A/N: I tried my best, I'm afraid Sherlock may be quite a bit OOC, and John a bit too.

Also, the picture is by applejaxshii on Deviantart

Sherlock should have expected it.

The first signs were evident when John came home one Thursday night (January 12, to be exact) after work at St. Bart's, telling him about how someone and their significant other had just gotten a new puppy.

For the most part, Sherlock drowned it out, focusing on what could potentially be a perfect murder (he was bored, and this was his third hypothetical "perfect murder" in the past twenty minutes. He had almost finished rebut every detail of it to the point of starting over again) and rotated the skull in his hands.

Until John asked they could have a dog.

It was almost like a child, begging for a dog. Sherlock was familiar with the tone, the wide eyes, and subtle hints; Mycroft had performed the act very well when they were children, enough that Sherlock could imitate it perfectly, though not with the same pleasing results.

Sherlock closed his eyes and leaned back further into the couch. "No, John."

"Why not?"

Speaking in his rather rapid pace, the ebony haired man declared, "First, if we got a dog, I would be the one who would have to take care of it because you are at work during the day. Second, we live in an apartment, and it wouldn't get the attention and exercise it required. Finally, because we live in an apartment, we have eight neighbors. If the neighbors complain to Mrs. Hudson, she will complain to you, and then you will complain to me. Eventually, we would have to get rid of the animal."

John sighed, and continued his way to the kitchen.

The subject didn't come up again until three weeks and four days later, February 6, when John offered to walk his girlfriend's dogs in the early hours of the morning. He'd walk over to her house, use the key to the woman's apartment to pick up the dogs while she slept, take the dogs to Baker Street and ask Sherlock to help him get breakfast going. Of course, Sherlock questioned the whole routine, debating that John could walk the two blocks around his girlfriend's apartment and favorite café, and it would surely be more efficient. Besides that, he was not obligated to doing meaningless tasks for women that dumped him within three weeks (the longest held out for two weeks, six days, and three hours before calling John and ending their relationship)

John, of course, said that it would be more efficient if they had a dog of their own that he wouldn't have to go pick up to walk.

Within five days of the first walk, John and his girlfriend parted ways, and the morning walks ended.

After constant verbal pursuits, John eventually brought home a short haired, sixteen inch tall dog.

Sherlock didn't notice at first, he was too caught in this two nicotine patch problem. When he finally finished figuring out the problem, he opened his ice blue eyes to find John sitting in the nearby chair with an alert dog lying at John's feet, staring forward at the window.

"John?"

"Hm?"

"Why is there a dog in the flat?"

John looked down at the dog at his feet. "Oh. This is Kongo. I asked Marina if I could borrow him for the weekend, to see if we liked have a dog in the house."

Sherlock suppressed a sigh and closed his eyes. "What did I tell you about getting a dog?"

"Not to."

"No, I said 'I would be the one who would have to take care of it because you are at work during the day.' I will not look after a dog, exercise it, feed it, and coddle it. Therefore, you will return this dog to Marina right now and quit pushing the subject."

"But Sherlock…"

"No."

"But he won't bark."

Sherlock opened one eye and examined the dog. "Of course he won't. He's a Basenji*. He'll growl, and run and disturb the peace of the flat." He closed his eyes again, and removed the patches on his arm.

"What peace?"

Sherlock ignored his friend, remembering that this remark was a form of a joke, and threw out the patches into the rubbish bins*.

"Look, Sherlock: Kongo doesn't require much grooming, and Marina gave me the food and toothbrush he would need, and also gave me his leash," John held up the aforementioned item, "and I would run him every day, and all you would have to do is put a scoop of food into a bowl for him in the morning and at night, and maybe toss a ball down the hall. That's it."

Sherlock only glared.

"It's only for the weekend." John pleaded.

Sherlock's jaw tightened. "Fine. But this doesn't mean we'll be getting a dog for ourselves. You can just take care of the dog for the weekend."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"John, I said 'no,' which is a very clear answer. Now quit asking." Sherlock hissed at the shorter man beside him.

The shorter of the two was holding up a Silk Terrier, with pleading eyes. The pair was at a rescue center with plenty of cats and dogs, and quite a few families- more than expected, considering it was an early Wednesday afternoon.

