A/N- I love all the fics about Sherlock returning and John being either scared half to death and then kissing him or being scared to death them clocking Sherlock across the face, but I don't think there are enough about John getting the upper hand on Sherlock's grand entrance. So here's this drabble.
John was waiting. Seated in his armchair in the living room of 221B Baker Street, facing the door with a steaming cup of tea in his hands, waiting.
Three weeks ago Mycroft has given John a cheerfully cryptic message. It didn't take a consulting detective to figure out that it meant Sherlock was finally coming back. Happiness was fluttering about John's chest, but he clamped down on it hard, not willing to let his emotions go until he satisfied his pride. For three years he agonized about Sherlock's 'Death'. Waffling between believing in his friend and companion and trying desperately to understand why the man would tell the world he was a fake.
Funnily enough the salvation of his sanity had come in the form of Mycroft once again. The elder brother, ever protective, could see John's deteriorating frame of mind and had found him one night three sheets to the wind with Lestrade in a grungy pub trying to kill his liver. The ponce had probably used CCTV to find him, and John reflected that he was glad he had. Telling John Sherlock's motivations, reasons and excuses behind the fake suicide had given the army doctor turned blogger hope, but it also fueled his exasperation with Sherlock.
One explanation from Mycroft was all it took for John to see the entire story. He understood that Sherlock was protecting him; and Mrs. Hudson, and Mary, and Greg, but he also understood that as much as Sherlock claimed no need for emotions the man delighted in eliciting them in others. It was the heart of a show-off to wield power over the other people in their life, to be able to make grand entrances and flourish about with power and might and a smarmy passion for being grand.
So John figured he owed Sherlock something too. Not only for saving his life, but for taking so long to come back so as to ensure his return from the grave was suitably miraculous. Owed him for almost three years of anguish, and Mycroft had given him three weeks to plan his payback. For god's sake even Jesus had only taken three days to come back; three years was pushing it and John knew it was mostly pomp and circumstance on the part of his high cheek-boned friend.
The door burst open, "John, I'm-!"
"Hi Sherlock, did you get milk?"