Work Text:
Sherlock was meticulous in all things, and so he had a spreadsheet (on John’s laptop, of course; he could hardly be faulted if the man didn’t notice things on his own computer) in which he catalogued everything about the man, from how much milk he liked in his tea (no sugar, but milk) to which clothes he wore on which days (there was no pattern, really, unless one counted John’s moods and the weather; it did, however, allow him to extrapolate the contents of John’s wardrobe and his sartorial taste without actually going through his physical wardrobe, always a useful exercise) to how often he got his hair trimmed. The spreadsheet wasn’t really necessary--Sherlock was disgustingly happy to keep all things related to John Watson on his mental hard drive--but he liked the order of it.
After they commenced what was generally termed a "romantic relationship," Sherlock added a new tab to the document for charting their sexual encounters, because he was nothing if not thorough. At first it was routine, just another thing to be filed, but three and a half months into the endeavour he noticed a pattern.
It had never occurred to him that there was a correlation between the phases of the moon and John’s sexual behaviour, but the pattern was there: John was unfailingly considerate and gentle after the full moon, but as the full moon closed in their encounters not only increased in frequency, but also roughness. John would initiate sex in places other than the bedroom, pin Sherlock down, leave marks, and the next morning run his fingers over the bruises and smile--reluctantly, perhaps--when Sherlock moaned. Perhaps some of that gentleness was in unconscious apology for his behaviour beforehand. It did seem like the kind of thing he would do, unnecessary as it was; Sherlock liked it when John was possessive.
Then the moon would wax full, and John would be unavailable for two to three days. Before they began their "relationship" John would take himself out of town for the event or vacate to his sister’s, but now he was more content to stay in the flat, although it was hardly big enough for a 145 pound wolf. Sherlock supposed it was one of those "intimacy" things, much like how when one began a committed long-term relationship with someone it was suddenly permissible to fart in front of them. But it was nice to have John in the flat, whether he was on two legs or four. John as a wolf was much like John as a human: a little small, a little unassuming, and very, very dangerous. John was simply more obviously dangerous when he had 42 very specialised teeth.
Sherlock frowned over the gap in his spreadsheet. There was something he didn’t know, and he hated not knowing things, especially when it came to John.
-----
"What is it like, when you’re a wolf?" Sherlock asked, craning his head over John’s shoulder.
John frowned at the pan and poured on a glassful of wine. "You’ve asked that before."
"Yes, but I want to know what it’s like in your mind. How much sentience do you retain? All your human memories?"
John made a noncommittal humming sound. "Pass the tomato sauce, and then could you go sit down or something? You’re making me nervous."
Sherlock passed the tomato sauce and then went to sit at the kitchen table. John pushed the onions and mushrooms around in the wine for a bit, scraping the burnt bits off the bottom of the pan, before pouring in the sauce.
"Well, yes, basically," John said at last. "I mean, you’ve seen me. Do I look feral?"
"No," Sherlock allowed. John as a wolf generally did all the same things as John as a man, such as sit in a chair and watch bad telly (though he was under the impression that wolf vision was very poor; perhaps he enjoyed the sound?) and attempt to tidy, although it was a great deal harder without opposable thumbs. "But I’ve also seen you eat raw beef and howl at the moon, which is not behaviour you’re prone to at other times of the month."
John made a sound between a cough and a clearing of the throat. "Ah. Yes. Well." He wiped the back of his hand across his nose. "It’s hard to explain. All the thoughts, the human thoughts are there. I know what a cab is and I recognise, say, you, and Mrs. Hudson. But it’s the, you know, the instincts. Rolling about in a skip seems like a grand idea, and so does pissing on trees, and if I don’t watch myself then I’ll really go and do it. Or sometimes I let myself do it anyway, if no one else is around."
"Or me." Sherlock didn’t bother to repress his faint smile.
"Or you." John favoured Sherlock with a return smile and went back to stirring the sauce. "Only because I know you won’t mind it, and will actually find it fascinating or something."
