Provocation

“People like the love stories, Sherlock.”

John sighs, and pushes the paw off of his laptop keyboard. Sherlock, feline, is curled in John’s lap, reading the nascent blog post as he types, and quite capable of registering his objections without the use of the English language. John knows exactly what the low grumble and the small white paw mashing at his keys means: Stick to the facts, John. Who cares about the victim’s girlfriend? Tell them about my deductions.

“Self-centred, greedy, vain little thing,” John grumbles, as he obligingly turns his focus to Sherlock’s examination of the crime scene, and feels the purring resume against his thighs.

But he can’t call Sherlock names without at least a little bit of an apology, even if they’re true, so he dips his head to brush his lips over the top of Sherlock’s head.

It’s strange, John reflects as his fingers go almost on autopilot, spilling out effusive– and genuine– praise of his flatmate into the word processor. Sherlock has been spending more time as a cat in the months since his return from his travels dismantling Moriarty’s network. Before, John might have said that he wouldn’t want that, that he wanted Sherlock human for the majority of the time they spend together at Baker Street. He’s only spending about half their leisure time as a human, though, and John finds he doesn’t mind it. He enjoys feeling Sherlock’s fur grow thicker and healthy, the clumps that were missing when he came back filling in. He’s still petite, but John can no longer feel his ribs like a desperate feral thing when he strokes down his back. And most nights, just around the time that John is starting to think about turning in, Sherlock carefully rearranges himself in John’s lap and then abruptly turns back, leaving John with a naked, gorgeous lapful and the decision very much made.

He’s accepted that Sherlock is as much cat as human, and that the barrier between the two is porous. The cat still reads and rolls his eyes and deduces, and the human still curls up with his head in John’s lap and makes humming sounds that would likely be purrs, if his throat were capable of it.

There are still barriers, though. The feline Sherlock might lick him an awful lot, but it’s never passed beyond a certain point of decency. And when John had come home from the clinic to find a red-faced consulting detective scrubbing at a pungent spot of cat urine underneath the window, he’d elected to take pity on him and not ask questions.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have questions. Questions that make his internet search history identify him as either a very fastidious breeder, or someone who should never, never be allowed to adopt a pet.

So John isn’t exactly oblivious when a loud, high-pitched yowl drifts in through their sitting-room window, and Sherlock tenses noticeably.

John’s hands still on his keyboard, listening. The female outside is loud and insistent, and he feels Sherlock’s realization that John is onto him, when he stops bothering pretending not to be interested in some level in the proceedings. They can both tell when a tomcat appears in the alley, his yowls just as shrill, and John feels Sherlock’s claws descend slightly.

John licks his lips, considers for a moment whether he’s going to let his jealous nature get in the way of this. On one hand, a random stray cat is getting Sherlock horny just from disturbing the peace outside their window, which is irritating.

On the other hand, Sherlock is horny. Which usually means good things for John.

Perhaps it’s she who should be jealous of him.

John snaps his laptop shut and sets it aside. He leans down to place his lips close to Sherlock’s perked-up ear, stroking down his sides a little more firmly than usual when he murmurs, “oh, that interests you, hmm?”

Sherlock answers with a quiet squeak and a small twist of his head, evaluating whether John is legitimately angry or just putting on a show of dominance for effect. The answer, John feels, is a little bit of both, which is pretty much the sweet spot jealousy-wise as far as he’s concerned. Seeing it, Sherlock makes a louder sound, halfway between a meow and the yowls of the now mating cats outside their window.

“You filthy little scamp,” John continues, leaning back in his armchair somewhat and pulling his feet up to rest on the table, so that his thighs form a flat surface with plenty of room to manhandle Sherlock over onto his his side. “You’ve got a lady coming around thinking she’s going to net the handsome tomcat she’s seen through the window here. Little does she know you’re all… mine…” his hands stray lower, pressing into Sherlock’s lower belly where– he knows but has never actually seen– Sherlock’s barbed feline penis lies sheathed, hidden in his fur.

He feels a flutter of nervousness as Sherlock writhes, his claws unsheathed more out of carelessness than anything else, exposing his belly fully. John had done his research, of course, but that had mainly served to confirm his suspicions that there is, understandably, not a whole lot written on the subject of how to sexually pleasure an intact male cat. Still, there are some basic assumptions: all animals like rubbing themselves on things, after all. Sure enough, he gets a good reaction from his flat palm curved over Sherlock’s lower belly, where he can just feel a small, spiky member protruding from the fur as he rocks his hand back and forth. Sherlock is making noises to match the alley cats now, probably as much for John’s sake as his own. It’s ridiculous to be jealous of a cat being rogered in a filthy London alley in the middle of the night, but John can manage a lot of ridiculous things, where Sherlock Holmes is concerned. At least now she’ll know that Sherlock is taken care of, even if she can have no understanding of the truth of the situation.

