off.
Ahsoka slipped under the sheets after Barriss, but wanting to preserve some propriety—and her own sanity—she turned away and kept a generous distance between them.
What had to be her surprise when she felt Barris slide across the bed to spoon her. She nearly choked on her own saliva. Not only could she clearly feel every soft part of the Mirialan's warm body pressed against her back, but right when her brain was on the brink of overloading, an arm came around to hug her tightly.
"I know how you feel," Barriss whispered, barely audible.
Had Ahsoka not been holding her breath, she wouldn't have heard it. She didn't know what to say, how to even begin explaining this, but she wanted to at least try. There was no need, though.
"I—"
"Hush," Barriss interrupted her, not unkindly. "You don't have to say anything. I feel the same."
Even held tightly as she was, Ahsoka managed to turn around abruptly.
"What?!"
"Ahsoka!" Barriss reprimanded her in a harsh whisper. "You need to calm down. So far only I've noticed because I'm the recipient of your feelings, but if you get too excited, you will start broadcasting to everyone sensitive to the Force."
"Sorry, sorry," Ahsoka whispered, trying to keep a cool head. It was hard, though, given how her entire body felt suffused with warmth. She was sure that she was blushing from head to toe, montrals and lekku included.
"I know it's hard." Barriss' hand came to rest against her cheek in an attempt to reassure her. "Believe me, I know."
Ahsoka arched her brow.
Looking down, Barriss chuckled bashfully.
"I know, I know. Prim and proper me? There's no way." With some shuffling, Barriss pulled her other hand from under her body and placed it on Ahsoka's other cheek. Her eyes grew intense. "But you have no idea what you do to me with those clothes you wear. Ever since the day I met you I've wanted to feel that midriff you so brazenly display."
This was impossible. Unbelievable. Utter madness. It was Ahsoka's craziest fantasy turned real, and adequately so, she had no idea how to react. Luckily, her body knew.
On autopilot, she followed her urge to fulfill this girl's desires. She wanted her to be happy, of that much Ahsoka was certain. After pulling up the hem of her sleeping top, she grabbed one of Barriss' hands and placed it against her exposed skin. She felt like her blush grew exponentially.
Barriss let out a shuddering sigh and bit down on her lower lip.
"Ahsoka," she whispered, her voice reverent.
With her nerves ablaze and aching, Ahsoka finally found the strength to voice her own yearnings.
"Can we kiss?" She held her breath, still afraid that the worst might happen.
A few seconds, that to her stretched to infinity, went by. She could sense the hesitation in the Mirialan. Was such a request excessive? Did it truly surpass what they had done thus far by so much that it merited denying?
Closing her eyes, Barriss took a deep breath. With just that seemingly effortless action, the oppressive presence of her doubt disappeared completely from the Force. Ahsoka had a moment to admire such self-control before she noticed that Barriss' face was inching closer.
The contact was sublime despite being tentative. It was better than anything Ahsoka's feverish imagination had ever conjured. She had never felt such softness before. Barriss' skin looked smooth from afar, yes, but actually kissing it was an experience that transcended all expectation. She tasted like flowers, she smelled like flowers. It most definitely couldn't be fair that someone so perfect existed.
Ahsoka tilted her face slightly to better mold her lips to her partner's and, unbelievably, the sensation became even more intense. Her thoughts were slowly but steadily being swallowed by a thick fog. Unable to control herself any longer, she moaned into Barriss' mouth.
As if suddenly having acquired a life of its own, one of Ahsoka's hands went straight for the Mirialan's chest.
She was jarringly brought out of the passionate haze by the almost painful grip that seized her wrist.
"We can't, Ahsoka," Barriss said firmly, no longer whispering.
After the surprise, hurt and shame quickly followed. Ahsoka tried to disengage herself from the embrace but couldn't.
"Don't." Barriss held fast.
"But…" Confusion took over Ahsoka's mind now.
She had forced herself on the girl she loved, trampled her trust. She had been rejected by the girl she loved, her touch unwanted, her affections discarded. She felt monstrous. She felt betrayed. There was a maelstrom of emotion growing out of control inside her head with each passing second. Her eyes began welling up.
Barriss hugged Ahsoka tightly and planted a firm kiss on her cheek.
"Stop," she commanded. "Don't think for a moment that I don't want it."
That brought the gears inside Ahsoka's head to a grinding halt. Of course Barriss understood the reason why she began spiraling out of control. However, that raised another question.
"Then?" she croaked.
"We absolutely cannot cross that line." Barriss shook her head for emphasis.
Ahsoka cleared her throat to ask why.
"With a more meaningful intimacy," Barriss continued, as if sensing the incoming question, "with a deeper physical connection, comes greater attachment. I think—"
Her voice broke into a sob. Barriss had been holding her tears back too, Ahsoka realized. She reciprocated the hug in earnest, trying with all her might to convey back all the comfort she had been receiving.
"I think that right now we can still be redeemed. Even if I already can't imagine my life without you." The last part was rushed out, and by the end, Barriss' voice had still sounded more like a wet sob.
Ahsoka, of course, was compelled to reassure the Mirialan.
"Neither can I," she said, letting her tears flow freely.
Emotionally exhausted, they fell asleep exactly as they were, clinging to each other for dear life.
The next morning, Ahsoka was rudely awakened by a delicate hand caressing her montrals. She hated every second of it with her entire being, obviously. So much so, that her cheeks hurt from all the loathing she was doing.
"Good morning," Barriss said. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and looking down at her with kind eyes.
Ahsoka rubbed her eyes and blinked several times, trying to get them to focus. Amazing how crying could leave you as bleary as an evening in Tattooine without goggles.
"You're already dressed?" she said, pointing out the obvious.
"Yes," Barriss replied anyway.
"Oh no," Ahsoka said, understanding finally dawning on her. "What time is it?"
"It's early, don't worry. I wake up even before Master Luminara."
Of course she did, Ahsoka thought, sighing contently at the ministrations on her head.
"Ahsoka." Barriss looked away, her tone serious.
"Yes?" A pang of fear gripped her heart.
"Will you sleep here every time we're on leave at the temple?"
Ahsoka began breathing again.
"Yes."
There was no other possible answer.
FIN
Author's Notes: This is obviously a happy AU. At least as far as Barriss' terrorism is concerned. She isn't going to turn into a huge jerk. And even if the thought of turning against the Jedi crossed her mind in this universe, she would never be able to betray Ahsoka. It would be tantamount to killing herself.
Did I mess up something horribly? This is my first time writing anything Star Wars, and despite being familiar with the canon, I wouldn't have risked it were it not because I dreamed this and it just wouldn't leave me alone.
As for the story, yes, they are done for. While Barriss is mostly right, she hasn't considered that there's exceptions, people who can reach a deeper connection without further physical intimacy.
If one of them dies, the survivor is going all caps dark side, no doubt about that. Hopefully, that won't happen.