Okay… couldn't sleep. Probably should get to bed.

But still.

Can't sleep.

So I wrote a M/K one shot (yes, all kinds of people will be delighted, despite my lack of rest… heathens). It will not be continued. It ends at the end. Thank you.

Edit: Revamped on a midnight whim. Enjoy.

Sanctuary
By Rurouni Star

"I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience."
-William Shakespeare

"It's coming…"

The thought fluttered through him. His hand clenched reflexively against the reality. His body tensed in hopeless preparation.

The winds invaded his mind. The blackness, the darkness, the awful feel of tearing… and the seductive whisper in his mind. Let go. Let go, it said.

Let-

Miroku sat up abruptly, his breathing hard and quick. The darkness was still there, grasping at his limbs in a cold tingle. His breathing sped up as he tried to push it back, find his center and his safety. It didn't move an inch- taunted him, in fact, by smothering his face and constricting his chest-

"Miroku-sama? Are you okay?"

The whisper cut through his whirling thoughts, jolting him out of half-dreamed terror. He took a breath- smiled uneasily as he realized that the darkness was real. It was night time, midnight time, and dark enough to touch the abyss. As his eyes adjusted, he became aware that small, twinkling lights broke up this particular darkness, shining through the trees from above. The panicked fluttering in his chest began to relax.

"I'm fine, Kagome-sama," he said. "Go back to sleep."

Miroku could barely see her outline- but he got the impression that she was blinking tiredly. A guilty twinge plucked at his heart. He'd woken her up.

"Oh," Kagome said sleepily. And that seemed to be that, for a moment- but then her pale-lit face glanced back toward him, and her voice gained a half-note of anxiety. "Are you sure?"

Miroku forced a chuckle. "Very sure. Unless you want to come sit next to me- in which case, I could be terribly distressed." The sentence carried an undertone that couldn't be missed.

"Mm," Kagome mumbled. It seemed she was giving the matter serious thought. "…I suppose."

There went that theory.

Kagome stumbled across the distance between them, steps crunching over dead leaves and grass. Her last awkward steps nearly brought her tumbling over him. He sighed in spite of himself when she caught her balance at the last minute. That could have been entertaining, and possibly pleasantly distracting.

Kagome yawned broadly, squeezing her eyes shut and opening them again as she settled herself down next to him on the forest floor. Miroku blinked. Unless he was seeing things… she was wearing something much more revealing than her normal schoolgirl uniform; an amazing accomplishment, to be sure.

Adjust, eyes- damn you, adjust!

Kagome made a tired noise and shivered slightly as a cold wind brushed across her skin.

Miroku thought: You poor, scantily-clad girl. Someone ought to warm you up, out of the generosity of his heart.

His heart still felt like a hole. Miroku pressed his lips together silently, all playful thoughts fled. He could still feel the icy fingers of something dark and painful, prying there inside his chest.

Kagome picked up on the brooding quiet almost immediately. "What's wrong, Miroku-sama?" she asked softly.

Miroku pushed dark thoughts away and smiled, though she couldn't see it in the darkness. "Just wondering if you were cold, dear Kagome. You have just come from a very warm blanket, after all."

This time he was sure she blinked. "Oh… yes. Sort of."

The corner of his mouth twitched, dragging the smile incrementally wider. "We'll have to remedy that, yes?" He moved to settle arms around her, draping cold skin with heavy robes. Kagome jerked in surprise as he pulled her close to him, closing his hands together where they met in front of her- a mock-saintly version of his usual prayer position. "There now. Much better, Kagome-sama."

His expectations from this point forward went something like this: the female's back would stiffen shortly in alarm and indignation. He would prepare himself to pull his arms and his face back at the very moment said female's hand made contact with his cheek. A morally annoyed woman would stalk away from him and back to her warm blanket, muttering about monks who couldn't help taking advantage of every little situation.

Kagome did not pull away. There was no tell-tale tensing in the spine, nor any high-pitched squeaking or angry yelling. Instead, there was the slightest, softest sigh of comfort and contentment as she leaned back into his warmth. It was, he supposed in shock, the happy and trusting familiarity of a friend who had been a friend quite long enough.

"You're right," Kagome murmured. "That's nice." There was a drowsy contentment in her voice.

Some growingly desperate part of him wanted to shake her awake- demand to know what painfully naive monster had taken the place of their dear Kagome. But some other, almost wistful part of him let the situation stay as it was: comfortable, and warm, and almost heart-achingly nice.

"What were you dreaming about?" Kagome asked him softly.

The comfortable situation ended.

Miroku let a patronizing tone sidle into his voice. "I did tell you nothing, didn't I?" he said.

Kagome smiled against him. "Yeah… but you're not a very good liar when you're spooked. Sort of like Inuyasha."

Miroku smiled sardonically. "I don't think he's ever a very good liar, Kagome-sama."

Kagome made a lazy, adorable sort of yawn. "Mmm. S'true."

Eck. The wonderfully lecherous thoughts he'd been having ground to a terrible and tragic halt. How was he supposed to take advantage of her when she was so- innocent, and trusting. And concerned. And trusting.

Damn you, conscience! he thought with narrowed eyes. I thought I'd killed you.

"So what were you dreaming about?" Kagome repeated sleepily. Miroku gave up the inner conflict with a sigh of resignation. He was, he concluded, bound to be a good man occasionally. A requirement of the job.

"Miroku?" There was a soft prod at his arm. Miroku concluded secondly that Kagome simply was not going to let things lie. Her sleep clothing might have been deceptively attractive, but it hid tonight a distinctly unattractive inquisitiveness. It was something he found endearing during the day, when it was someone else's problem.

