Sherlock is usually seen before he's heard.

This time, the echoes of his body precede him. Seated in the consultant's favorite chair, Lestrade listens to the soft and polished snap of shoes arcing up from the wooden floors of 221B. A slight sway in the rhythm perplexes him; every sharp smack trails along the edges of a curiously muffled footfall, but just before Lestrade can think what that might mean, the sounds stop and there he is.

Stilettos.

Lestrade wonders why the air hasn't come to shreds around him.

The familiar dressing gown lays bare his collarbones and presses against the negative space carved out by his form. His feet are delicately encased in black leather, propped into curvature by nerve-thin heels. Sherlock is built in bones and lines and stark minimalism, but he is the essence of indulgence.

"Why are you here?"

Lestrade forces his lips together for a moment before saying, "Those…those are women's shoes."

Sherlock flops onto the couch, flipping the robe open to the thighs. "Incorrect. I'm wearing them. You don't have a case for me."

"Sorry?"

"Must I always repeat myself? Why are you here?"

Lestrade shifts in the chair, thinks about getting up, remains seated. "So…it's for an experiment, then?"

Sherlock doesn't deign to look at him. "Is that shirt you're wearing 'for an experiment'? New, hasn't been washed yet. Noticed the creases when I came in; it's still retained the shape into which it was folded in the store. Quality is middling, even by your standards," here he sniffed, "with weak threading on the buttons. Impulse buy; your wife did well in the settlement."

"Sherlock—"

"You're wearing something new. I'm wearing something new. And yet I'm the one who's experimenting."

"I don't do experiments," says Lestrade.

"Wrong. You don't do scientific experiments," Sherlock retorts, curls bouncing as he sat up, "which might be for the best. Social ones, however—"

"Why do you think I'm here?"

Sherlock cocks his head, corners of his mouth twitching upward. A spontaneous gesture, by all appearances, but one never knows with the consultant. "I don't think. I know."

"Why did you ask me?"

"Talking cure," says Sherlock, "allows the unconscious to rise and take shape in the ether. Freud. Disproven now, of course, and complete nonsense to begin with, but I thought it might be a comfort."

The lanky detective rises from the sunken sofa and takes several steps until he's facing the DI. "You're in my seat."

Lestrade smiles. "You don't do that."

Sherlock remains impassive. "Do what?"

"State the obvious."

"I want you to move."

"And again."

Sherlock narrows his eyes. "Go on."

Lestrade leans forward. "No."

The taller individual drops into a crouch and tilts his chin slightly upwards until he is at eye-level with Lestrade, the smooth pathway of his neck exposed and spotlessly pale. "I want my seat, Lestrade."

The impractically-heeled footwear juts Sherlock's knees forward, but he keeps his back perpendicular to the floor. His dressing gown opens at the lower thigh; the extra fabric pools around the base of his shoes. "Move."

The Detective Inspector is startled into a laugh. "Or what?"

Sherlock rises, smoothly, to his full height. "Or I'll just sit."

Lestrade raises his eyebrows. Sherlock smirks and, resting his hands on the leather arms of the chair, leans down until his face is just above Lestrade's. "You can move, you know. I won't stop you."

"Thought getting me to move was the point."

Sherlock laughs softly, maybe it's a sigh, and moves to catch the curved outer shell of Lestrade's ear in his teeth.

Lestrade exhales, shakily, and asks, "Experiment?"

"Is it?"

Sherlock slides onto Lestrade's lap knees first and nibbles roughly at the inspector's jawline. "Behave."

Lestrade inhales sharply as Sherlock's tongue flicks over his carotid artery. "Deviating from your predicted outcome already, am I?"

"On the contrary."

Lestrade hopes he's crushing the git's posh cheekbones as he grabs his face and pulls him in for a kiss that's more teeth than tongue. Running his hand down that long back, he steadies himself for a moment before deftly flipping Sherlock onto his back and reversing their positions. Lestrade straddles the consultant, whose face is registering far less surprise than Lestrade would have liked, and shrugs off his suit jacket.

