Cold opens

In which Sherlock notices Lestrade's tie

"If you seem slow to me, Sherlock, can you imagine what real people are like? I'm living in a world of goldfish."

"Yes, but I've been away for two years."

"So?"

"Oh, I don't know. I thought, perhaps, you might have found yourself a...goldfish."

---

Sherlock strode into Lestrade's office well set in his god-complex. Lestrade hung up the phone and eyed the bored detective. 

"Didn't anyone ever teach you to knock?" Lestrade stood up and picked up a manilla folder. Sherlock deduced it was the file of a certain case Lestrade had come around Baker Street complaining about. 

"The case?" Sherlock held out his gloved hand, bored by the stagnant energy in the room. Even coming within a ten-meter distance of the man seemed to slow time itself. 

"Right, yeah." Lestrade held it out to him but pulled it away the moment Sherlock grabbed for it. "But listen, Sherlock. You don't go off on your own and you don't steal information from the files without asking first." 

"Asking would mean that I wouldn't be stealing, would it, Goldfish? There would be considerably fewer burglaries if they only asked before stealing the Rembrandt." 

"It's Greg, and you know what I was--wait a minute. What did you call me?" Lestrade stared at him, confused. 

Sherlock blinked. "Goldfish." 

"A wot?"

"A goldfish, do catch up Detective Inspector. A deadman waits for no man." Sherlock held out his hand for the file again. 

Lestrade handed it to him reluctantly, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. 

"What are you calling me a goldfish for?" 

Sherlock turned to leave. "Oh nothing, it's an inside joke." 

Lestrade scoffed and crossed his arms. "With who?" 

"Whom. And it's between myself and Mycroft." 

"Mycroft?!" Lestrade laughed. 

"Yes, although we thoroughly despise each other we do make room for some brotherly banter among the backstabbing." Sherlock eyed Lestrade with a smirk. "I'm surprised you hadn't noticed, given your infatuation with him." 

Lestrade blinked and unwound his arms. "I--what? I have no bloody idea what you're going on about Sherlock--I mean--I haven't got an...infatuation with...him," Lestrade spluttered. 

Sherlock turned round to the door. "Just, next time, when you leave his room, do remember to put on your own tie. The umbrella pattern is quite distinctly his." 

Sherlock raised his hand in farewell and his coat swished behind him out the door, leaving a red-faced Lestrade staring sheepishly at his tie.