4.23.12; Watch Duty at Midnight

It was late, and the sun had long since fallen from the sky. The moon was bright and full, illuminating the shipyard, shining right on his face. The moon reflecting off the water in the distance Dameon sat atop a metal crate, surrounded by many others. Just a few crates nearby, some shady business was going on- being paid 200 bucks for watch duty, it must have been important.

The wind blowing lightly against him was comforting, whistling beside him, but was far from distracting. He was paid to do his job previously (if only half of his pay), so he would do it, and do it well. His gaze traversed the docks, scanning for approaching cars, people, or anything else. "This is way too easy- only two more hours to go." Dameon mumbled to himself.

Dameon knew the white truck before him was part of the operation, but he supposed to take a closer look, just in case. He hopped over a few crates silently, before landing beside the truck, and taking a look in the driver-side window. He knew it was dark, but he could see clear enough that he would be able to make out a face.

He wasn't told much about what was going on, but he knew this- only let the white truck in, and make sure nobody follows it. Dameon quickly patted his pockets, reassuring himself that his pocket knife and phone were with him.

"Don't make us wait all night," a gruff-looking, middle-aged man with short black hair called out to Dameon from the small opening in the window he'd made by rolling it down. His tone was something between frustrated and condescending and, every so often, he'd cast a glance away from the other young man towards the large metal doorway.

Dameon had seen controls like the ones for this doorway before. Though, his employer - a man going by the name of Sleeves - ran him through the opening. Beside the doorway is a long cable with a control at the end. Two buttons - one red, one green. At the bottom is a keyhole for a key that Dameon had been given at the beginning of the job. By inserting it and pressing the green button, the door would raise up, allowing vehicles in.

"Just making sure you're the right guy, friend." Dameon replied sarcastically, and began following the cable. "I'll open the gate now." He didn't like him, his condescending tone was painful. 'Maybe I'll jack his car at some point.' He thought, taking the key out from his pocket. Without hesitation, Dameon inserted the key into the slot, and pressed the button.

In the darkness, as the car began to slide by, he wrote down the license plate number in his notepad. Pocketing it quickly, he said through the door "Tell Sleeves I said hello," and pressed the red button, and moved back to his watchpost, to make sure nobody would follow.

'What in the hell could be rotting?' He thought, as he perched atop the warehouse. After a while, Dameon heard the familiar sounds of tires rolling against the asphalt, as his ears perked up. He leaned forward, and took a good hard look at the car- small, white, clean. When the man in the suit came out, he slid down the side of the crate, landing softly, and peered around the edge. 'What the...? Who is this guy?'

Cautiously, Dameon pulled his pocket knife out, and kept a grip on it. 'If I act to brash, I'll screw up the operation. If I don't act at all, I'll screw up the operation.' Dameon tried to maneuver his view to get a good look on the mans face, without leaving his cover. They do say you can tell a lot about someone by their facial expressions.

Noticing his distress, Dameon attempts to sneak around his corner to the back of the mans car. 'The hell? Did I let in the wrong guy?! Sleeves never told me the guy to let in- just the truck. Maybe this IS the right guy? But how do I find out?'' Contemplating his options, he presses up against the back of the truck. Remembering his practice, he attempts to blend into his surroundings, and hopefully something will give him the answer.

Note: If you are using a Gift, make sure you make it absolutely clear. Preferably, you should tag it via colors.

There's a few more moments of hesitation after Dameon blends in, though it gets broken as the disheveled man finally calls out.

"Sleeves, man!" he yells, his odd, broken kind of tone barely just rasping out of his throat. A hacking cough is audible before he lifts a hand to wipe at his mouth. For those particularly perceptive, blood could possibly be visible.

Another moment passes before he shouts out again, "Sleeves, fucking, hey!"

OOC: Sorry- your note has been noted.

