Title: Sensitive

Author: Margaret Newman

Author Email: mereridkat@aol.com

Rating: PG

Pairings: Jim/Blair

Status: Complete

Date: 08/05/01

Disclaimers: I don't own the guys, just borrowing them. Not making any money at this whatsoever.

Category: Established Relationship, PWPish

Summary: Jim and Blair in the grocery store encounter a woman with a special little boy.

Sensitive

By Margaret Newman

"No, baby, this way." The woman in front of them called to the little boy. He was big, looking like he was four or five, but Blair could tell he was wearing a diaper. The little boy cupped hands over his ears and still walked the way he wanted. The woman sighed, leaving the cart to grab his arm and pull him back over to where she wanted to go. Not knowing she had an audience, she knelt down and took his hands down off his ears. "You know you have to follow me. That was our agreement. You can walk in the store as long as you follow me." He wasn't looking up at her, so she gently gripped his chin and moved his head until his eyes met hers. "I know you heard me, Kyle. I know you understand me. You can play games with the therapists, but not me. You stay by my side and I won't make you ride in the cart."

Then, interestingly, she made some grunting noises. What really floored Blair was that the little boy, Kyle, grunted back at her. She smiled, kissing his forehead and standing up. He watched them walk off, disappearing from view when she turned down the canned vegetable aisle.

"Jim?" Blair asked without looking back. He knew his partner was behind him scrutinizing the end display of pasta.

"Do you like angel hair better than regular pasta?" Jim asked without looking up from his study. "The regular spaghetti is on sale, but angel hair is…"

"Jim, get angel hair. You get the regular stuff, I have to hear you gripe for the next week." Blair turned around and smiled up at him. "What was it like for you as a kid? What's your earliest memory of your senses being different from everyone else's?"

"Oh, no you don't!" Jim shook the bag of angel hair at him. "You aren't going to distract me from grocery shopping so you can more weird shit! I'm getting Cheetos whether you like it or not! And

Cheerios!"

"Geez." Blair rolled his eyes.

*

The next time Blair saw them, she was caring Kyle out of the household cleaner aisle. The boy had his face pressed into the side of her neck. His little body was all pulled in tight, knees in her

ribs, hands clasped over his ears.

"I told you not to go down there. You know those smells are bad for you." She told him, walking back to the cart. She pushed it along with one hand. He must have made some noise because she rubbed his back, and said, "Shush, it's okay. We're getting to paper goods now. No scents. Think about our camping trip. Remember how the forest smelled? You liked that, remember?"

"Blair, I need another bottle of vinegar." Jim nudged him. "Go get one, will you? A big one this time, and none of that funny red wine stuff."

"Sure, sure." Blair nodded, heading off. The wheels in his head were spinning.

*

They were standing in the cereal aisle, Blair keeping his mouth shut about Jim's choice. Two elderly women that they saw regularly in the neighborhood were talking, carts side by side.

"Did you see Jenny with her nephew? It's so sad. She just doesn't want to admit defeat." Mrs. Allen commented, shaking her head.

"He's getting so big too. What's going to happen when he's older? When he starts to, you know, *grow*?" Mrs. Lewis sighed worriedly. "Jenny certainly is a big girl, but really. He's going to

be a danger to everyone. I heard his father had wanted to institutionalize him…" She leaned forward to whisper that last bit.

"It would have been so much easier." Mrs. Allan nodded, agreeing.

"You done, Chief?" Jim grunted, "I'm heading around to snacks. I'm getting me some of those Little Debbie…"

"Jim, for God's sake!" Blair hurried after him.

"Ha!" Jim rushed around the corner making Blair jog to catch up.

*

"You got more tofu?" Jim grumbled as he looked over the items in their cart. Blair rested his forearms on the handle of the cart. "You haven't used up all that crap from last time."

"It's not crap, Jim. It's good for you. You ate some in the miso soup I made the other night." Blair sighed patiently.

"That was before I knew what the white floaty things were." Jim glanced up at him with narrowed eyes. He should have known better to taste first without asking. When Blair said 'don't worry, it's fine', he should have known it would be something strange. He noticed the young woman with the little boy that Blair had been watching was in line behind them. She seemed to be amused by their conversation.

"You know a good recipe for tofu?" She asked when she caught Jim smiling at her.

"No, what?" He replied and Blair turned to see whom he was talking to. Kyle was sitting in the seat of the cart with a hardback book in his lap. He was turning page by page carefully. It wasn't a children's book, it was some John Grisham novel.

"You fry it up, use some olive oil, get it all nice and crispy…"

"Yeah?" Blair frowned, having tried that before and wondering if she had some twist to the recipe.

"-and you make someone else eat it." She ended, grinning.

Jim laughed. "Hey, I like that recipe!"

"Geez, don't encourage him!" Blair laughed, too, shaking his head.

A new cashier line opened up, and the store manager guided Jenny's cart to it. They didn't see her again until the parking lot. Then something interesting happened. At the same time that Jim froze, his face grimacing in pain -and Blair said automatically, "dial it down, man, dial it down"- he saw Kyle still in the cart scream and clapped his hands over his ears. Jenny was there in a flash, wrapping her arms around him, and murmuring to him.

"What did you hear?" Blair asked Jim a second later.

"Car alarm went off. A real shrill one." Jim shook his head, heaving another bag of groceries into the back of the truck. "Took me by surprise. I hate the damn things."

"Yeah." Blair nodded, "Me, too."

They passed Jenny's faded red Jeep Cherokee on the way out of the parking lot. Blair noticed that Kyle sat in his car seat with the book, and headphones. "Jim, what's Kyle listening to?" Blair asked, touching Jim's arm to get his attention.

"What?" Jim frowned at first, and then saw what Blair meant. He concentrated a second. "Nothing. It's just a tape of white noise."

"Really." Blair nodded and waved at Jenny.

*

"You still want to know what it was like for me as a kid?" Jim asked as he walked up the stairs to the loft. Blair was already in bed, his laptop turned on and humming. "New house rule. No computers in bed, Chief."

Jim pulled back the covers and Blair had to pick up the laptop or lose it. That's when Jim discovered Blair was nude. Well, he grinned. He dropped his sweats before crawling in.

"Yeah, I want to know about your early childhood." Blair signed off and shut down his laptop. He handed it to Jim who set it on the floor by the bed. "I'd love to hear anything you want to share."

"I don't remember being like Kyle, but I remember feeling different very early." Jim turned off the lamp on the nightstand. "For as long as I can remember, I've been sensitive to loud sounds, bright lights, strong smells. I used to get a headache every time my mom wore this red suit. You know, it only occurred to me a while after meeting you that it wasn't the red suit. It was the perfume she wore with that red suit."

"Do you know what it was?" Blair sat facing Jim, his left hand resting on Jim's thigh.

"Tabu." Jim wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"Whoa! That's a bad one!" Blair shook his head. He leaned forward and kissed Jim lightly on the lips. "I appreciate you sharing with me."

"Those elderly women? Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Lewis?" Jim stroked Blair's head, pulling him back down for another kiss. "They suspect we're, you know…" He wiggled his right hand, his wrist quite limp.

"Oh, no!" Blair gasped in horror, his hand slipping underneath the covers to caress his particular favorite part of Jim's anatomy. "You mean…?"

"Yes, I'm sorry." Jim shivered, his eyelids half-closing. "Blair, we're… we're fruity."

"No, dear god, no!" Blair cried out, hiding his face against Jim's chest. "They'll never let us in the grocery store now." His lips found Jim's left nipple. "We're doomed."

"Be strong, dear." Jim shivered again, grinning.

END