1.
David Rossi wasn't a man of too many words, but he was always honest with himself, always knew what to say. He didn't hide from his own emotions or pretend to be anything but what he was. But now, when it was most important, he didn't know how to put what he felt into words. His emotions were too powerful; he'd never felt anything so all-consuming yet tentative.
His forehead thudded painfully onto his desk. "Some writer I am."
He didn't understand why he had the sudden urge to write it all down, but damn if his fingers weren't itching. He cursed under his breath and lifted his head to stare at his computer. His editor had finally browbeaten him into using one instead of his beloved typewriter, which now sat dejected on an end-table next to the couch behind him.
He swung his chair around to look at it. It stared back, somehow both forlorn and aloof. He felt ridiculous. He was in the middle of a Mexican standoff and he was pretty sure the typewriter was winning.
Mudgie lifted his head off his paws and wined at him, tail thumping the floor.
"Silence, you." His tail wagged harder. "You know, no one else will read it. I don't have to save it on the computer." Damn it, he was talking to himself. Well, Mudgie was listening, but Dave was pretty sure the dog wasn't going to respond. He eyed his friend.
"You think I should use the typewriter, don't you?" Nothing.
"Fine." He swung back to his laptop, turned it off, set it out of the way, and walked over to the typewriter and hefted it up. It was heavy; an old Underwood that his brother had given him for his birthday over 25 years ago. He snorted in derision. For his twenty-fifth birthday, actually.
He set it as carefully as possible on the desk, perfectly in front of his chair. Settling down he ran his fingers over the keys he remembered fondly, like an old lover he had explored in the dark, her secrets known only to the pads of his fingers. He quickly inserted a sheet of paper then glanced down at Mudgie who had resettled next to his chair.
"Better start at the beginning, huh boy?" All he got in response was the sleepy snort of a content animal.
"I knew I should have gotten a cat. Beginning it is then." He soothed his hesitations and began, instantly set at ease by the auditory and tactile sensation of pounding out his thoughts.
I went back to the BAU hoping to close parts of my past that had been unanswered for twenty years. And I did; I closed cases, reestablished friendships, and addressed my past failures. But I got more than I expected, a lot more. A family. Even when I was happy in my three marriages I never had the sense of family that I found with the BAU. It's a strong and heady thing and leads a man to drop his guard, to share parts of himself that he thought were safely locked away, to hope for things a fifty year old man should be too old to hope for.
A/N: This is definitely a WIP. I'll try to finish and update quickly, but I can't guarantee the muse will cooperate.