Because he's never properly appeared in a single one of Zaedah's Fringy fics, I humbly present Agent Charlie Francis...

Cult in A Minor

How does one age and regress simultaneously?

If behavior is subject to company kept, clearly Agent Dunham's psyche has been entertaining a rampant circus. The constancy defining a woman of substance has come abruptly unhitched, spiking and crashing with events. He blames the others; the madman and the criminal. Insanity may be hereditary, but proximity has done her no favors. And he, the long-tenured partner, watches as Olivia steps into the skin of a stranger and the familiar surfaces become tainted with the sinewy stretches of reason. And yet…

When locked away in the confines of this new refuge, a comfort with this illogical transformation flourishes. No longer is justice and regulation the view from her window. Among others so contrary to what she had been, a kinship is formulated that leaves no room for former associations. When need of Charlie's services arises, his talents are sought with tones of old. But every story is given in Cliffsnotes. Over strong brews they used to commiserate from the perspective of two people living the same day. But normal has gone the way of the Macarena. Told only as much as to assure his aid, the details are sacred objects heaped upon the altar of strange science.

A cult, he thinks of them now.

Like every good sect, they are committed to insulating themselves from the world, preferring to huddle together over impossibilities. And the notion of a fifth wheel was invented for him. Whatever topic presides, the words are stilled when he arrives. Agents used to stick to their own kind, he wants to remind her with all the rancor of a sibling abandoned for new playmates. Bitterness is churned into his feelings toward her where once something approaching amorous had been his heart.

It is a concerto that greets a coffee-bearing Charlie today, evoked from ivory by fingers that may coax things from Olivia as well. He likes to think he'd know if they were intimate and fancies she rebukes Bishop the Younger. Still, the man tells her this piece, a complex work in A minor, is his favorite and with her smile she covets the nugget of personal knowledge. She craves more such details, holding them as sacred objects and Charlie cannot forgive this new religion. To forsake him is one thing. To do so for riffraff is quite another.

Retracing his steps silently, Charlie returns to the world with one extra coffee and one less partner.

Dedicated to WJObsessed, who I know will be posting her first story soon. Hint Hint.