Erik chuckles at Jackie. "When am I not in band mode?" His grin remains and he shakes his head. "Haven't really picked up too many other interests around here yet. Still getting settled I guess."
Truth be known, Erik had always thrown himself fully into whatever he did, leaving room for little else besides his dedication.
"Everyone in the band - those are my friends, so when we hang out, it's band time." He shrugs. "Just works out that way. I guess if I didn't have them twenty-four/seven..." He thinks for a moment. "Not sure what I'd do," he admits ruefully. "Maybe find a nice hiking trail or something."
"Yeah... a movie sounds good." Axel tries to keep his head in the game for Jess' sake, helping with the pie, then heading back to the living room with her. Getting settled once more on the couch, he's not quite as cuddly but does sit next to her and leans back to eat dessert while the movie they chose plays. He's quiet... seeming to be totally focused on the movie, even if his mind is a million miles away.
Eventually, empty plates are stacked on the coffee table along with Axel's feet and his arm is around Jess as the movie plays on. At some point in the plot, someone sets a trap for a bad guy and winds up with a homemade alarm from a string of bells. Sure enough when the bad guy comes around the corner, the whole world knows he's there from the racket.
Axel's eyes focus on the screen as he watches, but as that scene plays, his whole body tenses and he's suddenly no longer caring about the plot. "Alarm," he whispers. "The alarm went off. How could I have not..."
Grabbing the remote, he stops the movie without warning and looks down to Jess, shock in his eyes. "Why didn't I remember it before?" Everything had been a blur... he'd been so worked up and scared at the time, that thinking straight had been hard to come by anyway. And ever since then, he'd tried not to think about it at all. But the one forgotten piece was the one that could have provided him peace all these years.
Still staring at Jess, he blinks. "I set my alarm that night." He didn't even think about the fact that she might not have a clue what he was talking about. "I had an electronic alarm set up so if I opened the door in the middle of the night, it would go off. Sometimes I forgot to set it, so it wasn't consistent, but when I did, not once did I ever disarm it while sleepwalking - I always set it off."
His eyes search Jess' as his mind processes what felt like a thousand and one bits and pieces. "When the police came, they set it off. The alarm went off when they came in which means it was still set, which means... I never left."
He blinks again, the shock remaining in his gaze. How could he have not remembered that? It didn't prove a thing to anyone else, but to him... to him, this was a freedom. He was innocent... and now he knew it for sure. "I never left," he whispers. "It really wasn't me."
Pete shrugs and keeps the gun, fiddling with it a little more before wandering over to the gun cabinet to put it away. "Somewhere to hang out, huh?"
He thinks for a couple moments before finishing and turning around, hooking his hands in his pockets. "Guess that depends on what you like. We got bars, we got clubs, we got fights but technically I'm not supposed to know about those, there's desert races on some nights but Alec would know that schedule."
Pete studies Trey for a moment, cocking his head. "There's a party tonight up at the lake. Hamburgers, hotdogs, good beer... I'm going for a couple hours if you wanna grab a ride with me." He grins a little. "And don't worry about curfew... I'll have you covered."
9/4/10
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