• His hotel room is thirty-three stories and, if he looks out of his window, the yellow cabs look like toy cars and the people look like ants marching up and down the sidewalks. They look insignificant. Thirty-three stories up in a fancy hotel room with a nice shower and a nice everything, Dan feels like a giant towering up above them, like a god looking down at all of creation. But he doesn't feel powerful or delighted and, instead, the childish elation he felt when the plane first touched down is replaced by a melancholic feeling weighing him down in the back of his mind.

    It turns out that thirty-three stories up, whilst alone, can makes someone feel both tiny and like the hero of Olympus. It's a dizzying effect.

    He's in the city that never sleeps, but New York does slow down at three in the morning and he almost missed the sounds of traffic. It's this kind of quiet that leaves him with way too much time for thinking.

    Eleven hours earlier, he had been in Times Square, swearing up and down that there is no place he'd rather live in that New York and he didn't even mind the fact that a total of eleven strangers brushed against him-- the busy atmosphere was filled with enough hustle and bustle that left very little room for the dreaded downward existential crisis spiral he's experiencing right now.

    His forehead is pressed against the cold window pane and he can see his breath fog up the glass. A part of him wishes that the windowsill was wide enough to fit his huddled figure, but this wasn't one of the more expensive suites in the hotel and he certainly wasn't in a cliche movie with the rain dripping down and a tear-worthy piano piece playing in the background. There is no empty, quite bar with some wise mentor figure waiting in the corner for him to offer him a beer and some advice once he gives up trying to force sleep.

    But there is Phil five stories up (and he can thank the fantastic last minute booking for that), probably busy dreaming and wrapped under the safety of unfamiliar hotel covers. In theory, Dan could call him, but he's not exactly in the mood to begin the intro of some cute phanfic and he's more interested in how much it'll cost for him to make and international call.

    She's five hours away and they're over three thousand miles apart.

    It'll be a little before eight and she'll probably still be asleep, but she's a fairly light sleeper and more than used to having Dan wake her up at odd hours, especially in the middle of a proper night's sleep. But, then again, this arrangement is just for a few nights, this one being the first, and, surely, him being a twenty something grown man ought to be able to handle sleeping alone in a strange city.

    He feel pathetic.

    A year ago, Dan had wanted to scream from the rooftops because, holy s**t, girls like her don't happen to guys like him, especially after only brief interactions filled with shameless flirting and tentative approaches, she was finally his.

    But he's not really the broadcasting type, as weird and contradictory as that sound, and he'd very much like to keep the late night conversations and good morning kisses a secret.

    So he's left with vague liveshow indications of that special someone in his life (that, of course, everyone speculates as more cute Phan proof) and cryptic tweets that were oh-so public-- a story of sorts with details pulled out.

    It's not that Dan can't sleep without her slow, measured breathing against his chest (he thinks it's cute how she inhales through her nose and exhales through her mouth) and her arm around his waist, mindlessly rubbing circles into his skin. He'll fall asleep eventually, catching a few hours of sleep, if he's lucky. But Dan doesn't want to curl up in bed cuddling his metaphorical demons shooting his brain into overdrive.

    He wants to stay awake late into the night with quiet whispers and her laying flush against him, acting like a shield for things like this. And, really, Dan can handle some time away from her-- hell, he's been doing it for years before they met-- but it's like the time he broke his wrist when he was riding his bike. The broken wrist wasn't unbearable, but it did make things harder. The dull pain nagged him for weeks and the cast was a major hindrance and he lost a good six-ish weeks of piano playing.

    But it wasn't unbearable, and life went on even thought it was a little harder.

    And that's kind of what it's like, being three thousand four hundred and fifty nine miles away from her. It won't last forever. Dan functions. Dan copes. It's just a little harder.

    He's well aware that this is just the night time winding its way around his thoughts and he knows that when he wakes up tomorrow and he and Phil go out for breakfast in the morning to eat pancakes that are twenty times larger than the pancakes he's used to, he'll feel better again. But right now, he's anything but, so he ignores the nagging thought of his cellphone bill and he picks up the phone and calls her anyway.

    She picks up after four rings and he almost feels guilty when he hears her voice, laced with sleep.

    "Hmm?"

    His voice is breathy and shallow. "Hey. It's me."

    "Yeah, I kinda figured. You're the only a*****e that calls me before noon."

    "Sorry."

    "Don't be."

    He can hear the smile in her voice and they both fall silent, listening to each other breathe.

    "How did I ever manage without you?" The line sounds cheesy and cliche and if it were any other time, he'd cringe at himself, but he's genuinely curious now. He can remember the first time they met (Vidcon, 2011) and the time when he properly asked her out (Vidcon, 2012) and Skype calls before and after and he even remembers their terribly embarrassing attempts at phone sex but he doesn't really remember the night before her. Not when she's become a regular fixture in his life.

    "You tell me. I for once was waiting all my life for a British dork to sweep me off my feet."

    "Glad I could be of service, m'lady." He laughs quietly, before whispering, "I love you," and holding his breath, waiting for a response.

    "I know. Now will you please stop doing that thing where you worry way too much for one person? I love you and I will love you for a long a** time. Now get your pretty a** to bed and get some sleep, will you?"

    A pause.

    "Dan?"

    "Yeah?"

    "I miss you. And I want you back home soon, okay?" She briefly considers actually spelling it out for him because she knows Dan and she knows he thinks that he's being too clingy for calling her in the middle of the night.

    "I love you."

    "I know. Same."

    It takes him eight minutes to get comfortable in bed after handing up. Another two to fit one of the pillows up against his chest just right. If he closes his eyes and pretends, it's almost like she's there with him.

    He falls asleep infinity better than he would have before.