A/N - I do not now nor have I ever owned the PPGs, I promise

This is technically a blues fic, but it doesn't have to be romance. I won't tell you what I consider it to be. Nice readers will review plz and thanks.


She'd always had trouble sleeping without something to hold.

Monsters and bad guys were nothing at all during the day. She was strong enough to beat whatever was thrown at her in the daytime. It was the night that worried her, it always had, and still did all these years later. Fortunately, she discovered early on that she could sleep much easier with something to hold on to. The object itself didn't really matter, it could be Octi (before he'd become a bit too fragile), or a pillow, or one of her sisters, almost anything would do. Almost.

This made it all the more concerning that nothing was helping her sleep tonight.

She had tried everything she could think of. She snuggled her favorite pillow, she snuggled into her fleece blanket, she snuggled into one of her more durable stuffed animals.

Nothing.

At midnight she wandered into Blossom's room and cuddled with her for a bit, but before she could fall completely Blossom began talking in her sleep. As smart as Blossom was, not even slumber could calm her brain to the point of relaxation. She slipped away before she could be assaulted with more sleep algebra.

When she prodded a snoring Buttercup at half past, her sister didn't even look at her. The dark haired girl merely lifted the sheet and scooted over to make room. This worked for a while, and she was close to sleep when Buttercup started thrashing. She dodged the fist that was headed for her face and left her sister to fight the battle she was waging in her dream.

Not wanting to wake the overtired Professor, she went back to her room, resigned to sleeplessness.

At 1 AM she heard a tap at the window and rolled her eyes. She strode over prepared to shoo him away, like she had done so many times before when he came knocking at ungodly hours. But because his eyes were so earnest when he told her he needed to talk to someone because he couldn't sleep she let him stay. It was because she didn't plan on getting any sleep that she let him kick off his sneakers and sit on the bed with her.

He was a kindred spirit in insomnia, so she humored him and let him chat on and on as she gave him a listening ear. As he talked he got comfortable, eventually leaning back against her headboard and talking himself right to sleep. She smiled and wondered if Brick bopped him on the head so often because nothing else would get him quiet while he was awake.

She moved to wake him, because she would never hear the end of it from her family if they were found alone together at this hour. It was because he looked so peaceful and still, so unlike the way he usually was as he talked and laughed and joked in the daytime, that she instead tentatively snuggled against him. It was because his breathing was slow and rhythmic that she stayed there. She grabbed hold of his shirt and listened to his lullaby of a heartbeat.

It was because he was still and warm and so like a giant stuffed animal that she finally fell asleep, making a mental note that she desperately needed to wake up before her sisters and the professor in the morning.