But… well. Why not? She probably wouldn't even remember in the morning. And if she did, he was going to be in a lot more trouble for other things.

"…the curse," he said finally. "It's rather hard to forget about- insistent, you might say." He tried to say it with a note of wry humor, but the words didn't sound wry. They sounded weary, and sad.

Kagome paused, long and hard. Miroku sighed. Ah, yes. Now I recall why I generally avoid this subject.

"…this isn't a dream, is it?" Kagome said. She sounded suddenly very sober and very awake.

Miroku blinked and shook his head.

The female's spine stiffened predictably. "Oh." Miroku sighed again, and readied the appropriate defense mechanisms. Well. It simply wasn't a good night if he wasn't sporting a bright red mark on his cheek, was it?

Kagome caved in on herself a little bit, catching him terribly off-guard. Her eyes dropped to her lap, shame and worry warring in her profile. "I am... I'm so sorry, Miroku. I shouldn't have..." Asked. Bothered you. Gotten up and exercised my damnable concern. Any of these responses, Miroku thought, were equally valid.

Kagome moved, delicate and careful, to extract herself from that friendly warmth. Miroku frowned- damn you for being sweet and caring- and dragged her back against him again. He pressed a smile back onto his lips, and leaned forward to murmur in her ear. "And what do you dream about, Kagome-sama?" he asked, with a hint of playful suggestiveness.

She mumbled something, embarrassed, beneath her breath.

Miroku raised an eyebrow, and leaned in further over her shoulder. "What was that?" he prompted.

Kagome bit her lip. "Um… I'm not going to say. Because I'm not that great a liar either." She turned her eyes to his, very blue and very serious. "Do you need to talk?"

There was, Miroku concluded, no way to wrest that particular bone away from her. For such a cheerful person, Kagome was being rather resistant to his attempts to lighten the situation.

"No," he stated firmly. "I'm fine."

Kagome's brow creased, and he noticed that he could now see her rather well. Her new clothing, however, was holding little interest at the moment.

"You're not," she sighed finally. He felt her delicate touch on his right hand, her palm brushing over the place where skin met with clinking beads. Her eyes saddened, and he found himself inexplicably caught in them. Small fingers curled around his, weaving over glove and skin.

Miroku swallowed. "What would make you say that?" he asked. His voice was still off-balance. It was getting to be a very bad problem.

Kagome slipped her fingers between his. "Because you're shaking," she said quietly.

Miroku realized that he was, indeed, trembling slightly. Had been doing so since he had woken.

Kagome turned entirely, pressing her head to his chest. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. Again. It was all she could offer as condolence.

It was something close to enough, right now.

"I will endure," Miroku said with a gentle smile. "Bravely, and with the attentions of a pretty girl to distract me." Kagome smiled slightly at that. He felt his heart lift inexplicably at the expression.

And then- because he was, after all, incorrigible: "I told you the truth. So why don't you tell me what you've been dreaming about, Kagome-sama?"

Her eyes closed- her breathing hitched slightly, then continued steadily again, fluttering like tiny kisses across his neck. "I... things like this," she whispered. It was barely distinctive against the heavy cloth of his robe. Embarrassment colored the words.

It was just vague enough to be confusing. And somewhat... gratifying. Her hand was still on his, fingers knitted through-and-through. And for just a moment, Miroku thought he could feel the warm pad of her thumb brush at his very cold heart.

Words came to mind. Were dismissed. And after those, no others suggested themselves. His mind stayed blank.

Kagome relaxed slowly, as it became clear that no humiliating reply was forthcoming. Her breathing steadied out between those little moments. That spine, no longer stiff and agitated, began to curl and pull her body closer to his. Miroku kept his hands where they were: one still praying and one quietly stolen in the night.

"Kag- Kagome-sama?" he said finally. "Did you mean..."

Her eyes were closed. Incredibly, her eyes were closed, and she was curled into him, like a little blooming spot of warmth. Miroku felt, very suddenly, that he was holding something terribly valuable and worryingly delicate against his chest.

Kagome was such a very fragile sanctuary. A generous, a caring, but such an easily injured wisp of girl.

He let her be- soaked up that momentary warmth, deep into the abandoned cracks in his soul. He stored it, carefully and quietly, until he felt himself overfill with that near-crippling sentimentality. Even as it settled there, he felt a fresh and nearly painful burst of something new and hot and worrying. And he convinced himself, finally, that there was a point to patience– namely Inuyasha's, once he woke up.

Gingerly, Miroku moved himself to pick her up, hoping against hope not to wake her again in the case that she might see something in his eyes that he had yet to properly find a way to hide. He padded to her empty mishmash of blankets- settled her in, with care. Her hair was tangled, spilt haphazardly around her and grabbing at the twigs that littered the ground. It gave her an earthly look more befitting of her nature than the strange otherworldliness that surrounded Kikyo. He slipped them out here and there, carefully ignoring the thought, knowing that there would be sighs and pouts over the knots in the morning if he didn't.

Miroku bent his head to hers, his breath soft and shivering. He pressed his lips to her forehead for just a moment– that friendly, almost-permissible gesture- then pulled back and decided to change his resting spot for the night.

He sat down against the log near her bed and stared up at the bits of sky visible through the tree branches above. Kagome's relaxed breathing was contagious, and oddly soothing, and he soon found himself matching her easy rhythm.

For just that moment between sleeping and waking, a traitorous thought flitted through his darkening mind.

Do you dream about me, Kagome?

It settled a light yearning into the warmth that lingered in his heart, as he fell into a usually elusive and very deep sleep.

His dreams were uncharacteristically good.