"Shit!" Dameon said allowed, walking out from behind the van. He wasn't entirely sure whether or not this was the right guy, but it was easier than hiding for any longer. Things were not going well, and Dameon was going to get the bad end of things. "You're supposed to be meeting Sleeves tonight?" To be cautious, he held his pocket knife tight in his pocket.

As Dameon spoke up, the disheveled man nearly jumps out of his skin. Spinning around to face him immediately, he stumbles backwards, his hands splaying out before him in a sign of submission.

"No!" he sputters, though the words were immediately followed by a sharp shake of his head, "I mean- Yes! Yes I am!" Each word came out disjointed from the other, and the speaking seems to cause the man physical pain.

Watching the man in pain, Dameon couldn't help but bring it up. "Are you okay? Sick or something?" He mumbled, as he began walking towards the man. He wasn't actually concerned for the man, but rather for his job, and Sleeves, and what had been going on in the warehouse. "What do you suppose we do? Sleeves is in there with some stranger... and who knows what the hell he wants."

"Sick?" he immediately sputters out, still backpedaling away from the Uratha at a slow pace. Eventually, he stops and straightens up, his hands lifting to adjust - uselessly - at his suit.

"No, I'm fine," he eventually assures, his eyes turning back to view the large, close metal entrance. "I'm just... I'm here to see Sleeves, you know?" He didn't wait for an answer before continuing, "I've- We've got some business to attend, you know? Are you the guy? Who watches this shit?"

"Yeah, I am." Demeon replied slowly. The mans sudden change surprised him. He didn't think he could recover from a state like that so quickly. "So, what exactly do you need to see Sleeves for? I've got to be cautious, you know?" He lowered his gaze towards the mans feet, before shifting it towards the door. "I'm not sure how Sleeves will react to me letting in the wrong guy- I best get out of here. You know, after we're done." He fidgeted with the knife in his pocket. Dameon wasn't sure if he trusted him. But then again, he doesn't trust most anyone.

The man casts another glance over his shoulder towards the warehouse and, hesitantly, takes a few more steps back towards it. "I- I'm not supposed to tell you about shit," he says, his words a little more calm than before, "It's not. It's not a big deal you know? Just gotta let me in. Sleeves told you about me right? He said to let the guy in the white car in. Right? He said that, right?"

He continues taking steps back towards the entrance, his eyes intent on the other man. As he continues speaking, it's almost as if his speech adopts something much more pleading than what was before.

'This guy needs to calm down,' Dameon thought to himself, as the man backed up closer to the door. He was starting to act strange, but he's seen much stranger in this neck of the woods. "Alright, I'll let you in. Calm down." Slowly, he walked past the cable, and slid the key in it's slot. "Now before you go in, just remember that there's someone in there besides Sleeves." He said as he held down the green button.

Dameon is overwhelmed by the scent of rotting, putrid flesh the moment the doorway slides up and open. It's dark inside, the only light being the moon very barely sifting through the windows at the top of the warehouse. The contents are only barely visible though enough to see an outline at first. The scene in front quickly fades into reality as soon as Dameon stops moving the door upwards.

Standing in the middle of the open warehouse is Sleeves - the young Uratha's employer - as well as two other men. One of which is the middle aged gentleman from the truck prior, as well as a muscle-bound older teen. In the middle of the trio is an open tool box - one of the larger ones that is used to hold tools in the back of a truck. Bending over, the teen appears to be hauling the body of a already decaying asian man up by the corpses underarms.

Everything slams to a halt as the doorway opens, all eyes turning towards Dameon and the disheveled gentleman.



"What the fuck is your problem?" Sleeves calls out as he starts towards the entrance, his eyes intent on Dameon. He doesn't appear to spot the other man until a few steps forward, his eyes shooting open as he does.

The disheveled gentleman doesn't miss a beat. Stepping past the Uratha, he pulls a gun from underneath the untucked portion of his shirt and points it towards Sleeves. His grip is shaky, but he trains it on him firmly.

