a series of phan short-stories and one-shots, each story has a summary at the beginning so you know what you're getting yourself into --- credit for the cover goes to @xsillytilly

The year is 2096. The earth has seen two more world wars since 2016. The last war that destroyed a quarter of Canada and half of Japan, was enough to make the government enforce strict actions. Countries are now split, no communication at all between them. Humans now live in conglomerations of small pods stacked upon each other. Each person has their own space, but they're all confined to being underground. Half of the people living inside the pods have never seen natural sunlight. Birth rates are violently controlled due to the lack of space and pods constantly having to be built. Couples are allowed, but physical contact reaching past anything more than a hug is forbidden. Sex is strictly banned unless it is agreed by contract or an operation is done to assure a baby cannot be created. It's a tough life. It's a boring life. And it's a lonely one too. A life underground simply isn't good enough for some and sooner or later, you have to leave the shadows.

Dan is different. He's learned to accept that. Well, as best he can anyway, considering he's never really had much of a choice. It's been this way for as long as he can remember, the constant runaround process of trying to feel normal. His life is built around it, trying to trick both himself and everyone he interacts with into seeing him as your average person. The isolation as he desperately tries to keep others from finding out, the bitterness that wells up inside of him each and every time he's reminded that he'll never be like everyone else, the fear that nothing will ever change. He's fated to be this way forever; a misfit from society. Isolation can only go so far though, so when he's struggling to make ends meet and he's faced with the option of looking into a serious job or taking on a roommate, he opts for what seems like the easier option at the time. It doesn't seem so easy ten failed roommates into the process, or when he sits down at a table to meet with prospect number eleven and ends up with a coffee spilled all over his lap. Potential roommate number eleven, Phil, turns out to be an insufferable optimistic ball of sunshine that Dan wants nothing to do with. His options are running out though, as are the savings he's been using to pay his rent, so he finds himself begrudgingly agreeing to let the other man move in. Neither of them have any way of knowing just what they've gotten themselves into as they shake on the matter, but time will tell.