Sherlock is struggling up now, not ceasing the rubbing against John’s hand but righting himself so that he is more mounting John’s arm than being passively pleasured. He positions himself with his head against John’s thigh, and– oh yes, John remembers the other aspect of cat mating that he had researched: biting. The tomcat will grip the female’s neck in his teeth to hold her still while he– well. John hadn’t exactly been planning this, but that sounds… quite nice. Sherlock’s bitten him before, and John does not mind that in the slightest.

He pushes Sherlock’s head a little, angling it towards the outside of John’s hip where he’s slumped down practically recumbent in the armchair. “Go on,” he says, using the hand that’s not occupied on Sherlock’s pelvis to rub the top of his head roughly. “You know what I like.”

Sherlock growls low in his throat. John, who up until this point had been too concentrated on what he was doing and the reaction it was getting, feels his cock give a definite twitch of interest when Sherlock grips him, firmly but not cruelly, with his teeth.

The noises Sherlock is making are constant now, a rumble that sounds almost angry in its intensity, and John finds he really just has to lie back and watch as Sherlock thrusts against his hand and tosses his head back and forth, the skin of John’s hip stinging as the sharp teeth begin to pierce the flesh unevenly.

Then Sherlock simply hops off, settling beside John and staring.

John blinks, and realizes that he has a miniscule patch of wetness on his hand. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the climax of a non-human species involves significantly less histrionics than the human type. He stares at the semen on his hand. It’s… rather endearing. John tries to stop his lips from twitching with amusement when he stares back at Sherlock, and wipes his hand on his thigh, just below the half-hard bulge in his trousers.

“Erm.” The street is quiet now, the lovers below having apparently finished and moved on. John is reminded of late nights of way too many somewhat disturbing research videos of cats mating, and deadpans, “I guess I’m supposed to writhe around on the floor now, but how about we just cuddle instead?”

Sherlock cocks his head, his gaze turning downwards into John’s lap. John grins. “Oh, you want a piece of me now, huh?”

Sherlock reaches forward and nuzzles significantly into the vee of John’s upper thighs, making his intent clear even as John’s erection grows visibly. Then he mewls and hops off the armchair, trotting over to the bedroom and standing in the doorway.

“Alright,” says John, grinning as he hauls himself up. “On a bed, yep, that’s how we humans like to do it.”

He shucks his clothes on the way to the bedroom, since Sherlock isn’t in much of a position to do it for him, and hops on to the bed, spreading out luxuriously. He has no idea what Sherlock wants from him, but the creature is astoundingly good at communicating his desires non-verbally, so he just watches when the sleek white cat hops up onto the mattress, padding around to the left side of John’s torso. The slight dip in the mattress with Sherlock’s light steps are the only thing John can feel of him, the detective careful not to allow his fur to brush John’s skin yet.

John stays in the position he’s assumed, spread-eagled, but turns his head to watch Sherlock watching him. The feline Sherlock has a default expression John privately defines as prissy. It’s the same expression he wears at crime scenes to express his utter disdain for all of the morons who attempted to do police work there prior to his arrival, transposed onto the delicately pointed nose and expressive, silver-flecked green eyes with an uneven black splotch rimming the left side. Right now he is using them to look up and down John’s body; from the curl of John’s fingers where he holds them up above his head, voluntarily submissive, to the scar on his shoulder, and down to his cock, which is swelling to full harness under the scrutiny.

Sherlock slowly, deliberately licks his lips. His long, flat tongue reaches past his nose, and John catches a glimpse of sharp teeth in the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, Jesus,” John mutters, mostly to himself.

Sherlock looks entirely innocent as he steps up, the fur of his front paws brushing John’s shoulder now, to delicately sniff at John’s neck, as if John were a new brand of tuna that he hadn’t yet had the chance to form an opinion of. John knows that Sherlock experiences the senses very differently in his different forms; he prefers different food– is strangely more keen on eating as a cat, actually– and has different powers of sight, hearing and smell. He’s tried asking Sherlock questions about it, trying to tease out what part of a person remains you when all of the interfaces through which you experience the world are different– but Sherlock didn’t have much insight on it. Which makes sense, given that he’s never lived any other way.

Sherlock lifts a paw and presses lightly into the skin of John’s arms where he’s rested them above his head, clearly saying yes, good, keep them there, and it occurs to John that it’s more odd that they’ve never had sex like this before now, than it is to actually be doing it. These are just their bodies, after all. Of course they’ll use them for pleasure.

Soon. Hopefully. Because christ.

Sherlock’s entire face is nuzzling into his neck now, bunting with the side of his mouth, as if some other cat were going to steal John away and thus he needs to be identified by scent as belonging to Sherlock. John throws his head back, allowing him full access, and in that moment, Sherlock brings up one paw and swipes his claws across John’s chest.

