[22:45 - SANCTUARY PANTRY]

[dr_lauren]

Lauren had been in stranger situations in her life - something she tried not to dwell on, since it made her attempts at feeling normal hard to maintain - but crowding into a pantry with three vampires during a ship-wide lockin was probably in the top ten. She waited until Pam, Caroline and Klaus had all appeared before giving the group a polite smile and launching into her hastily thought out speech.

"Thanks for coming. I wanted to speak to you all because the circumstances we're in are very limited - there doesn't seem to be a supply of nourishment for you here, which means that you will have to feed from some, if not all of the people here." She acknowledged the problems in this statement with a sympathetic grimace before going on. "Now, I don't know how often you need to eat or how much, but given that we don't know how long we're going to be shut in here we need to approach this in a coordinated fashion." Yes, it was 'we' now, though she knew she was putting herself in a position she hadn't been asked to take. It made a change.

"You're each going to need volunteers, and the people that do volunteer are going to need to be monitored for their health and allocated more supplies. This can't be done in secret - at best, people would soon begin to notice and be suspicious, and at worst it'd cause a panic. I'm more than willing to help with this, but I need information from you if we're going to do this right. So. Please tell me you'll go along with this."

Comments

[brightestlight]

Caroline had closed the door, and turned around even as Lauren started to speak, and she just sort of opened her mouth to stay something, and then stopped, her arms wrapped around herself as she cleared her throat. "The people that we feed from aren't hurt." She said it shortly, and everything about her is incredibly defensive, her shoulders hunched and it's obvious that she's upset, and that every word that Lauren says pretty much makes it worse.

Pam's reaction to Caroline asking her to come in here had been annoyed at the very best, and downright hostile at the worst-- she's not dealing well, with the tiny room, with the fear of people reacting (underscored by what Lauren's saying), the hunger, having people she doesn't want to know sitting outside- and when it comes down to it, she's nineteen and trying to be an adult and everything is pretty awful.

[ithinkiwasbornforthis]

Pam arrives closely behind Caroline, tight lipped and visibly angry so her first reply isn't exactly diplomatic. "And you don't think announcing to the public that they are trapped in a little box with three vampires will cause panic?"

Of course some of them already know, but just coming right out with it and expecting a sterile statement to produce a sterile, willing, reaction seems far fetched to Pam, even for those who have a soft spot for freaks and monsters.

[wholeworldoutthere]

Klaus is leaning back against some shelves, hands in his pockets, and his face is unreadable as the pretty young doctor speaks. It's cute, really. She's cute. He lets the two other vampires speak first; although he can guess how Caroline feels about that offer, he looks at Pam closely when she speaks up. Well, since nobody seems to want in on what the doctor's offering, he has absolutely no problem speaking up for all three of them.

"Most people already know about me and Caroline," he finally does, after a couple of seconds of silence. He doesn't know who exactly knows about Pam, apart from them, and the doc. "I fed out in the open earlier, and nobody started shrieking bloody murder. Ask Erik if he needs to see a doctor now." Erik probably feels better by now, now that Klaus's blood has fully taken effect, than he did before. "We're not going to cause a panic, and we're not jeopardising anybody's health." That wouldn't exactly be in anyone's best interest. "We don't need your help, Dr Lewis, but thank you for your concern," he finishes, and he doesn't sound sardonic, but what else could he be.

[dr_lauren]

"No offense intended, but I think you do," she tells him. "You might have fed, but I don't think Caroline or Pam has yet," she says, glancing at the two women, "save for the blood that I brought with me. If things were fine then neither of them would be so hungry right now, and if nobody protested with your feeding then there's no problem with making this more official.

"And as for Erik - he may be feeling fine now, but repeated feedings will weaken him. Your blood is not a perpetual motion machine." She's growing more confident as she speaks, not less, her expression frank and straightforward. "I understand that you might be reluctant to accept help from me, but I do have your best interests at heart here. You don't need to suffer. I'm here to make sure you don't, but I need you to work with me."

[wholeworldoutthere]

"You don't have the first clue what my blood can do, doctor," Klaus points out, with a slight emphasis on her job title, "or, as you said, how much blood any of us need, or how many volunteers we already have. Address the group as a whole and people will start looking at us sideways, and wondering how long before we try to drain them. Let us reach out to people individually and the rest of them will let us do our thing and feel much less personally threatened. Not everyone will react to our uncommon nutritional needs with your scientific aplomb, and I've seen enough mobs to last me a hundred more lifetimes."

He is making it more dramatic than it might be, but it's a possibility, and he would care a lot less if it was just about him, but that's the thing. It isn't.

[dr_lauren]

"The fact that I don't know much about you is precisely why I've asked you to work with me on this. I have tried to find out more about your requirements and the way your physiology works but without any luck," she says, her gaze drifting to Caroline for a split-second before she looks back at Klaus, who has obviously elected himself spokesperson for the group. "I have extensive experience in supernatural biology, however, and I'm confident that I could quickly get to grips with the details if you'd only agree to work with me.

