A/N: This chapter is a little shorter, but it seemed to be an appropriate stopping point. I do hope you enjoy! And thanks for sticking it out with my extended hiatus. But joy and rapture- all my main stories have now been updated! Thanks again for reading!
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the offspring.
Tower of Blood was Halloween's most anticipated new horror film. It was the story of this creepy old castle in the middle of nowhere that was possessed by the evil spirit of the man who built it. Most importantly, it was supposed to be the scariest, goriest horror movie ever made. Rumor was that every theater in London that was showing it had an officer checking identification at the door. So naturally, every kid at Gabriel's school wanted to see it. For weeks he and several of his friends had been plotting to get someone's older sibling to take a group of them.
"That won't do any good," Andrew said. Andy was Gabriel's best guy friend other than Archie who didn't go to their school. He was a constant worrier. "The only way a kid can get in is to get their mum or dad to go with them."
"So maybe we can get somebody's parents to take us all," Katie offered. "My dad hates movies like that."
"Then who can we get?" The huddle of kids looked from one to the other until finally they were all looking at Gabriel.
"Yeah, Gabe," Max piped up. It was funny, once Gabe had cleaned Max's clock when they were first years, they'd been friends ever since. "Your dad is Sherlock Holmes! He loves that stuff, right? He'll take us."
"You're all extremely ambitious," Gabriel said.
Katie laughed. "Your dad's probably our best bet. He went with us to that haunted house a couple of years ago. And he always lets us watch whatever we want when I sleep over."
"But this movie is seriously gory, Katie. I heard some guy actually died when they were making it…"
Katie's friend Tess interrupted, "And if you watch really close, you can see his body fall from the tower in one of the scenes!"
"Wicked!" they all exclaimed in unison.
"Just ask him, Gabe," Katie said, squeezing his hand. "The worst he can do is say no."
OoOoOo
"Forget it!" Sherlock was exceptionally tired of this argument. Ever since Gabriel had come home from school, he'd been nagging him to go see some silly horror film. And it wasn't just Gabriel he was expected to take, but Katie Adams and a virtual hoard of noisy, overactive teenagers. "Let me put this in the simplest of terms, Gabe. I'd rather crawl naked through a field of razorblades and then have a bathe in a pool of lemon juice than take you and a bunch of your friends to see some third rate Bacchanalia of blood and mayhem. No thank you."
"Please Dad!" Gabriel whined for the billionth time. "We have to have an adult with us and nobody else's parents will go!"
Sherlock sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and mentally counting to ten so he wouldn't explode. He knew that this sudden interest in horror films and death had a lot to do with the recent loss of Mr. Rhys. It was normal and just Gabriel's way of confronting his own fears, but why should he have to take on the responsibility of traumatizing other people's children? He had four that he was busy traumatizing without taking on others. "Gabriel, they will most likely not let anyone under eighteen into that movie no matter who is with them. If, in fact, Tower of Blood is the movie that I think it is. I'm also not going to have angry parents calling to harass me when their children are terrified afterwards. There is a reason that movie has the rating it does. It's not for children."
"I'm not a child!"
"For all intents and purposes you are!"
Drawn by the shouting, Will toddled into the lounge with his juice cup and held it up to Sherlock. "Juice, Daddy?"
"Archie said you showed him pictures of dead people once. How is this any different?"
Sherlock narrowed his eyes and took the cup from Will. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"He said that when we were in John and Mary's wedding that you said if he was good you'd show him pictures of dead people."
"I don't recall that at all…"
"He's not lying!"
"I didn't say he was," Sherlock said. Will had evidently decided he wanted his cup back and was trying to pull it out of his hand. "I just said I didn't remember. Stop, Will!" His harsh tone immediately hurt the toddler's feelings and he began wailing.
"But Dad…"
"Gabriel, I said no! I'm not going and neither are you!" Before Gabe could protest further, Sherlock was scooping Will up and carrying him off to the kitchen for juice.
OoOoOo
Gabriel related this story to Katie, Archie, and Andrew in his room the next afternoon. "I don't know what we're going to do. The film comes out Friday and we still don't have a chaperone. I even tried John, but he wasn't going for it either. But even if we found someone, my dad's not going to let me go."