“Ah!” John’s head snaps up involuntarily, his hands lifting up a little bit before he remembers to force them back down. He can just barely see the scratches, with a bit of neck strain; they’re not particularly deep, but four parallel red lines run from just above the scar to below the opposite nipple, oozing a little bit of blood.

“Ouch,” says John, dropping his head back again, but it’s a weak protest and he knows it. Sherlock can both see and observe him, whatever part of his brain responsible for being nearly all-knowing not affected by the switch, and Sherlock can tell that John wants it. Can see that his cock jumped with the bright burst of pain across his chest, can read his breathing and the dilation of his pupils and the way he arches off the mattress as if his body is saying, may I have another?

Sherlock doesn’t scratch him again; instead, he climbs up partway onto John’s torso, two tiny, soft paws pressing on the outer edges of his ribs. He starts licking; first at the unharmed skin closest to John’s side, then travelling up towards his chest. He’s soft and gentle, knowing that the barbs on his tongue can easily tip over into bad-pain on delicate flesh, but the promise of that tickling wet heat coming closer and closer to his nipple makes John squeeze his eyes shut, breathing heavily, trying not to writhe around too much and throw Sherlock right off of him.

Finally Sherlock reaches the pebbled flesh of his nipple and John holds his breath, waiting for a gentle lick, and instead nearly cries out again when he feels the nip of teeth. The pain is sharp and sweet and travels straight to his groin, and now Sherlock does lick him, a long stripe that starts over the abused flesh of his nipple (is that another pinprick of blood? It’s fine, it doesn’t matter) and ends just at the edge of the uppermost claw-scratch.

“Sherlock,” he moans, “Is this… how long are you going to do this?”

Sherlock turns a little, fully sitting on John’s chest now, a light but immovable presence. Slowly, he raises one paw, and starts calmly licking it, smoothing back the fur of his forehead and ears. It’s as close to a shrug as a cat can get. As long as it takes to turn you into a quivering, incoherent mass of raw nerves and arousal. Obviously.

Which really isn’t going to be long. John shivers nervously when Sherlock turns around, the sharp claws pressing into John’s skin as he shuffles down John’s torso a little to level his stare at his cock. John tries to concentrate on his breathing, in through his nose, out through his mouth. He likes pain, enjoys the scratches and bites and the way as a cat Sherlock seems to assume that he can’t possibly really hurt John, and thus can treat him as roughly as he likes, when that is clearly not the case. (Sherlock knows; somewhere deep down, he knows that he could. He just chooses to ignore that fact, most of the time.)

He’s been anxious about this part, though. The idea of Sherlock’s scratchy tongue on the delicate, sensitive skin of his cock is… intimidating. He wants it, wants to feel it there like he’s felt it on practically every other inch of him, but he can’t imagine it isn’t going to hurt at least a little bit.

Sherlock looks until he seems satisfied– what he was evaluating, John can’t imagine– and then he lightly hops off of John’s belly and trots to the edge of the bed. He manages to open the drawer of the beside table and pull out with his mouth the container of coconut oil that they use as lubricant. He drops it by John’s hand, tacit permission for John to move just as much as he needs to to unscrew the lid, which he does, placing up down beside his hip.

Sherlock dips his head into the container and licks; when he comes up, he has a vaguely puzzled expression on his face, like he can’t quite figure whether he likes the taste of the clear glob is on his tongue.

The oil starts melting slightly off of Sherlock’s tongue and the faint sweet smell wafts up towards John, who tamps down a grin. Sherlock was worried about hurting him too, and decided the best solution would be to get him as slick and oily as possible. Well, that should be– just fine. And it’s a damn good thing they were already using an edible substance as lube.

Sherlock reaches out, delicately, his tongue stretching out and curling slightly to keep the now-liquid oil on until he finally makes contact with the very tip of John’s penis. It’s barely any contact at all, just a light touch and a sweep to the side to deposit the oil on John’s skin, but he’s been waiting for it for what feels like hours, and John immediately gasps and arches off the bed at the shock of contact. Sherlock doesn’t pay any attention, just bats the container closer and sets to work, lapping at the glob of oil and depositing it bit by tiny bit, relentlessly, onto John’s cock. He starts with the underside at the tip and works his way all the way around before starting to travel down the shaft. Each contact should be barely enough pressure to register on John’s senses, but it seems that his senses have been reversed, somehow; the more feather-light the lick, the more the feeling of it expands to take up his entire world.

By the time Sherlock has touched his tiny tongue to every inch of John’s cock, John is nearly delirious, and there’s so much oil on him that Sherlock could probably get him off with sandpaper and it would feel amazing. The fur around Sherlock’s mouth is slightly matted with the stuff, which should be adorable or gross or weird or something that isn’t ridiculously sexy, but then he opens his jaws and licks all the way around the corners of his mouth and his tongue is long, oh god, and agile, and he’s looking at John like the doctor is his next meal, which he more or less is.