Everything about John was fascinating. It was actually a little annoying, how much room John took up despite being of slightly below average height and utterly uninteresting to the casual observer. "So you retain full use of your human faculties, with the addition of lupine instinctual behaviour."
"Yeah, basically," John said, after a brief, thoughtful pause. "What’s this about, then? You interrogated me about this ages ago."
"New data," said Sherlock. John accepted this as he always did, with weary pragmatism, and set the sauce to simmer while he salted the water for the pasta. He waited until John had dumped in the spaghetti before saying, "So do you want to have sex with me, too, when you’re a wolf?"
John hit his hand on the side of the pasta pot and yelped, but probably not because he’d burned himself; it was much too brief a contact for that. He ran the tap anyhow and put his hand under it. "You did not," he said through gritted teeth, "did you really just--no, you did, of course you did. Why would you ask that?"
"Because I want to have sex with you," said Sherlock. "At the next full moon. Of course, if you’re averse to it, then that’s fine. But it’s fully consensual on my part," he added. John always got very worked up about the consent thing.
John stared. "You want to have sex with me." He always repeated the last thing Sherlock said when it was a Bit Not Good. It was very grating.
"Well, yes," Sherlock said. "I should hope that was obvious, given all the sex we've already had." Really, what was the problem here? John was always going on about how Sherlock needed to communicate.
"As a wolf, though," John said.
"Yes."
"Er." John stared at the pan of sauce as if it might provide some enlightenment. "Why?"
Sherlock contemplated what John might want to hear, or rather, what he might not want to hear, which was usually more important. John looked a bit stricken by this news, so probably he didn’t want to hear something like, "Well, John, I’ve noticed that you tend to be a bit rougher around the full moon, and I’ve really enjoyed that, so I thought we might take it a bit farther." Sherlock could say something more approaching societally accepted versions of normal, such as, "Well, I love you and I want to take our relationship to the next level," but that would be out of character and John would see through it in a microsecond. So he settled for the truth, or as close to it as the English language would allow, which was, "I want to know everything about you."
John pinched the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb and said, "You realise that most people don’t want to have sex with wolves."
Sherlock rolled his eyes. Honestly, ask once whether the Earth revolved around the sun or vice versa and people assumed you were ignorant about everything. "But you’re not a wolf, you’re John."
"Yes, but." John licked his lips. "The wolf shape, that’s usually a turn off. For most people."
He’d leaned a bit on the phrase most people, which meant it was important. Sherlock ran through it a few times before it dawned on him. "Oh! You’re implying that I have a bestiality fetish, which is not the case here. I’m not attracted to any other animals, or even your animal in particular, except inasmuch as he is also you."
"That’s." John cleared his throat. "That’s very flattering. But. Um."
Sherlock cocked his head. "The idea makes you uncomfortable," he observed. "Like I said, John, it’s fine if you’re averse to the idea."
"Right. Well." John looked at the floor, at the edge of the counter, anywhere except Sherlock. This was not going well at all. "That’s. Yes. Because I am. Averse to the idea."
"Then I won’t bring it up again," Sherlock said. John continued staring at the cabinets, the skin around his eyes twitching minutely. Sherlock said, delicately, "Is dinner ready?" prompting John to remember that he was, in fact, cooking, and so rescued the spaghetti from being overcooked.
-----
Dinner conversation was stiff and perfunctory at best, and afterwards John retired to what had once been his bedroom and was now an office slash storage space, ostensibly to write a blog entry but probably to think. Sherlock made no attempt to initiate sexual intercourse that night, and neither did John, who came to bed later that night.
Sherlock was nearly asleep, one arm and leg flung comfortably over John, when John said, "People usually don’t, you know."
Sherlock rolled onto his side, so that he could look at John. "Don’t what?"
"Have sex with--I mean, you and I are hardly the first human/werewolf couple. But most werewolves do, do um, mate, hook up, whatever, with other werewolves. It’s just easier that way. And the human/werewolf couples, well, they don’t really cross the, the interspecies line. It’s too. . . it’s weird."
