The first time John saw it, he grinned broadly. Sure, he'd seen the tag before, hell he'd made the first tag. But that didn't stop him from smiling whenever he saw someone else was continuing the revolution.
I believe in Sherlock Holmes.
"Good for you," John laughed as he continued walking. He felt the pray paint in his pocket shifted and he reajusted his coat to keep it from being seen. He had actually gotten quite good at this whole tagging buissness. He'd hunted Raz down, who was more then happy to give him a couple lessons.
He saw twelve more, all different, before he spotted someone in the process of making one. He approached the culprit and grinned, because Well this one is new was his first thought.
Richard Brook was I
He tapped the woman on her shoulder and she paused in the middle of an 'f'. She turned around, still holding the spray paint up, as if it were a weapon.
"Oh, its just you," she sighed, turning back to her work. She's an ameteur, that much is evident by how close she's holding the can to the wall. He studied her for another moment before he realized. It was the women from the 'Homeless Network' Sherlock had used that one time in the "Great Game" case(s).
So, ten minutes later (because she had to finish the tag, and John spent a minute laughing at how she had used Sherlock's scarf color for the tag without realizing) they were sat in Angelo's, because he always gave John a discount (would have been free, but he saw Angelo was struggling financially).
"Its a movement, its all over!" she exclaimed, happily hoding the coffe between her hands to warm them and staring at her pasta hungrily. "No one knows who started it, but its spreading. I heard someone say that they were a few in other countries! There are hundreds of us, who owed Sherlock, or met him, and countless others who just believe in him. Docotor Watson, not everyone believed the tabloids. Please don't go tell your detective friend, we're really just trying to help."
John grinned and put his can of spray paint on the table. "Be a bit of a hypocrit if I told, wouldn't I?" They chatted about the movement for another few moments before something struck John. "We need to do something big, something that people have to notice."
"But what can we do? This is my first and probably last tag, I've been saving up since I saw the first one, and that can cost me a meal."
"I'll buy your paint," he dismissed. "We need to do something huge. Tell as many people as you can, get the word around; St. Barts, midnight, a week after tomorrow. We're going to make the movement something no one can ignore."
The woman sat there for a second before she grinned. "What's the plan, Boss?"
John told her exactly what he planned to do, and said he would start it off, with something similar that no one would notice; cover all the current tags with white the day before. People would assume it was just someone trying to silence the movement. Not something as big as what they would actually do.
The woman, Lindsay ("Call me Zee!" she insisted) nodded in approval.
Angelo, who had been secretly listening to the two, approached the table. "That's quite illegal," he mentioned. John's heart jumped into his throat out of fear. Would Angelo really rat them out? "Hope we don't get caught, could be bad for buissiness!" John grinned at the man and he agreed to try and help spread the word.
Twelve days between when John had formulated his plan (today was the day John would paint the building white) and now the movement had already swelled to unimaginable heights. Buttons, hats, mugs, t-shirts, everything had I believe in Sherlock Holmesor Moriarity was REAL or Richard Brook was FAKE or something else along those lines splayed across it. Which made spreading the movement easier. Everytime he was a shirt or anything else displaying peoples beliefs he would slip them a small peice of paper.
St. Barts. Midnight, Saturday. Make the movement.
-Dr. JW.
PS. Bring spray paint. Spread the message. Discard after reading.
And they would read the paper and grin to him with a small nod. So far John had twenty-six people down as a yes. Zee and Angelo (who he had met up with last night) had sixteen each, and all this support warmed John's heart.
That Saturday, John got there half-an-hour early. He sat in the shadows and waited for people to show up.
"A bit illegal, this," someone mentioned, nudging the bag ofs pray paint with his foot. John sighed and didn't even bother looking at the man.
"Give me an hour more, Lestrade. I alredy put alot of work into this." The man laughed and put down his own bag.
"Be a bit stupid of me to arrest everyone," he replied. "Probably lose my job for illegal acctivity, I'm on a tight enough leash."
John grinned and Greg stood beside him for a few minutes. Peole started showing up, in small groups, and John told them all the plan. They all grinned, it would be easy enough to get accomplished with all the people.
Ten minutes into the work there was the sound of an umbrella tapping against the pavement. People stiffened as they heard a voice.
"Bit childish, this," Mycroft mentioned. John grinned and threw him a spare can, Mycroft laughed and climbed onto the ladder beside John. "I'm here as a favor, mind you, so I might need room for two."
"Go for it, Mycroft," he replied. Mycroft went to get to work but John stopped him. "Thank you. You are the last person I expected to show up, but I'm very glad we've got the government in on it with us."
Mycroft shook his head, a small smile on his face, and made his own tag next to Johns. Everyone left an hour later, proud of their work.
There were a lot of tags, but they all made one large tag, just one word that captured the entire movement.
BELIEVE!
The 'ring leaders' and the cop all sat down for coffee in Angelo's, the one time John would let Angelo take the bill.
"That was brilliant!" Zee exclaimed happily, removing her warm black hoodie that John had bought her for tonight, but said she could keep.
"Yeah, it was," Angelo agreed happily. He liked Zee, she was funny and sweet. He should really give her a job waiting tables in his store . . .
"Didn't expect to see Mycroft," John mentioned to Lestrade as Angelo mentioned his thought to Zee.
"Yeh," Lestrade cleared his throat, "that was a bit unexpected." There was a light blush on his face and John laughed merrily.
"I wonder who he made the tag for," John mentioned. Lestrade shruggged, smiling slightly from talking about Mycroft.
But if they had seen the tag he had done as a favor, they would have known. Because only one person would ever put that on a building.
I believe in my blogger.
Word count-1204.