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Faceless, Gray Losers

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When Francis first started seeing the faceless gray people, he decided maybe he needed some sleep and that insomnia really was a giant bitch. When they began to command things of him he felt compelled to do, he stopped drinking alcohol for the entirety of eight hours and seriously contemplated going to church.

After the initial shock and disturbance wore off, and horror turned to annoyance and from annoyance to horror again. The gray people (who insisted they be referred to as 'Anonymous', collectively) followed him around his house and on his daily errands making comments and asking him to do things ("Oh! Francis, you have to do a cartwheel in the middle of this grocery store right now!" and "Francis! You have to slap the ass of the next person you see!")

If Francis wasn't completely indifferent to the opinions of other people, he might have actually been embarrassed. Still, he doesn't go to that particular grocery store anymore.

It hadn't been too bad until the Anonymous decided that he was lonely (he wasn't) and depressed (he wasn't) and needed a love life (the very last thing on earth he needed, actually). They asked him what he liked in a person and who he liked if anyone and if he were ever in love. They cooed over him when they thought he was sad (which was kind of insulting. He wasn't sad, that's just the way he looks) and suggested people he could date. In a certain light, the Anonymous looking out for him and wanting to make him happy was almost cute in a way.

Cute, up until the point when they began to reverently request that he molest his best friend.

"Francis! You have to touch Arthur's legs!" many of them had said, and then, as per usual, the urge and horror set in. It was positively horrifying watching himself in an almost out-of-body experience running his hands over Arthur's (maybe-kind-of-sort-of-really nice) exposed legs (exposed legs because Arthur had some of the Anonymous of his own. That was little comfort, because Francis wasn't sure he was interested in being as crazy as the fairy-loving boy). "Francis! You have a powerful urge to kiss Arthur!" Oh, yeah, that. Wasn't that just the most delightful thing? "Francis! You're incredibly horny right now!" …well, yeah, actually, that was fun. He won't deny that. It may have almost ruined his extremely long friendship with one of his only friends, but the satisfaction outweighed that. A little. Overall, though, requests and urges to do things and say things he didn't want to were driving him up the wall.

(If Francis used them as an excuse to justify some of his more questionable acts, no one was the wiser)

Francis thought that maybe if it had been kept at that, the touching and the kissing and the fucking, it would have been alright. Maybe. Touching and kissing and fucking were some of his favorite pastimes, and Arthur, as annoying as he may be, wasn't an unattractive man at all (and not being an unattractive man was one of the few requirements for a one night stand in Francis' book). If it had all just stayed like that, he probably could have handled the awkward chats and the public humiliation.

But true to their word, the Anonymous weren't just looking to get him laid: they wanted him to find someone to love. Francis had scoffed at this notion. He'd initially been convinced that the gray people were sadistic, ghost serial killers trying to drive him mad. Now he was pretty sure they were just unfortunately gray teenage girls or middled-aged women hooked on romance novels with shining, grandiose ideas of true love in their minds. He really couldn't say for sure, though. They all talked in that weirdly ambiguous voice and lacked basic defining features.

The questions and commands stopped being about sex or attraction and started being about love and Arthur and being in love with Arthur. Francis insisted that wasn't what he wanted, but the more he did that the more they accused him of lying. So he decided to not deny anything and just ignore it. They accused him of denial even more. He lost patience and ranted and raved about the absurdity of it all. They just ignored it and kept asking and asking and asking.

And the only thing that asking and pestering and commanding did was make Francis unsure about himself, which he hated. The Anonymous were getting in his head and messing things around, putting in ideas and fairy tales he would never rationally believe otherwise. His feelings were one way one day and completely different the next. They were relentless in their requests and accusations, and Francis was sure he'd soon go mad.

(Perhaps there was the smallest, tiniest, most minute inkling of truth in their words, hidden deep inside him, but neither they nor Francis could reach whatever it was. But that was probably just the confusion he'd grown used to as of late talking.)

Arthur's Anonymous, who were much nicer and more level-headed from what Francis could see, also seemed in on it with Francis's Anonymous (Francis vaguely wondered if there was some sort of Anonymous Guild, but that thought did nothing more than make him paranoid and drink a little of cognac). They dropped occasional hints about Francis to him ("Did you know Francis is sad? Maybe you should go visit him!" even though he really, really wasn't. "Arthur! Francis has been mauled by a pack of wild watermelons, go help him!" …that had actually been true. Things like getting mauled by wild packs of watermelons was, unfortunately, common place now.). Arthur, ever polite, was much better at humoring them than Francis was. While Francis enjoyed his alone time immensely, but the occasional (Anonymous-induced) drop in from Arthur wasn't the worst thing in the world.

(And that maybe confused him even more, so he stopped thinking about it and started drinking a little more).

So, yeah, maybe there were some good points about them. They weren't all mad, raving, perverted, possible serial killer teenaged/middle-aged women. Some of them sympathized with him and offered him gifts and encouragement. He liked those the best (well, he may have been lying. He rather preferred the bunch who ignored him in favor of watching his TV), but since they all looked the same he could never point them out. And, okay, maybe the annoying ones, the love-obsessed ones, weren't too bad either, sometimes. They stroked his ego a little bit with their confidence that someone would be able to love him (it wasn't true at all, but it was nice to hear). Still, even when they were being more tolerable, he voiced his want for them to all leave and explained just how little he cared for them all. They were just a bunch of faceless, gray losers anyway. His life may have been a little less exciting before they came along, but that meant absolutely nothing to him in the grand scheme of things.

(Later, Francis learned there was actually a switch that could be flicked to get rid of the faceless grays forever. He maybe sort of pretends he forgot that advice on his way to apologize and kiss an Anonymous-afflicted Arthur).