"I don’t see why," Sherlock said. "It’s not really bestiality. There are no consent issues, if there’s proper communication and precautions are taken. It’s not as if there’s any possibility of children. And in your case, you were born a werewolf, so it’s not even as if you can pass the condition on to me."
John shuddered. "If there were any--"
"But there isn’t, so there’s no point," Sherlock said, firmly. "I said it was fine, if you were averse to the idea."
"Liar," John said, but there was no heat behind it. "You want this, or you wouldn’t have brought it up."
"So do you, if what you said is true," said Sherlock. "You’re just being gentlemanly about it. Which is absurd, when I’ve already consented."
John made a frustrated sound. "It’s not just--it’s not just that. It’s not safe. Instincts, they’re unpredictable, not to mention the--the--I can still hurt you."
Sherlock rolled onto John then, pinning him down with half his weight. He lowered his voice to that rumbling register that never failed to send a shudder through John and said, "I want it."
-----
John didn’t like Sherlock around when he transformed--another useless hangup, but Sherlock would deal with that later--and so while John shut himself in the storage room and went into cardiac arrest while his internal organs and skeleton rearranged themselves, Sherlock took a shower and cleaned himself out. He set out the lube, a bowl of water and a couple of flannels, and after some thought, left the condoms in the drawer. He put some plastic down on the bed, as this was likely to get messy, and also John would probably get fur everywhere.
Sherlock was on the bed, working a slicked-up toy into himself, when John nosed the door open and padded up to the bed. Sherlock grunted and eased the toy out; John regarded him with laid-back ears and a nervous tail.
"You were so worried about hurting me," Sherlock murmured. "I wanted to be ready for you." He held out a hand. John smelled it, nose twitching, and licked his palm. He wondered what sex smelled like to an animal with a sense of smell a hundred times better than a human's. Sherlock sat up and patted the bed next to him. John wrinkled his nose at Sherlock and drew his lips back from his teeth, but only briefly: a very human gesture, one that said, I am not a dog. Don’t treat me like one. But he leapt onto the bed, and Sherlock turned himself onto hands and knees.
John did sniff at his bum, and lick at the crack, but then he turned his attention to nosing between Sherlock’s legs. Sherlock was already half-hard from the stretching he’d done earlier, and John’s tongue was warm and wet on his balls, and then along his shaft. He made an approving humming sound, and John nudged him with a nose to his flank. Then he did it again, harder, now shoulder to hip. John was very strong, and Sherlock let himself be rolled onto his back, bracing himself on his elbows so that he could see was John was doing.
What John was doing was licking his cock all over, spreading his saliva everywhere. Sherlock groaned and spread his legs wider, raising his knees and planting his feet flat on his bed so that John could access his balls. John, crouched between his legs, seemed content to lick forever, panting warm, humid breaths over the sensitive skin. His tongue was less muscular in this form, but longer and more flexible, so that the teasing touches seemed to reach forever. Sherlock found himself wishing, dazedly, that there was some way John could take his cock in his mouth. If only there was something that could be done about all those teeth.
Sherlock unlocked his fingers and brought his left hand up, tentatively, to the fur on John’s head. He’d petted John before, of course, when they were both lazing on the couch or wrestling on the floor: he was acquainted with the thick, plush fur and knew that John liked being rubbed at the base of the ears. When John sucked him off, Sherlock often buried his fingers in the man’s hair. He hypothesised the wolf would receive it in the same manner.
John stopped licking and turned his head into Sherlock’s hand. His ears made a peculiar swiveling motion. "Hmmm," said Sherlock, and sat up, scooting forwards so that he could bury both his hands in the wolf’s thick ruff. He tugged at the fur a little, which made John flatten his ears and growl--all right, so that was like hairpulling, then--and then scratched his nails through it, up John’s back and partway down his flanks. John made a little crooning, growling sound, and Sherlock, half on a whim and half out of curiosity, leant forward and dragged his tongue across the front of John’s snout.
