Constantly bullied for being gay, Phil has no one, until misunderstood bad boy Dan befriends him and they start an unlikely relationship that everyone considers doomed.

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.

Dan Howell is a timid boy, who always does as he is told. He was once friends with Phil Lester, the 'bad influence' who soon ditches Dan for the popular group in Year 7. After five years of not talking to each other, they're partnered in a project and Phil's wants to win Dan over just like he has with most of their year. But yet, Dan is determined to find out what Phil is hiding behind his arrogant mask.

Phil was mute. He had been since he was 13 after he'd been bullied and picked on at his old school. It first started with he didn't talk to people at school. Then his family. Then no one ever. His mum thought it best to switch Phil to a different school. New school, new people, new chances. But no one could have knew what would happen when Dan Howell walked into his life.

Phil is an orphan, bullied, and living alone with no friends in a home. He does his best not to let that fact that no one seems to care about him get to him, but it's getting harder. Then a nice couple start to take interest in him, and it turns out they have a son his age, Daniel, but the love they begin to share isn't of a brotherly nature...