Acknowledgements: The characters herein are those of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but used in the spirit of Gatiss and Moffat's adaptation. As such, they are not mine - if they were, they'd be far less coherent.

What John defines as a 'quiet day' has changed somewhat, thanks to Sherlock. Where once a morning could be comfortably filled with a newspaper and a brisk walk to collect some milk, it would now seem entirely lacking in substance; anything less than a fully-fledged murder investigation seems a paucity of activity these days, and this fact worries John considerably. This is not to say that he dislikes inactivity - being bored is a condition he grew to respect greatly during the war, it representing a state in which one is assured that he is not in danger of being killed with any urgency, and one should never sneer at the chance to sit down and watch the world go by uninterrupted. John worries not because he is bored, but rather because Sherlock is. A bored Sherlock is dangerous.

You can't come up against an innovative criminal genius every day of the week and not expect to eventually run out of sadists to play with. Winter was driving away even the most hardened of miscreants, and this wet, interminable tuesday represented the nadir of a particularly dry spell. Sherlock was dealing with the enforced lassitude by sorting through a box delivered by one of Mycroft's cronies the night before. It was marked, somewhat intriguingly - to John's mind at least, he was sure Sherlock's comprehension had been so fast as to remove any kind of suspense from the matter – 'Representative Headgear'. No explanation had been given for its arrival. Sherlock wouldn't have it any other way.

"Fetch me a knife, John. A long one. I've a curious feeling that I won't care about damaging the contents of this."

John did as he was told, content with the excuse to move, and handed Sherlock the most unwieldy looking knife from their cutlery drawer. He thought it looked remarkably like the murder weapon from a recent case, and that Sherlock gripped the thing so gingerly would suggest that he was correct.

John shuddered.

"I need to get out of here, it's too warm and everything in this bloody flat is worrying. Do you need anything from the shop? The corner shop? No chemicals, Sherlock, I know what you're thinking."

"John, my dear, you know nothing of the sort. Now leave, if you must, but do it quietly. This will require my full attention."

"Right. Yes. The nicotine patches are in the bread bin, if your full attention isn't quite enough. I'll be twenty minutes. Don't blow anything up."

Sherlock watched from the corner of his eye as John pulled on a pair of quite unattractive trainers, knotted one of Sherlock's scarves – curious – around his throat, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Representative headgear. Mycroft, you wonderful man.

One of Sherlock's great pleasures as a child had been dressing up. A favourite amongst his many prodigious talents, he excelled at mimicry – not the most noble of the thespian arts, he would agree, but certainly one of the more satisfying. Mycroft had ridiculed him for it, and so had the boys at school, and so in order to carry on with the minimum of interruption Sherlock had devised a party piece to give the act an air of novelty. He would take the hat of a member of whatever group he was performing to, place it on his head, and throw himself into the task of recreating its owner as fully as he could, with no clues given aside from those afforded by their cap. It worked on two levels, really – Sherlock could carry on playing, thus allowing him the continued enjoyment of one of the few unintellectualised hobbies he had, and at the same time increase his reputation for brilliance. And he did so love doing that.

The box, he had guessed the moment he signed for it, contained a few items he recognised from such games. Most of them held no interest – he had understood their characters years ago, and now they were merely musty pieces of ephemera, devoid of any entertainment. These he thrust aside, making a mental note to offer their usage to John, who would surely welcome some more shapeless beige into his wardobe. He did seem to rather like that sort of thing. After a brief appraisal, he tossed hat after hat over his shoulder, cringing slightly as a particularly robust Stetson clipped one of Mrs Hudson's prized statuettes. He was beginning to suspect Mycroft was just fobbing a box of junk off on him, when right at the bottom, between a pale frilled bonnet and a grey beret, he saw it.

It fit perfectly. Sherlock stood, a spring in his step not seen since he last had cause to call Lestrade an idiot, and mounted the coffee table, eager to give the thing the stature it deserved. The glass frame of a dark print provided him with a convenient mirror, and gleefully, he preened.

Sherlock was still admiring himself when John returned, blue and white striped bag hanging from the crook of his arm as he struggled with cane and keys. He grumbled to no one in particular about the indignity of it all, not expecting Sherlock to hear or care, and was preparing an admonishing speech for him when he rounded the corner at the top of the staircase and caught sight of his flatmate on the coffee table, atop a mound of old fashioned hats, still largely oblivious of his presence, a motheaten Deerstalker pulled tightly over his ears.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes," he stated, with an air of exasperated confirmation, as if John was so stupid as to consider him disguised by his new accessory. Apparently satisfied with the view of the left side of his head, he swung his jaw and began to arrange the curls around his right ear.

"Sherlock," John began again, entering the living room and dropping his bag by the sofa, so as to free up his hands for any gestures that might occur to him, "what is that?"

Giving himself one last look in the mirror, Sherlock span on his heel and dismounted the table with all the grace of a newly-born colt. Which was probably fitting, given the headgear.

"This magnificent piece belonged to my grandfather. Mycroft clearly means me to have it. I must say, it does look better on me than it would on him."

"Ah. Did you lose a bet?"