"Well, what about the Welsh Corgi?"

"I said no dog."

"I thought the Cardigan Welsh Corgi was cute."

"Were you not listening to that dog bark? Mrs. Hudson would be on us in twenty minutes if we brought that mutt home."

John sighed, and replaced the Terrier back into the kennel.

"How are you two coming along?" An elderly volunteer asked, directed more at John than Sherlock. Sherlock grimaced, and cut off John before he could speak,

"Wonderful. We were just leaving."

"Did you happen to find a breed you liked?"

Simultaneously the colleagues said, "No" and "Well…"

The woman grinned and urged him on with a nod. "The German Shorthaired Pointer looked good, but maybe too big for us to handle."

"Any dog is too much for us to handle." Muttered Sherlock.

The woman hummed in thought, and glanced at the dogs in the kennels, and waved John over to a kennel. John looked into it to find an Irish Setter puppy. He grinned and opened the kennel, petting and holding the puppy.

The volunteer turned around and pointed at Sherlock. "You. Follow me." The consulting detective eyed the woman wearily as she passed him to the other side of the room, and reluctantly trailed after her.

When John had finished playing with the puppy five minutes later, and deciding that it wouldn't be the best animal to bring home (a goldfish was probably be a better option, now that he considered it) and found that Sherlock was not in the same place he left him, looking on with disdain.

"Sherlock?"

"What?"

John found the midnight haired man sitting in a corner, his coat and scarf discarded on the floor next to him, sitting with his hands on his knees, waiting and watching John.

It took a few seconds for John to realize that there was a kitten sitting on Sherlock's shoulder.

"Why…?"

"-is there a cat on my shoulder? Apparently the woman wanted me to get shredded to pieces by their wildest, most disagreeable cat they had with them. She yowled quite a bit when she tried to pull her out of the cage and hand her over to me." Sherlock lifted up his hands, and with difficulty (for the cat acted in defense by burying her claws into his shirt to avoid being removed), pulled the cat off of his shoulder and put it into his lap, and stroked it on the head.

"And…?"

"And the cat had a staring contest with me for a while."

"You're kidding."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Of course not. Cats are curious, clever creatures. Humans can't tame them, and they are quite temperamental at times. Still, the cat didn't scratch at me. When I passed whatever test the cat had in mind, she took quite a liking to me. Purring and rubbing and sitting on my shoulder. Only stopped moving once I began to give her attention."

"Why do you keep calling it 'the cat'?"

The volunteer returned. "Because she doesn't have a name. She was found abandoned on the front steps of the shelter last week, and no one will adopt her. I figured if Mr. Holmes could handle her, and since you wouldn't do very well with a dog, you might take her." A pause and then, "Though I have to admit, that him getting scratched up was my ulterior motive," she added in an amused murmur.

"Us? Have a cat?" John sounded distraught.

Sherlock sighed. "That is what the woman is saying, John. Besides, a cat would be easier to take care of than a dog. They do use litter boxes, don't they?"

John looked at the Russian Blue in his best friend's lap. The cat looked back up at him with light green eyes, evaluating the stocky man.

"Fine."

Sherlock grinned, pushed the cat off his lap, and stood up. The volunteer scurried off to gather the paperwork necessary to rid of the ebony man and his counterpart cat.

A/N:

* Basenji's are known as the barkless dog, because they're larynx is shaped strangely that they don't bark. They can growl, howl, and yip, but not bark.

**Is that the right term? I'm American, and I couldn't remember what they're called in G.B., but I think that was what my friend and her father called them when I was at her house (She was born in England and returns there every summer, picking up the accent for her to shake off come September)

*** Reference to The Cat Who… series by Lilian Jackson Braun, a mystery series about a journalist named Qwilleran and his Siamese cat Koko (and eventually Yum Yum). Very much like the Sherlock Holmes books, because you don't quite see the solution coming, and the clues are raised at the end and pieced together. Braun also leads you astray by tipping off the idea somebody else committed the murder/crime. You can start with any book in the series, though if you don't start from the beginning, I recommend starting with The Cat Who Could Read Backwards