Because sometimes violence must be by proxy (and John deserves it). Remixed companion piece to Actions and Consequences, ish. That one is the realistic version, this is for Bucky, who wanted a something a little less gentle. Mild crack ahead, enjoy.
Mrs Hudson had originally intended on letting out 221C by the end of the month, it had been spruced up to within an inch of its life, and was now a rather lovely little one bed flat with a small patio. It would have to wait, however, until next month, as she had plans involving the basement flat that would mean the carpet needed cleaning – and the man that usually did it could only make it every other Thursday. She had a bone to pick with one John Watson, and he would not enjoy the experience.
The first step was easy, much like Sherlock had described at the wedding, she slipped a sedative into his tea and he was out like a light within minutes. Molly Hooper was waiting in the lounge, ready to help her get him down the stairs, neither paying much heed to the accidental broken nose when they accidentally dropped him down the last few steps. They bundled him onto an old dining chair, tying his wrists together behind his back, and his ankles to the chair legs.
John Watson would atone for his sins whether he liked it or not.
It was nothing excessive, thought the woman who stabbed her fiancé with a fork, buried Sherlock Holmes, and dumped the criminal mastermind James Moriarty. The woman who married a drug dealer, and held a gun to Sherlock Holmes before bundling his very high arse into her sports car agreed; it was just enough violence to get their point across whilst still being satisfying.
Ever since Mary had told Molly about John's indiscretions, the pathologist had been planning ways to teach the doctor a lesson, and his appalling behaviour after Mary's death had done nothing to endear him to her. The icing on the proverbial cake was when she showed up at her house one evening, and tried to apologise for Sherlock's phone call. He'd taken it upon himself not to discuss this meeting with the detective in question, and consequently had misconstrued the situation. Sherlock did not have any form of contact with Molly for two weeks after the phone call, aside from one text sent the morning after the phone call simply saying forgive me. Molly knew he'd come around when he was ready, Greg had told her about the secret sister, and the extent of the dysfunctionality of the Holmes family. As far as she was concerned family came first, and the bond-villain-secret-sister-childhood-best-friend-murder trauma was far more important than making her say three (awful) words to save her life. John was convinced that this lack of contact was just Sherlock being his archetypal arsehole self, and that the 'business with his brother' as he termed it was cases to keep him occupied, not him trying to build an incomprehensible bridge to his newly non-verbal sister. Or trying to mediate between his mother and his brother, or his mother and her elderly and infirm brother-in-law, or his mother and anyone whomsoever happened to cross her path at the moment.
Molly wasn't fond of lying, or flippancy with such situations, but after the third re-wording of the same point (He didn't want to hurt you, I'm sure he loves you as he did Mary, he's just an arse etc), she'd had enough.
"It's ok John, he turned up the next day, we shagged and made up. No harm done," She said breezily, her words having the desired effect of shock and a speedy exit (although technically the only lie was the timeframe, however, as he had turned up, almost two weeks to the day since that incident and swept her off her feet, both literally and figuratively).
Two hours later she found herself in Mrs Hudson's kitchen decapitating gingerbread men, and ranting to the older woman about everything from the last year. Ever since Sherlock had disappeared after Christmas, ended up in hospital again, and then revealed he was almost exiled, the two had been keeping a close eye on the triad, with occasional input from Mycroft (in exchange for some of Molly's information on his brother, or cake).
They knew about the USB stick, the reason for the travels, and the aquarium. They'd tried to help John and Sherlock after Mary's passing as best they could, and monitored Sherlock closely during his latest relapse. Molly had received a copy of Sherlock's medical notes after the Smith case, having insisted on being his primary physician after seeing the results of his tests in the ambulance. She had pictures of the boot-shaped bruising, scans of his broken ribs, and pages upon pages of blood test results from pre, during, and post-drugs usage – Billy was smuggling out vials of blood for her to test to help him moderate Sherlock's dosage. If Sherlock thought Billy was working for him, he was sorely mistaken, as ever since she'd patched Billy up after slapping Sherlock, the two had come to an understanding: if Sherlock ever went to Billy about drugs again, he was to keep Molly informed. The subsequent detox was not pleasant for any of them, with the brunt of the pressure falling on Molly and Mrs Hudson. As John didn't show his face until several days after Sherlock had got home from the hospital (where he'd spent Christmas, another sticking point), Billy had taken a lot of the day shifts while Molly and Mrs Hudson pretended that they had lives and jobs like normal people. They understood he was now a working single father, but he'd hospitalised his best friend and not blinked an eyelid.
All of this pent-up frustration, and general disgust at John's behaviour had lead the two to this moment, stood in the basement flat with their prey tied to a chair like some B-list horror film.
The sedative was only estimated to keep him out for another half an hour, so Molly and Mrs Hudson decided they would have a cup of tea downstairs and wait. As it transpired, John woke up after around 20 minutes, which meant they were just finishing up as he crept out of grogginess.
"What the… Brilliant. Which bloody Holmes has set this up?" John shouted into the dimly lit space, only to be met with an uncomfortable silence. He looked around, trying to work out where he was, and who could be keeping him hostage, when Molly came into his field of view, holding a large, brown folder. Without saying a word, she slapped him around the face with it, leaving a small paper cut across his cheek, one that would bleed profusely. "Molly?!" He did a double-take as she stood in front of him, the very image of the disappointed mother figure. She opened the file, reading aloud from the first page,
"Patient number: confidential, name: William Sherlock Scott Holmes. Patient has presented with drugs overdose, homemade cocktail leading to hallucinations, heart palpitations, and depleted liver function. Overdose is thought to be due to suicide mission, a compromise resulting from murder." She looked up from the folder and glared at John. "A murder that was committed to keep you, your wife and your unborn child safe. He killed one of the most influential men in the country in front of government agents for your wife, he went willingly to his death, twice, to save you John Watson, and a third time when it almost came at your own hand! How dare you?" She was seething, and John had the audacity to look shocked.