Sherlock glared, incredulously. "I never lose bets, John. I'd hoped you'd understand that by now."

"It seemed the only explanation." John peered up at the thing, its ribbons tied clumsily to the curve of Sherlock's skull, and tried to imagine a universe in which this was an odd thing to come home to.

"I can think of at least 26 explanations. You aren't trying hard enough. And do you mean to say you don't like it? I find it rather attractive. Authoritative, you might say."

"26 is an exaggeration. Even you can't think that quickly, unless you've been trying to explain it to yourself already, in which case you're quite aware of how ridiculous a thing it is to be wearing. It's certainly.. very you. Yes. It definitely suits you. Please don't wear it outside."

The illogicity of this last statement forced Sherlock to dismiss the entire speech, compliment and all, and with a dramatic sigh he retired backwards onto the sofa in front of the window, tugged up his sleeves, and gestured to John for his nicotine patches. After a pause, John obliged, and shoved Sherlock's feet out of the way to sit down with him. Adhesive was peeled back, and applied, and with a large exhale of collective breath the pair watched a petite girl push a pram down the street, two children toddling erratically behind her. Were he with anyone else, John would have speculated as to the relationship of infant to adult, but Sherlock rather removed the fun from such games. Instead, he tucked his good leg under his chin, and turned to look at Sherlock in profile. It did suit him, really, he decided. It was eccentric enough to match the man wearing it, and where a baseball cap would've seemed utterly ridiculous, the soft brown tweed of the Deerstalker simply accentuated the gloss of his hair, moulding itself to his scalp in a way that served to outline the delicate bones hidden underneath.

Another problem with this particular universe is that it is one in which John has started to notice things like that. Delicate bones, glossy hair. His immediate response is to put it down to the boost in observatory powers that Sherlock provides – it's like losing a sense and finding the other 4 improved – but he's aware that this isn't strictly true. He isn't ashamed to say he is attracted to the intelligence of the man. This is perfectly understandable, he reasons, particularly when said intellect is available at such close quarters, and is displayed with such alarming regularity. The problem is that his admiration is growing less and less platonic every day, and as Sherlock grows more comfortable with him – enough to walk around the flat in nothing but loosely clingy pyjama bottoms, or to fall asleep beside him as they watch television, seemingly confident that he's safe under John's watch – the niggling feeling at the back of his mind grows too.

His gaze lingers on the point at which Sherlock's nose meets his upper lip, and he swallows loudly. If Sherlock notices – and of course he has, he's Sherlock – he doesn't let on, mercifully. He rests his head on the back of the sofa and swivels to met John's eyes, chest arching like a cat's as he twists his torso around to meet his neck. The buttons down his front ripple provocatively as he does this. John swallows again.

"I can take it off, if you want me to," Sherlock concedes, quietly. He seems hurt, and once John has realised that he is referring to the hat rather than the shirt, he is quick to reassure him of its merit.

"Keep it on. It's good, really."

"Because it suits me, or because it covers more of me up?"

John straightened in his seat and shifted his gaze to the farthest corner of the room.

"Because it suits you. Why would I want you covered up? You know I like to be able to see what you're doing, it's best for the our security deposits that I can tell when to intervene."

"You watch me, though. I've seen you doing it. I don't mind," he added, as John started to rise from the leather, "you've at least got the subtlety Molly was always grasping for."

"Sherlock," John started, trying to shut him off before he worked out the rest, "I-"

"And really I find it quite reassuring of your character that my appearance is adequately pleasing to garner your attention. I was beginning to worry, from what I've seen of your taste in women you were appearing quite the underachiever."

"Please, Sherlock, drop it. Look, I bought milk, do you want tea?"

"Four sugars, please. So what is it you like, then? It can't be my skintone, your female partners are generally darker than me, though I suppose that that is not a hard quality to achieve. Conventional wisdom suggests that finding dark hair sexually alluring is a possibility, I see that, and I've been told in the past that my bone structure is quite pleasing..." Sherlock stood and resumed his position on the coffee table, proceeding to pull curiously at the various angles of his face, until John re-entered with his tea and told him to stop it.

"You have to be aware that you're a good-looking man, Sherlock," John sighed, after taking a deep sip from his mug and settling it and himself into the armchair. "You act all innocent when people flirt with you but I know you understand what they're doing. The fact that I'm open-minded enough to recognise isn't particularly interesting. Please get down from there and stop flattering yourself."

With one last glance toward the glass, he stepped back down to floor level and with both hands removed the hat from is head, setting it down on John's knee. John stared at the piece of cloth, warm and still shaped to fit Sherlock. Heat spread from it to his thigh, and upwards to join the rest that had rushed to his groin when his flatmate had first started describing his features so matter-of-factly. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to talk himself down.

Sherlock chose that moment – probably on purpose, knowing him – to rest a hand on each of John's shoulders, and let them took his weight as he leant to whisper in a faintly blushing ear.

"Keep the hat. I can see it bothers you. Wouldn't want to obscure your view."

With that, he took the tea from the arm of the chair, and headed for his bedroom. John timed his groan to match the slamming of his door.

This needed to be sorted, and soon.