"John, does this tie look Canary yellow to you?"
Sherlock held up a tattered, moth-eaten pity of a thing for him to see. John, glancing away from his screen, peered at it and shrugged. "Can't right tell if it is a tie. Why do you ask?"
"Maybe it's more of a sunbeam... " Sherlock mumbled to himself. He set the tie back down on the arm of the couch and picked up another one. "What about this one? Canary or daisy yellow?"
"Why does it matter?"
"Is Hudson here? Mrs. Hudson!"
"Shes out getting groceries, I think she said. Sherlock, why are you obsessed with ties all of a sudden?"
"It's not the ties, John, it's the color. Call Mary, see if she's available."
"What makes you think my wife, sick in bed with a cold, is available?"
"Oh come on, you didn't buy that, did you? She's been wanting you out of the house for weeks." Sherlock shuffled the ties, all of them various shades of yellow, scattered about the couch, picking one up the setting it down in favor of another.
Meanwhile, John had folded his paper up and set it on the coffee table. His hands lay clasped in his lap.
"Who knows? She's pregnant."
"Sherlock-"
"What?"
John cleared his throat, speaking slowly.
"The ties. Why?"
Sherlock licked his lips in annoyance before answering. "Assuming you've had an education anywhere close to decent in the realm of anatomy, you should be aware that the female human eye can detect many more colors than can the male human eye. This ocular conundrum is what I am trying to solve."
"…With ties?"
"Yes! With ties! Unless I am mistaken, which rarely happens, one usually wears ties on a dinner date, John!"
Silence fell upon the flat.
"Dinner date?" John asked, eyebrows threatening to rise past his hairline.
"Dinner, yes. I have a date tonight."
"You didn't mention this."
"Didn't I?" Sherlock questioned, genuinely puzzled. "I thought for sure I told you; I'm meeting Molly at eight. Her favorite color, she told me, is canary yellow, so I'm-"
"You have a date…with Molly?" John interrupted.
"Would you rather me be dating Jeanette?"
"Oh, God, no. Just- really? A date with Molly Hooper. I mean, I had hoped- everyone had hoped, really, you two would…" He trailed off, nodding his head. "This is good! Good for you!"
"No, not good. Not right now; I need to figure out which one of these bloody things is canary yellow. Stupid, bloody…" He mumbled, getting back to his ties.
John looked over them for a moment, then picked one up at random. "This one. It's probably canary. She won't care. When did you say you were supposed to meet her?"
Sherlock flicked his eyes down at John's watch and swore. "Thirty minutes ago!" He leaped off the couch and ran about the flat, shrugging on his overcoat. "I'll have to use your card for a taxi. Should be back around- well, later. And wipe that grin off your face!"With a whoosh, he swept out the front door, slamming it behind him.
"Sure thing," John chucked, getting back to his newspaper.