Ever since Sherlock took an interest in John's past, their apartment had been littered with various objects that transported John back in time whenever he laid eyes on them. The records were not as bad; he'd listened to them for years and the memories were blurred. Yet some things – ticket stubs, scraps of paper, his ex-girlfriend's scarf - prickled him momentarily and brought back vivid, detailed recollections. He'd confiscated the scarf because Sherlock was twisting it in his hands and pushing his nose into it like a prize-winning sniffer, disregarding completely the emotional strain the thing had on John.
"Pink chiffon, hard to be more feminine than that," Sherlock noticed, letting his fingers trail over the scarf before John took it away from him.
"Yeah, well. She was, erm, feminine," John deposited the scarf on his lap, "Just try to be careful with stuff like that. It was my first serious girlfriend, I value it a lot."
"By deserting it at your parents' house in the dustiest corner of your closet, yes," Sherlock noticed offhandedly, stretching his long arm over the back of the couch. John noticed that it almost reached the back of his neck.
"I went to Afghanistan," John tried, but Sherlock was already regarding him with a smile in his eyes.
"Funny, I thought people took things like that with them on long hard journeys."
John opened his mouth to protest, but no argument was sufficient enough for Sherlock.
"I presume she sprayed it with her perfume," Sherlock said, twisting his body slightly to face John, "You could have wrapped it around your chest when going into particularly dangerous battles. A whiff of her smell in the midst of action – to give you a glimpse of normalcy once in a while. You are a liar, John," Sherlock whispered.
"Well, I…"
"…For telling me you preferred dinosaurs to flying saucers."
John turned his head quickly just to look at Sherlock who was holding a stack of drawings made by John when he was ten or eleven.
"Dad and I went to the field today and watched the stars and I was allowed to stay up until one it was brilliant," Sherlock read from one of the papers, "Although we didn't see any aliens but next time maybe."
John stared at his drawings for a second before getting up and bursting into laughter.
"I am caught, aren't I? Sorry Sherlock, I lied to you, I do fancy aliens more than dinosaurs," he became harsher in an instant, "And the scarf – she dumped me, all right? Right before I left, a week actually, she came by and said that she couldn't do it, she couldn't do a long distance relationship."
"But you kept…"
"And I kept the scarf," John pointed to the thing, then to Sherlock, "Because I understood her. Because I am not a sociopath."
For a minute both of the men stayed silent.
"Right, that felt good," John stretched and ruffled his hair, "Tea?"
"Please."
John gave Sherlock a curt nod and walked toward the kitchen. "Don't," he said sharply, without turning around, and Sherlock had no choice but to jerk his hand away from the scarf.
The thing remained on the couch for a long time.