Sherlock might even be smiling as he wraps his legs around Lestrade's torso and begins divesting him of his shirt. The consultant's hands are unexpectedly warm against his chest, and he shifts his pelvis forward a bit, aching for contact under the layers of fabric. Sherlock chuckles and uncurls his legs from Lestrade only to drive the points of his heels straight into the hollows behind the man's knees.

Lestrade yelps as his legs buckle and he slides none-too-gently onto the floor. The consultant, robe now fully open, rises from the chair to stand above him. "You're performing quite satisfactorily, Inspector."

The DI in question huffs and moves to stand, but Sherlock places one armored foot on his chest in warning and he sinks back down. "You may suck me."

The words shudder over Lestrade's skin, effectively blotting out his desire for retaliation, and he curses himself as he moans, even as he licks a path up the underside of Sherlock's cock.

The consultant tips his head back and curls his fingers into the thick hair at the crown of the inspector's head. Lestrade takes Sherlock into his mouth and, hollowing his cheeks, skates his tongue around the glans. Sherlock sighs and begins to thrust, slowly so as to give the man time to adjust.

As Sherlock's speed increases, Lestrade unbuttons his trousers and is about to stroke himself when the consultant clears his throat. "I didn't say you could fuck your hand. Do I have to cuff you?"

The capillaries beneath the skin of Lestrade's cheeks light up and it's humiliating as hell and he loves it. He attempts to nod without dislodging Sherlock from his mouth but finds him slipping out despite his best efforts. The consultant shakes his fine-boned head, lips twisting in a pretty moue of disappointment. "And you were doing so well."

He pulls all the way out and sashays into the kitchen, heels tapping out uneven triplets Lestrade can nearly feel under the complaints of his knees. A metallic click and the fridge opens and there are scraping sounds against the shelves before the door is closed again.

Sherlock Holmes is walking towards him then, robe splayed wide and the taunting grace of gleaming pale skin aching to be torn. What would he do, what could be done to him, if Lestrade were to take a bite?

The consultant brings his right hand out from behind his back and snaps his wrist, twirling a pair of handcuffs around his index finger. He steps lithely around the man on his knees in the middle of his living room and drops to the ground next to him, wrenching his hands behind his back and clapping them in the icy steel rings.

Lestrade sucks in a quick breath through his teeth. Though lined with calfskin, the edge of the cuffs is cold enough to trick his nerves into registering heat. He straightens his spine and tries to keep his balance, unable to hold onto anything as Sherlock goes back to fucking his mouth.

At the very least, he thinks, the aching smoothness of the cuffs against his wrists pull focus away from the neglect in his groin. And the steady pounding of Sherlock's cock against the back of his throat only adds to the catalogue of sensations assaulting the DI's body.

And so Lestrade lets go and lets his thoughts die out, slipping through the ligament line of space between his knees and the floor. Sherlock stops moving. "Good. You're not entirely stupid."

Lestrade never knows what to say at times like these—not that there has ever been a time like this—when Sherlock comes as close to giving a compliment as he likely ever will. Fortunately, his mouth is rather full at the moment, so he simply looks up at the consultant and lets out a soft chuckle which he's sure vibrates quite pleasantly around the base of Sherlock's cock.

Sherlock's mouth twitches into a smile and Lestrade wonders if he's reevaluating the situation when he pulls out again and moves to sit cross-legged on the ground, bringing Lestrade to him for a series of soft kisses nearly chaste in execution if not in thought.

"So they're men's shoes," Lestrade says, forehead resting against the consultant's shoulder, hands still trapped behind his back in a block of ice.

Sherlock brings a finger under the DI's chin and forces it upwards, flicking his eyes over the man's face. "They're Sherlock shoes," he tells him.

And Lestrade thinks that he understands.