John started and jerked his head back, ears up and eyes wide. Sherlock pulled back as well, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth. The experience had been mildly disagreeable; John’s nose and lips were cold, and his whiskers were bristly against Sherlock’s tongue. Not something he’d willingly repeat, and from the way John was staring at him, not something John cared to repeat, either.
"Roll over," Sherlock instructed. When John stared at him blankly, he said, "There are parts of you I’d like to examine." John laid his ears back and lowered his muzzle. Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If you insist, I won’t press the issue, but I did suggest this."
Finally, after another few moments of dithering and whining--and Sherlock moving to the side so as to make room--John rolled onto his back, drawing his front paws up and splaying his hind legs. Sherlock scratched John’s chest and rubbed one hand across the furred belly. John yipped in indignation, but couldn’t repress a few thumps of his tail; Sherlock continued to scratch John’s belly for a bit, smiling faintly, and then moved his hand down and down until he wrapped it around John’s penis.
It was a deep. glistening red, with prominent dark veins, and smooth, without any foreskin at all. It was not yet fully hard. Sherlock ran his fingers gently along the shaft, and then over the bristly sheath, hoping to coax out more of it. He glanced up at the head of his bed; John had his eyes closed and had somehow managed to assume, in a wolfy manner, a demeanor of resigned suffering. Sherlock rubbed the sheath up and down the shaft a few times, watching as John grew until he was longer than himself as a man, but slimmer, with a pronounced bulge at the bottom. Then he dipped his head down and took a quick lick. The taste was not unpleasant, and he tried it again, this time closing his mouth around the bevelled head.
John’s hips bucked hard, and a small amount of fluid oozed from the tip. That was foul; Sherlock pulled back immediately and spat. He wiped his mouth with the back of a hand and was about to take John’s penis back in hand when John suddenly rolled and gathered his feet under him. The bed dipped; John looked over his shoulder at Sherlock, ears up and forward and tail out. It was a very intent look. His penis was still oozing, and the base was starting to swell.
"All right," said Sherlock. He'd done his research. He assumed the position once more, rear exposed, and finally, finally, he felt that cold nose poking between his cheeks. It made him jump. John’s tongue darted out, and it was nothing like when John usually rimmed him; the wolf tongue was broader and flatter and seemed to go everywhere, slipping and sliding and poking. And again, here John seemed content to lick forever, until Sherlock was panting into his pillow, cold nose forgotten--it’d warmed up, anyhow--and wishing he could be clutching John’s fur instead. Maybe--maybe next time there’d be a way--
The tongue disappeared, and Sherlock let out a needy sound. Then he felt claws scratching against his sides, his hips, his thighs, as John tried to manoeuvre himself into position. One Internet forum post had suggested putting socks on the wolf's feet, to avoid this precise situation, but Sherlock welcomed the stinging trails, and the warm, furry heat of John's belly against his back. He could feel the head of John’s penis tapping and seeking, glancing off his balls and leaving cool trails against his buttocks, and finally reached back to spread his cheeks with one hand and guide John in with the other.
After that, it was just instinct. Sherlock let his head hang down; his elbows trembled and then finally gave way, so that he was braced only on his forearms, his face mashed into the pillow, as John snapped his hips in and out, over and over, his knot bumping against the outer edges of Sherlock's hole. Even just before the first full moon night John was never quite this forceful, knocking Sherlock forward by degrees, until he was nearly mashed up against the headboard. He braced his forearms against it as best he could and tried to concentrate on relaxing, because he wanted that knot, wanted it very, very badly, and this might be the only chance he ever got. But there was also John’s broad, furred chest heaving against his back, John’s breath on his neck, John’s claws on the insides of his legs, everything, everything of John, except that knot, which finally, yes, finally popped in.
It hurt, like Sherlock was being split in half, and he barely had the presence of mind to muffle his cry in the pillow. It went on and on and on, whiting out everything else in a way that not even orgasm accomplished. John froze, whether in consternation or orgasm Sherlock didn’t have the mental processes to gauge; maybe both. He squeezed his eyes against the surplus of sensation as John’s knot seemed to get even bigger inside him, God. It felt like a bowling ball.