As the smell of rot overflows Dameons nostrils, he gags, and holds back vomiting. His scent, being a Uratha, was much more powerful than other men. In this case, it caused him to take a step back, and turn away for a moment. As the door finished moving up, Sleeve's voice echoed through the warehouse, and directly towards him. When the man pulled the gun, Dameon shouted "The hell are you doing?" And, pocket knife still firmly in his grip, stepped forward towards the man. 'Damn it!' he thought, 'I really need to be told more about these operations.'

Sleeves hands shot up into the air, the two man behind him held stock still as the stared at the disheveled, gun-toting new arrival. A cool breeze burst through the open doorway, momentarily relieving Dameon of the sickening-sweet smell.

"Don't you fucking move, I'll shoot him!" the man called out towards Dameon, his gun jerking forward in an indication towards Sleeves. Sleeves winced at this, one foot raising as he stumbled back a half step. "You either, asshole," the man shouted, indicating Sleeves. Taking a step forward, he his head visibly twitched to the side.

"What the hell is this, Sleeves," the middle-aged man asked, his hands slowly slipping out of his pockets to raise in the air as the disheveled man's gun swung in an arc towards him.

"Just some fucking junky-" Sleeves replied, his eyes jerking aside to look at the other two men before landing firmly on Dameon, "Why the fuck did you let him in?!"

"I thought I let it the wrong fucking guy earlier, so I let this guy in! He had a white fucking truck, so I had no idea who was who!" Dameons voice wasn't very loud, but still aggressive. He hadn't had a gun pulled on him in a long time- but since then, he had learned of his Uratha abilities. He was not struck by primal fear- if push came to shove, he could handle this quite easily. "Put the gun down, man, nobody wants to get hurt." He said in a low, calm voice, as he inched his hand towards the red button, hoping that this junkie was too out of it to notice.

"Don't you tell me to put the fucking gun down," the man called back towards Dameon. A bit jerkingly, he takes another few steps towards Sleeves, his head shaking minutely from side to side. "You fucked me for the last time, Sleeves. Get on the god damn ground," each word was accented by another step until he was just feet from the other man.

All the while the pair who'd come in earlier were exchanging furtive glances towards each other. It didn't appear the disheveled man was paying much attention to the corpse the teen had in his grip, nor did he care much that it was there. Instead, the barrel of his gun was trained on Sleeves' head, his index finger lightly touching the front of the trigger.

'Shit, things have gotten really bad!' Dameon thought, as the man began walking towards Sleeves, with the gun firmly pointed at his head. 'I've got to act quick...' Dameon began walking towards the man in the suit, his hands out of his pockets, and his back straitened up. "Put the gun down, I don't want this to have to end badly for you." His face had become without emotion, and he spoke slowly and clearly, continuing towards the man. "You can't kill us all- it'd be best just to leave while you can, so nobody gets hurt."

"I don't have to kill you all," the man snarled as he looked back towards Dameon, a faint popping audible in his tone as he looks back towards the other three. "You two, get the fuck out of here," he insisted.

The other two men were hesitant, their eyes turning back towards one another. Slowly, the teen lowered the corpse of the Asian man back into the container that held it. "Sorry Sleeves," the first lamented as he began walking back towards the doorway.

"Yeah, sorry Sleeves," was the last thing audible from the younger one as he passed Dameon and exited out into the street.

Sleeves was dumbstruck, a mixed kind of seething rage and terrified horror on his face as he stared at the man holding the gun towards his head.

"See? Now get the hell out of here," he spouted back at Dameon, his set-jawed gaze turning back towards Sleeves more intently then.

Dameon was struck with anger. 'Why would they abandon Sleeves like that?' He didn't move, wince, or blink. He stood there, glaring at the man in the gray lopsided suit, with a gun pointed at Sleeves. After a moment, he charged forward, in an attempt to grapple the man, and disarm the gun. He knew he probably wouldn't get away without injury- but he had to protect his Employer. That was part of the oath, protect Humans, even when the don't want to be protected. 'I'm not sure this is exactly what the Oath meant,' he thought, 'But it'll have to do.'