Sherlock couldn't quite remember what he had been looking for. Odd, that. It didn't happen to him very often... however the occurrences of the event (forgetting what he was looking for) had seemed to be increasing since a certain doctor had moved into 221 B with him. With this certain doctor there had moved in several boxes. The contents of these boxes had been widely unknown to Sherlock. They hadn't seemed relevant and it was hardly interesting to break into somebodies room just to riffle though their old possessions (dull, pointless, irrelevant). However, Sherlock had needed to find something out of Johns room (he couldn't remember what now, perhaps matches, some sort of medical equipment that John may have left lying about, a medical book?) and had looked in the boxes and was now faced with something that he had no idea what to make of. (These occurrences (not knowing what to think of something) had also increased since the arrival of the good doctor.)

It was a simple thing really. Blue cap with headphone speakers attached to a radio device sewn into the back. The radio had three dials; one for volume, one for station, one for AM or FM (defeated the purpose of the name to have the choice of either wavelength... irrelevant). Fairly cheaply made, tag said it was 100% cotton although Sherlock could tell from the weight and give (slight texture variation must do experiment) of the material that a good deal of polyester and other fabrics had been meshed into its composition. The thread work was a bit dodgy and the lettering above the brim wrote hat FM. Straight forward, this was a cap that was also a radio. But why? That was truly the question that plagued Sherlock now.

He stared at the cap, eyebrows knitted in confusion (could have been a gag gift, no, John would have gotten rid of it before leaving for Afghanistan. Too old of a style to be recent plus the fabric is too worn for that.) finally, after a few moments of sitting in the middle of Johns sparcely furnished room and staring at the cap he decided that this needed further investigation and took the hat downstairs to the sofa. He placed it on the coffee table and contemplated the possibilities of the Hat FM. Hands steepled in front of him, he tried (viciously) not to think of why he was so possessed by the cap. (It was obvious, really, no work, no John, bored, easily detracted, interesting hat, funny problem, could learn more about John. No, false, all excuses. Shut up focus on the hat.)

John was on his way home from doing the shopping when he got the text. Sherlock, as usual.

Hat FM? -SH

John was baffled for a moment, having had a long day at the surgery his mind wasn't really up for Sherlock's wanderings but then he remembered his old cap up in his closet. He had packed it away along with all the other things he couldn't find a place for but couldn't really bear parting with. What had Sherlock been doing in his room? John sighed and shook his head, putting his phone back in his pocket and continuing on down the road. He really shouldn't ask what Sherlock did in that flat when he was away, he was certain he wouldn't like it. But really his room? Was that completely necessary? In his mind, probably. It worried John how much of the time he wondered what was going on in Sherlock's mind, but it worried him even more that he never had any idea.

By the time that he got back to the flat it was starting to drizzle outside and he hurried up the stairs as if entering the living room would distance him from the small droplets of rain that had frosted his jacket.

He took off the damp article and hung it, shaking his hair a bit to dispel some of the wetness. He then picked up the shopping from where he had dropped it at the top of the stairs and headed into the kitchen.

"John?" Sherlock's voice rumbled from the couch as John had expected it would.

"I got the shopping," he called back, putting the kettle on, "no need to thank me, it wasn't a long day or anything."

"John, Hat FM."

John rolled his eyes and rubbed his shoulder, which had started to stiffen under the weather conditions.

"What about Hat FM?" He asked, leaning on the table in the kitchen and waiting for the kettle to boil.

"What is it? No don't answer that I know its a radio hat, but why does it exist?" John pulled his eyebrows together and attempted a half smile though he was really too tiered and looked over at Sherlock for the first time since he had come home. The man was sitting on the couch, still in his jimjams and staring intensely at a blue cap in front of him on the coffee table. It was actually a bit ridiculous really, a full grown man with such a serious expression staring at a hat in his pajamas. But still, something about the way that Sherlock looked at the hat made him take it seriously. He looked at that cap in the way that he usually reserved for his more interesting cases which didn't make any sense to John seeing that it was just a hat, his hat, actually, his hat from inside his room and shouldn't he be mad about that?

"Sherlock, it's just a hat." A hat from my room, in my closet where you were not supposed to be.

"You've kept it for a long time but you've not put in up anywhere in your room so I'm thinking family attachment, probably your sister as a gag gift for one of your birthdays? You don't have many friends and any gag gifts you would have revived in university you would have disposed of before your stint in the army so..."

"You know," John sighed as the kettle steamed and poured two mugs "you could have just asked 'did your sister give this to you?' but nooo, it has to be a psychoanalysis of my home life. And who says I don't have many friends?"

Sherlock cast John a look that was part pitying part disgusted then looked back at the hat.

"If you must know, it wasn't Harry, it was my parents, it was a birthday present and I keep it in the box because I don't like clutter." John took the opportunity to look pointedly about the living room at all of the general disarray. "I honestly don't know why you care that much... and why where you in my room?" John finally cracked and asked, bringing the tea over to his now brooding flatmate.

"I was looking for something," Sherlock waved his hand in front of his face in a dismissive fashion. "Not important."

"It was in my room? Why did you need to look for it in my room?"

"Because it wasn't anywhere else, obviously."

John sighed and took the hat off the table and turned it around in his hands, smiling a bit and placing his mug of tea down on the coffee table in its place.

"This was one of the last things they bought me before they died, funny isn't it?"

Sherlock didn't answer, he was too busy thinking about not thinking about why he was fascinated by such a simple thing (he meant the hat he meant the hat he meant the hat not Johns smile it was about the hat).

"See?" John placed the hat lightly on Sherlock's dark curls and sat down next to him to gain a better angel so as to reach the radio in back (it was about the hat, this hat is so exciting that it is making my pulse rate increase, this is about the hat entirely). John noticed Sherlock stiffen for a moment and smirked as he fiddled with the dials, some ridiculous pop music station now flowing from the speakers. (lets have some fun this beat is sick. I wanna take a ride on your disco stick) "Simple."

"Quite." Sherlock looked up at the brim above his brows and then back at his hands.

"It suits you," John teased, leaning forward and picking up his tea, glancing at Sherlock and catching a flash of eyes rolling.

"Thank you," Sherlock smiled (don't think too much just bust that stick, I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.) Johns brow crumpled and he reached behind Sherlock's head (its the music, this music is so infuriating that it is actually causing me to flush and my pulse to quicken.) and clicked off the music.

"Much better." He smiled and stood up, leaving Sherlock alone on the sofa, walking across the room to his arm chair. (It was the hat, he was disappointed that the hat stopped working. He loved that song he missed that songs presence it was the song that made him feel like that.)

It wasn't the stupid hat.