John stares at the ceiling. “Please,” he begs, even though he’s entirely aware that he has no ability whatsoever to influence Sherlock’s timeline. “Come on, please. God, I want it so much.”

Cats don’t smile, as a general rule, so it’s always creepy to see the edges of Sherlock’s mouth curling up wickedly. He leans forward, his head just millimetres from John’s dripping cock now, and meows softly.

“You want more begging?” John guesses, hearing his voice emerging somewhat crazed-sounding. “Jesus Christ, you greedy thing. You’ve got me, okay? I’m completely at your mercy. Come on. Please. Please lick me. You’re so gorgeous, I love all of you, I want to feel the way you–”

Sherlock’s tongue finally makes contact, licking a long stripe up the underside from base to tip, and John can’t keep talking and he’s starting to suspect Sherlock might be rubbing off on him– metaphorically, that is, as well as physically– because suddenly he is struck by the intense need to concentrate, to catalogue, to memorize and file away for safekeeping every aspect of this entirely new sensation. Sherlock’s tongue drags over his heated flesh like he can barely stand to take it away, and with every too-soft, too-small lick John’s body arches up involuntarily, trying to follow the maddening, all-consuming sensation. It’s a tiny bit scratchier than a human tongue would feel, and delicate, taking him apart with a restraint that would be nearly impossible for Sherlock in human form but is rendered necessary by the small surface area of his current instrument.

Being licked like this is a fugue state, where time has no meaning and all he has ever been aware of is desperate need for the contact which will bring him only more and more need. It is either minutes or hours or days before John realizes that the cat-in-heat sounds are now coming from his mouth, and in fact that seems to be exactly what Sherlock was waiting for, because he takes another mouthful of slick oil and starts curling his tongue around as much of John’s shaft as he can to stroke up and down, firmer and finally enough, and it doesn’t occur to John that he should probably issue a warning until the deep, warm burst of pleasure overtakes him and he’s coming, eyes squeezed shut and issuing a final broken-off shout.

For a few moments, John’s heavy breathing is the only sound in the room. Then there is the subtle smacking sound of grooming, and when he opens his eyes, a very annoyed-looking cat is trying to scrub semen off from behind his ear with his paw.

“Oh my god,” says John, trying to hold in both giggles and apologies as he realizes that there is, in fact, a fair amount of come in his fur. “Oh my god, you’re going to need a bath.”

In an instant, Sherlock’s lanky human frame is stretched out beside him on the bed; apparently the threat of being bathed is enough to alarm him back to humanity. There are still spots of wetness on him, including a sizeable amount in his hair, and he flops dramatically down onto the mattress beside John, swiping his palm across his tongue in an attempt to get rid of the remnants of oil that are smeared around his mouth– a gesture that looks indistinguishable from the way he had just been attempting to clean himself.

John insinuates himself into the curves of the detective’s body and Sherlock gives up the attempt to rid his mouth of oil in favour of sliding a leg over John’s and pulling him close. “Did it hurt?” he asks, idly curious, leaning forward to press his lips against John’s forehead.

John shakes his head, and feels Sherlock’s pleased smile spread against his skin. He lets out a sigh. “Good,” he says, “Because I could have kept that up for much longer.”

John shivers at the implied promise and threat, and pulls back slightly to see Sherlock’s face, sated but flirtatious and– strangely– slightly nervous.

“Any notes for me?” John asks lightly.

Sherlock swallows. “That was– you didn’t have to.”

A small knot of anxiety balls in John’s stomach. He hadn’t exactly asked, even if he’d thought Sherlock’s consent was obvious. Perhaps the involuntary response to the sound of a female in heat was something Sherlock hadn’t wanted to capitalize on. Perhaps–

“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “That was– not good of me. I’m sorry.”

A small intake of breath, and then Sherlock leans back in, and the wet warmth of his human tongue starts lapping at John’s brow. He feels the lines, a physical manifestation of his worry, being smoothed away by Sherlock’s licks, and relaxes slightly. Sherlock doesn’t seem angry.

“On the contrary, it was very good,” Sherlock rumbles finally, and John grins and forces himself not to squirm away when the tongue starts descending down the side of his face.

“Next time I’ll open the window, then,” says John. “Let that bitch get an earful.”

“A female cat in estrus is referred to as a ‘queen’, John, not a ‘bitch’.”

“Hmph.” John snuggles in closer. “Don’t care. Let me vent my jealousy in peace.”

“If this is where jealousy gets me, I’ll have to leave her a thank-you gift out back,” muses Sherlock.

John raises his head, finally giving in to the allure of retaliation, and licks a long, wet stripe up the side of Sherlock’s face. “Don’t you dare.”