Dan half-listened as the minister spoke at the podium. His hands ran over the smooth surface of the folded paper he'd been holding tightly since the beginning of the service. As he looked around, he noticed the abundance of black clothing; in any other situation, he'd have felt right at home.
He felt strangely calm, considering the circumstances that had brought him to this moment. He could remember it all too well, sitting on the sofa in their shared lounge, waiting for Phil to get home so they could begin filming the next installment for their gaming channel. He could remember the way his phone began vibrating when he got the call. He'd known something was wrong before he answered; Phil's mum had never rung him before. Not this late in the evening.
"Daniel Howell has prepared a few words," said the minister, snapping Dan's attention back to the present. The paper shook slightly in his hands as he stood up from the pew in the front row. He made his way to the podium slowly, trying not to look as he passed the coffin. He knew he'd lose it if he saw, and he wanted so badly to get through this without making a scene.
His fingers smoothed the page over the podium's surface, crinkling softly. He cleared his throat once, twice, and then his mouth opened.
"I've never been very good at this," Dan said, looking around. He caught sight of his mum sitting halfway back, watching with a tiny smile. She knew how hard this would be for him, but Dan needed the closure it would bring.
"It still feels like some kind of horrific nightmare," he continued, glancing down at his notes. "I feel like I'm going to wake up all of a sudden and find him in the kitchen, making a mess with his coffee." A few chuckles rang out in the room then, sounding strange in the midst of so much sadness. Dan's eyes scanned the room again and landed on Phil's mum, who was sat next to where Dan had been a moment ago.
"I never thought I'd find someone like him. I spent the first eighteen years of my life being the third wheel. I wasn't anyone's favorite." Dan's eyes glazed over for a moment as he recalled the many times he'd felt left out. "I didn't expect anything to come of it when I started watching his videos. I didn't really expect to be successful when I started stalking him, either." More chuckles floated around, and Dan took a deep breath. He hoped he'd get through this in one piece. "I was in a pretty dark place when we met for the first time. I was struggling with a depression that seemed to be swallowing me whole, and I didn't see any possible way to crawl out of it."
"So many people on the internet consider him to be the physical embodiment of the sun." Dan didn't miss the way he'd just used the present-tense for his deceased friend, but he couldn't bring himself to correct it. "And he is. He truly is a walking ray of sunshine, and that was what I needed then. I mean, it's kind of impossible to feel sorry for yourself when you're always talking to a person who only sees the best in everything." He sighed heavily and felt a shudder roll through his body. He chewed his lip, trying to decide what to say next.
"I remember in one of my videos," he began, "I was doing this bit where I give bad advice to people. I would have them send in their problems- I don't even know if they were actual problems- but I'd read them off and then tell them what to do about it. Most of the entries were terrifying, but there was a girl who sent in a little story about how she didn't have any close friends, and she always felt like the third wheel. I said, 'I didn't have a best friend for the first eighteen years of my life, but one day you will find that companion.'"
A few sniffles could be heard by this point, and Dan scanned the room once more to compose himself. He glanced to his right, where a collage of photos had been set up on a table. He could see himself in many of them, standing beside the man who had practically saved his life.
"I dread to think about the future without him," Dan said, "but to give up would be saying that his presence in my life meant nothing to me. It would be saying that all those videos floating around were just a job, which couldn't be further from the truth. To be honest, I don't know how I'm going to be able to do it without him." Dan could feel himself slipping into that darkness, that place he didn't want people to see here. It couldn't be helped, though. It would be okay.
"Phil was the one who made me realize that I'm good at something," he concluded. "I was his biggest fan, and I still am." He paused a moment, took a deep breath, and then said, "He was the one who made me feel like I'm worth something, and for that, I'll always be grateful. He's my best friend, and I'm his, and I can't even begin to describe what it feels like to be that person in someone's life. I honestly don't know…what I'm going to do now." The first tears were threatening to spill down his cheeks, but he opened his mouth once more. "I know what he wants me to do, so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep doing what we both love, and I'm going to try to be the light in someone's life, the way he was in mine."
His eyes finally fell on the coffin lid, blocking his view of the face that he knew would cause him to unravel. In a way, he was grateful for this, because he didn't want to cry in front of all these people, no matter how socially acceptable it might be to do so. He stepped down from the podium and began walking back to his seat, and as he passed, he twisted his head ever so slightly.
Next to Phil's head were three things: a stuffed lion, the Polaroid photos they'd taken for the book, and a small potted cactus. Dan couldn't help but smile as he saw these things. It had been his idea to put them there, and he would almost swear that Phil was smiling, too.