Needlessly to say, both of the Holmes brothers were very shocked, when they walked into Mycroft's suite at the Diogenes Club and saw Lestrade and John sitting there in two red armchairs – which were without a doubt very expensive.

For one thing it was because privacy was one of the things that were held the highest in the Diogenes club, only topped by silence. Normally, people did not just get access to Mycroft's suite. One the other hand, John and Lestrade not longer counted as normal people since their meeting with the Holmes.

The second and by far more important thing was that Sherlock was meant to be dead to them. Very dead. Like in falling from a very high roof very deep and clashing with the very adamant pavement very hard. In front of a lot of people. There was even a corpse they had buried. After all, they had gone through a lot of trouble to make sure, everyone believed Sherlock was dead. All the effort undone in one moment.

But it was the third and last thing, that threw the two geniuses so off: Either John nor Lestrade were surprised at all that an officially dead Consulting Detective just stood before them – with a rather baffled look on his face.

So instead of ranting questions or faint or whatever to express their astonishment, the men just shared a look, raised from their chairs, stepped to the brothers – John to Sherlock and Lestrade to Mycroft - and punched them straight in the face.

Hard.

Very hard.

Neither of them had seen it coming so they both were sent to the ground, hands flying to the stinging spots on their faces were bruises were already starting to form.

Lestrade and John stood above them with unreadable expressions.

For a moment, none of them said anything.

Then John started. "Do you two even know, what gigantic, oblivious idiots you are?"

"For claiming to be geniuses, you can be pretty dense", Lestrade added.

"Did you honestly believe, anyone who knows you, would buy that shit?" John was just gathering momentum. "'I'm a fake'", he imitated. "Honestly, next time you ever consider playing dead, you should come up with a better story."

"Not that we are encouraging you." Lestrade's gaze was fixed on Sherlock. "Though we've figured out your motives shortly after."

"Did it ever crossed you mind, that you could have told us after the direct danger of being shot by one of Moriarty's snipers was gone?"

"Did you think, we would not be able to take care of ourselves?"

"Or that you would not need some help, given that you always seem to need somebody who brings you down to earth?"

"We've waited two months, wondering when one of you would finally decide to show up on our doorstep."

"Since you didn't, we decided to reverse things a bit."

"And don't even bother with it, you deserved those hits."

Sherlock regained his voice only a few moments before Mycroft. "How... How did you know!"

John and Lestrade shot him two incredulous looks.

"Because you're a much to arrogant bastard to kill yourself", Lestrade muttered.

"And because we've known you for long enough to know when you're hiding something."

John smiled. "After all, isn't that what friends are there for?"