A normal wolf would have dismounted at this point, turned himself so that he was ass-to-ass with his mate, gazed off at the horizon or a nearby tree or at another wolf while he finished pumping his seed. But John wasn’t a normal wolf; he licked Sherlock’s ear and nuzzled the back of his neck and blew warm breath into Sherlock’s hair, while Sherlock tried not to shiver himself to pieces. He took himself in hand and stroked fiercely, almost desperately. He needed to come so badly, needed this to end. John gave a low moan of approval and tried to force himself deeper into Sherlock, pushing out a low, heartfelt groan.
He came, but it was like an afterthought compared to the immense fullness of John inside him. John licked his ear again and whined.
Finally, finally, the knot went down enough that John could slip out, stumbling backwards enough that he almost fell off the bed. Sherlock fell limp onto his side; he felt loose and open, like the wind could blow right through him. John nosed at his poor stretched arsehole and whined again, giving it one, two licks. Sherlock flapped one uncoordinated arm at him. "No. Stop that. Get me a slide," he mumbled. The wolf stared at him, ears tilted back. "I want to preserve a sample," Sherlock said. "For examination."
John gave a low bark, wuff, sank down on the other side of the bed, and closed his eyes. Sherlock curled himself until he could pillow his head on the wolf’s flank. John heaved a sigh. Well. The sample would just have to wait until another time.
-----
Sherlock woke up to a man in his bed, examining his arse.
"Well," said John, "I don’t think I hurt you. Amazingly enough. Except for those scratches. I’ll put some iodine on them." He was very pale, with dark smudges under his eyes; not atypical for the morning after a transformation, although at least he wasn’t vomiting up chunks of half-digested raw meat this morning. The corners of his mouth were turned down, and his hair stuck up every which way. He still smelled slightly of beast and fur, and Sherlock was sure that if he stuck his nose in John’s armpit and inhaled, he’d feel the urge to bare his throat.
"How was it, then?" John asked. "Was it everything you thought it’d be?"
Sherlock stretched, not missing the way John swallowed in response. He was deliciously sore, and the scratches stung. Everything was marvelous. "Yes."
John got up, presumably to go to the bathroom and get the iodine. And probably also to sit on the toilet with the lid down for a bit and have himself a good freak out. Sherlock had to nip that in the bud, or this would never happen again, and their relationship might be irreperably ruined. "This wasn't a mistake."
John stopped in the doorway to their bedroom. The line of his shoulders was stiff and remorseful. "Do you want it to happen again?" he asked in a low voice.
Sherlock allowed the silence to spin out. John wanted him to think about this, though there was really only one answer: "Yes."
John bowed his head, making his top vertebrae, the one just below the nape of his neck, more prominent. Sherlock studied the way it pushed up against the skin and wished that John would let him watch the change, just once. How did his spine transform? His shoulders? How did his skull reshape itself? There was so much left to know. This was the least of it, really, a very small part of all the things that made up John H. Watson.
"I don't know if I regret this, yet," John said to the floor.
"There's no need to," said Sherlock. "I don't."
"It hurt, didn't it?" said John.
"Yes," said Sherlock. "But I wanted it to."
John took a deep breath, then let it out. He shook himself, a very doglike gesture, and some of the tension melted from his shoulders. He shuffled from the room. Sherlock allowed himself to relax and rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling. The crack of his ass was still wet, which was always a delightful way to wake up. He should have asked John to bring a slide on his way back.
That conversation hadn't gone as well as he would have liked. He should have persuaded John to come back to bed; these talks always went better when he could see John's face and touch him. Doubtless John knew that, and that was why he'd gone to berate himself alone in the bathroom. Sherlock would let him. He had no wish to imperil their relationship by manipulating John into doing things he didn't want to do.
But there was still another full moon night. Sherlock smiled up at the ceiling.