"I also think you are underestimating the remainder of the group. A handful of them may be wary around you but most of them are to some degree 'different' themselves... we have mutants, supersoldiers and witches running around the place, for God's sake. Staying silent allows them to think what they like about you, whereas being open and honest will dispel whatever fears they may have. Do you honestly think cooperating and working with me is going to make you look bad?"

[ithinkiwasbornforthis]

Pam laughs at this and recovering she says, "Oh, I'm all for mainstreaming, but there's a time and a place for a Great Revelation," she says harshly. The last words clearly mean something to her although she does not elaborate.

"Anyhow, politics aren't my scene, but the rest of them in there? They're worked up. Agitated, nervous, scared. Let's not throw fire on the flames shall we?" They might not have been the same herd of sheep like the humans back home, but at the very least this would be catching them on a very bad day.

[dr_lauren]

"Frankly, this should have been done before we were all trapped in a bunker together. I understand you have concerns for your safety but getting yourself into a powder keg situation and withholding information isn't the way to win friends," Lauren insists. "All it takes is one person getting upset and crying wolf and that's when you have a situation on your hands - a situation you could have prevented by being honest at the start."

[brightestlight]

That's what gets Caroline to speak up, to finally stop just standing there absorbing it all. "So, you can tell the future? You don't know what it's like to win friends. The people who need to know, know already, and you get one person out there crying wolf or whatever - which, uh, if they don't have their throat ripped open, I don't really know how they're going to say that we up and attacked them in a place the size of a matchbox, but whatever. Anyway, if one person has a tiny meltdown, that's way different then announcing to the whole class that we're one step away from you all being dinner. We don't hurt people. You start 'monitoring people for injuries' or whatever, instead of the reality of it, which is that my blood and Klaus' blood fix this sort of thing, is going to make people more scared, not less. You don't know who or what we are. Vampires? Are different. What we can do is different. We're not from Twilight or Dracula or whatever, and I don't know where you're from, but seriously, can you possibly consider that you might be wrong?"

And it's weird, the flood of words is like Caroline's home again, like she's trying to tell someone how stupid they're being-- and it's something she hasn't done in probably months, because everything here's had her so wrapped up in this sea of stuff that she didn't know what to do about. But she finishes her giant soliloquy, and glances at Klaus, with raised brows, then back to Lauren. Waiting.

[wholeworldoutthere]

"Quiet," Klaus points out, because this is the last thing he can let Caroline get loud and Caroline about. The word rings a little sharply, so he soothes it over with a stroke of his fingers over the back of her hand, holding her gaze for a couple of seconds and hoping that she understands.

Because right now, he needs to focus on the oh so well intentioned, know it all human doctor, and he does just that, turning to look at her. "You offered your help. We turned it down. We're not hurting anyone. This is our decision."

[dr_lauren]

"This is a matter of public safety," Lauren insists, frowning. "What if you feed from someone who won't accept your blood? What if you wait too long and aren't able to stop when you should? Whether or not you're hurting anyone now, you could be, and they deserve to be aware of that fact."

[wholeworldoutthere]

"I don't think anyone that gives us blood is unaware of the fact that we are hurting them," Klaus points out, because nobody on the station is an idiot to that degree - not even the kid or the geek, he figures, and nobody, that he knows of, is drinking off them, anyway.

It might be temporary, but there is pain and loss, each time.

He's taken a step forward, so that he's no longer back against the shelves, and all of his attention is on the doctor in a way that is not exactly comforting. "It isn't about public safety, it's about private arrangements. I strongly urge you to respect our decision, Lauren," he finishes with an almost-smile.

[dr_lauren]

"It's... Dr Lewis," she tells him with a purposeful lift of her chin. "And I urge you to reconsider. If you don't..." she trails off, swallowing heavily. "People need to know about this."

[wholeworldoutthere]

A couple more steps bring Klaus face to face with the human, in the cramped pantry, and now he's actually smiling. He might as well give it a try; if it fails, she'll think he was doing a bad job of threatening her.

He reaches for her mind, focusing on her eyes, and his tone is pleasant as he speaks, attempting to compel her. "You're not going to tell anyone, Lauren. You're going to accept that it's our decision. You won't have any issue doing this, no second-guessing yourself. Everything I've said up til now is not only true, but also right. Got it?"

[dr_lauren]

Lauren blinks, then nods, giving him a pleasant smile. "Yes, all right. Thank you for coming in here to discuss this with me. I suppose I'll... let you go."

[wholeworldoutthere]

"Thank you, love," Klaus tells her, with a pleasant smile. He hadn't quite believed that it would work, but it seems that for once, the nanites have decided to let him have at it; perhaps because he hadn't tried it in so long? It makes him feel a lot more like himself, in any case, and that improves his mood quite splendidly. "On your way, then."