"Where did you want this dear?" Mrs Hudson asked, carrying over one of her cast iron Le Creuset casserole dishes that they had brought downstairs specially.
"Mrs Hudson?" John half-shouted in shock, before yelling out in pain as she dropped the very heavy kitchenware on his foot, breaking at least one bone.
"Oh, how clumsy of me," She mock-tutted, making no effort to move the dish, instead taking the file from Molly and reading from the next page. "Prolonged exposure to this cocktail has left irreparable damage to the patient's organs. Six to eight-week detox recommended, twelve preferable, but unlikely to receive necessary levels of patient compliance."
"He was high from the moment he left your wedding until the moment he was discharged from the hospital near the airfield" Molly translated, pulling on her nitrile gloves in a manner that made the hairs of the back of John's neck stand on end – and not in a good way.
"It's not my bloody fault he got high!" John exclaimed, missing the point entirely, which earned him a stinging backhanded slap from Mrs Hudson, who had placed the folder on the table behind him.
"I suppose it's not your fault that you got your head turned by a pretty face, not months after your daughter was born either?" Molly replied acerbically, at least John had the good sense to look sheepish at her remark. "Mary told me. You honestly think she didn't know?"
"She didn't take my advice," Mrs Hudson stated, looking a little too calm, making herself a fresh cup of tea, "I told her to throw you out. She decided to take a bullet instead,"
"My wife's death was a tragic accident," John said through gritted teeth, his wrists struggling against the zip-ties.
"Mary thought if you stood to actually lose her, you'd take your head out of your arse and talk to her about it. If you had to save her life, even better, but you didn't. You didn't try to stop the bleeding, you didn't ring for an ambulance, you held her as she needlessly bled out all over the floor." Molly spat, "Less than a week later, I get a report from one Billy Wiggins, to say that Sherlock has relapsed. Can I help him? No. Why is that John?" Molly asked the increasingly irate man, whose only response was to do his best impression of a goldfish.
"I watched the man I… I…" she swallowed, and her voice dropped to a pained whisper, "…love, descend into the deepest pit of his own self-loathing, trying to keep him alive long enough for Smith to almost kill him." She paused briefly, before continuing, with venom. "Except it wasn't Smith that almost killed him, was it John? This boot print is not from Culverton Smith. The lacerated kidney, the internal bleeding, the broken rib were not from him, were they?"
"Show him the pictures, dear," Mrs Hudson said, leaning over the table to grab the folder, and spilling some of her fresh cup of tea over John in the process. He hissed as the hot, but not quite boiling liquid splashed over his legs, hot enough to feel like it was burning, without doing too much physical damage. He felt sick at the thought of Molly calculating the optimum temperature to scald but not burn his flesh, likely using some of Sherlock's old experimental data. He didn't realise he'd shut his eyes until he received another slap, and suddenly a large picture of an ultrasound scan was shoved under his nose.
"Is this? Oh God… he almost lost his kidney?" John asked rhetorically, unable to quell the revulsion he felt at knowing this was what he did to his best friend.
Scan after scan, blood test result after blood test result was held in front of his face, detailing in cold, medical fact the damage he'd done in his misplaced rage.
"It took a long time to get that boy back to a state resembling healthy. No thanks to you," Mrs Hudson chastised.
Instead of taking it in good grace, and accepting his faults, however, John made the poor decision to try and argue against his own idiocy. Molly had expected him to, so to end all ideas of this being a discussion, she placed her gloved hands on his shoulder - specifically the one he was shot in all those years ago- and dislocated it. She was willing to do the other one if this didn't get the message across.
"You are going to attend grief counselling, and anger management sessions. We're still undecided as to whether we should press charges against you on Sherlock's behalf, and take custody of Rosie while you spend time in prison for attempted manslaughter," Molly demanded, making some not-so-idle threats.
"You wouldn't!" John shouted, straining against the zip ties, confirming his need for therapy.
"Try me." Molly dared, absentmindedly twirling a scalpel through her fingers like it was a biro.
"That baby deserves a parent of sound mind, who will never let them down, and will set a good example." Mrs Hudson said, implying that John was none of the above.
He glared at them both, and spat at their feet, so Molly removed her scalpel from its sheath and removed a small piece of skin from his left ring finger, before Mrs Hudson cuffed him around the head so hard he blacked out.
John woke up on the sofa in 221B, to Sherlock sitting pensively in his chair. He went to rub his head, and the pain coursing through his arm quickly reminded him of how he'd got here.
"Can you stand?" Sherlock asked quietly, after a few minutes of silence, John must have looked pained, as Sherlock offered him his hand to help. Or at least he thought that was what Sherlock was doing, instead he found himself lifted by the shirt collar and slammed against the wall.
"I think you fell down a flight of stairs, John." Sherlock said, the chill in his voice lowering the room temperature by several degrees. Before he could react to this statement, however, Sherlock's fist was already in his face, breaking his cheekbone with a sickening crunch. The detective then all but dragged his blogger to the window, and encouraged him to fall out of it on to Mrs Hudson's bins- just like the last man to disrespect his landlady. He was tempted to haul John back up the stairs and let Molly have a go at defenestration, but he figured that the permanent scarring of his skin would suffice. Besides, if his Molly want to throw a grown man out of window, he was sure that she could do it without his help.
Twelve Years Later
A teenaged Rosie Watson had just found out why her father was so reticent to talk about her mother's death, and gave him a rather stunning black eye. John then attempted to explain and contextualise the situation, which meant Rosie found out about what happened to Uncle Sherlock, and in loving memory of her mother, she gave him another black eye to match the first.