Katie sighed and leaned against him. "It's okay, Gabe. I didn't really want to see that stupid movie anyway."
He slipped his arm around her waist and let her kiss his cheek. "Well I did."
"I can't believe you're giving up so easy," Archie sighed, kicking back on Gabriel's bed.
"What are you talking about?"
"Well just because your dad said no doesn't mean you shouldn't go anyway."
"Sure it does," Gabriel replied. "How else are we going to get in?"
"I heard there was this old guy that sits out front and if you give him 20 pounds, he'll take your group in the theater," Archie explained.
"I'm not going into a movie with a creepy pervert!" Andrew said.
"God, you're such a nancy," Archie said.
Gabriel ignored them. "Creepy perverts notwithstanding, how will we get out of the house? I mean, my dad said I couldn't go to the cinema at all. I'm sure he won't believe that I'm going down there to see some stupid kids' movie."
"We could take Scarlett," Katie offered. "Tell them we were taking her to see that princess thing."
Gabriel turned, showing her 'the face.' It was the same face that annoyed John Watson. "Are you mad? Scarlett in Tower of Blood would be torture. She'd start screaming before the movie even started."
Archie sat up. His eyes rolled so far that for a moment they were afraid they might stick that way. "Do I have to think of everything? Jeez… you're supposed to be half-genius, Gabe."
"Sod off, Archie…"
"I'm staying with my Aunt Lena this weekend. She lives around the corner and will probably have a date. She won't care what we're up to. You all tell your parents that you're sleeping over at my house on Friday night. We'll go to the cinema and when the movie's over we'll sneak back."
"Won't your Aunt Lena think it's strange that all of us, including a girl, are sleeping over?"
"I'm telling you, she won't care. She leaves me at her flat by myself all the time. The old lady downstairs is supposed to watch out for me, but she's almost totally deaf. Chances are, we'll be back before my aunt is. We'll just all go up to the attic room where I sleep and she'll never know the difference."
"My dad will," Katie protested. "The only reason he lets me stay with Gabe is because he knows I'll be in the room with Scarlett."
"So tell him you're here at Gabe's."
"What if he calls to check on me?"
"Then get Scarlett to tell him you're in the bath."
"That only works if he doesn't call my dad's mobile," Gabriel said.
"Tell my dad that your dad is working a case and he shouldn't call his mobile," Katie offered. Gabriel smirked. Where did this bad girl attitude come from? Katie was usually the picture of innocence. Archie must be a bad influence.
"What if he calls Gabriel's mum?" Andrew asked.
"Everyone knows that Doctor Molly hates her mobile phone. She leaves it in the bedroom every night as soon as she comes home from work and doesn't look at it again until morning unless she's on call, right Gabe?"
"Yeah…" He wasn't sure he liked this plan. It was too complex. His father had told him a million times that if you were going to lie to someone to keep it simple. The devil's in the details. "But if she doesn't answer, then he might come over thinking something's wrong." He was really just inventing reasons to thwart them now.
"Have Scarlett swipe your mum's phone and then she can answer it if he does call," Archie finished.
"I think you're all grossly overestimating my baby sister's ability to lie."
"She'll do anything you say, Gabriel," Katie sighed. "The kid worships you."
He didn't like to admit it, but that was part of the problem. If he asked Scarlett to lie for them, he was taking advantage of her idolization of her big brother. He would feel guilty for not living up to Scarlett's expectations of him. "Of course she does. She's my baby sister…"
As if her name was a summoning, Scarlett wandered past Gabriel's room carrying Finn out in front of her like a sack of rotten potatoes. "Mummy!" she cried. "Finn got chocolate milk all over!"
"Perfect timing," Archie said, quirking his eyebrows and rushing out into the hallway. After a couple of minutes, Scarlett came out of the twins' room, sans Finn. "Hey Scarlett! Come in here and talk to us!"
Scarlett lit up at actually being invited into Gabriel's room with the big kids. She was usually standing outside the door begging to play with them, much to her brother's chagrin. "What is it?"
"Gabriel wanted to ask you for a favor."
