[dini house investigation]

[jcrane]

The rest of the day passes in the usual haze of preparation. Crane makes sure the interns have some idea of what they'll be doing in the basement tonight. Mellark is obnoxious and dim, but he can follow directions and hold a camera. Jonathan entrusts the EVP recorder to Lichfield, thank you very much. She actually seems to understand multi-syllable words. He has Quinzel give them the relevant background information on the house, and corners Lichfield later in the day to ask what sorts of questions she has planned. He likes the answers he gets. Satisfied that the interns know what they're meant to be doing, he checks on the rest of the crew. He hardly needs to; as far from their chosen professions as most of them are, they all do their jobs well. And they've been at this a little while.

In the final swirl of activity before the lockdown begins, Crane wolfs down another sandwich in between filming the last of the introductory stuff in front of the house. And then promptly ditches his tie, undoes a couple of buttons, and rolls his sleeves up. Even if Gotham heat isn't anything next to Georgia, it's still August and warm enough to make Jonathan idly wish he were the sort of person to leave the house in more casual attire from time to time. He gathers his personal set of equipment and sends out some last minute instructions and reminders to the crew. Time to get started.

Comments

[sweet_caroline]

Caroline laughs a little at that in spite of herself, but it doesn't sound quite right. "It's just a flesh wound."

Mellark hovers obnoxiously close, and she has to keep edging out of the way. If he tries to touch her again, she refuses to be held responsible for what happens. Fortunately, Nygma arrives quickly enough. Caroline squints at the sudden light and tries not to fidget as he comes down the stairs.

"She's bleeding a lot and I think she might be in shock," Mellark blurts out in a rush. "She's been acting really weird."

Caroline gives Eddie a long suffering look. See what she's been dealing with down here?

[confound]

Eddie snorts at Lichfield's reply, then again and even louder at Mellark's. "Oh no, anything but weird." He frowns, fiddling with latch on the first aid box. "The likelihood of it being shock is about the same as her actually being possessed."

He does manage to give Lichfield a sympathetic look in his approach, even if it is a brief one. "Alright, let's see what you--" And that's about when he notices how much blood is actually on her shirt. Oh.

Mellark reaches a hand out towards Lichfield and Eddie reflexively strikes it away hard and fast enough the intern recoils from them both, rubbing his hand.

"Go back to base and wait," Eddie barks at him, then promptly and totally ignores Mellark in favor of the actual injured party here. "C'mon, Lichfield, let's see what we're dealing with here."

[sweet_caroline]

Mellark hovers awkwardly for a moment, but leaves when Caroline glares at him and makes a shooing motion. Finally. She sighs and turns her attention to Nygma and the upcoming awkwardness of dealing with this injury.

"I actually haven't seen it myself," she admits sheepishly. "I just figured I'd better call in since I went from nothing to bleeding through my shirt." She tugs her shirt up out of the way, revealing... shit those look deep. There's three cuts along her side above her hip. And a lot of blood.

"Huh. This is a little more Shining than I thought," she says mostly for something to say. This... is definitely not what anyone would expect. At least she doesn't get queasy at the sight of blood.

[confound]

Eddie winces at the sight of those cuts. They're... impressive, to say the least, and he's very glad Mellark is out of the room by this point.

"You're looking a little Carrie right now, honestly. And those are going to need stitches," He says with a tight-lipped frown. He searches through the first aid kit for a moment before producing banages.

"Keep your shirt up," Is the only instruction he gives before wiping at least a goodish amount of blood off with some off the bandages; a larger stack of them get pressed rather firmly against the wounds. When he talks again, it's another order. "Hold that there as tight as you can."

[sweet_caroline]

"Stitches? Are you sure?" Caroline frowns a little at that. Great. What a way to start out. She keeps her shirt out of the way without really thinking about it. She's more concerned about potentially ruining the investigation and having to deal with doctors.

She sets the radio down and presses the bandages against her side. She doesn't quite manage to keep from making a noise, but at least all she does is hiss again. God, that hurts.

[confound]

"I'm close enough to sure that we're not taking any chances." Eddie sounds very matter-of-fact about that in a way that doesn't leave much room for argument.

He wipes his hands off before picking his radio back up. "Lichfield's going to need a trip to the ER. I'm breaking lockdown and leaving the site but I'll call in one of the guys to cover the tech van for me. Mellark's to sit on his hands back at base and not do a goddamn thing."

As for how they'll get to the ER, well, he does have the keys to Murphy's car. He stands, and at least has the presence of mind to offer Lichfield a hand up. That is a surprising amount of blood she's lost, after all.

[sweet_caroline]

Caroline fidgets nervously while Nygma radios in. Oh god, the ER. Why. This is not how she wanted to spend the rest of her night. She waves off the offered hand, only to almost immediately stumble and need to catch herself by leaning against the wall. Well.

"Oh great, now I'm lightheaded," she says mostly to herself.

[confound]

Well. Eddie reaches out as soon as she starts to wobble, but she thankfully does not actually fall.

"Blood loss will do that," Eddie says as if it matters - honestly, he doesn't care. There's always time for snark. Always. Still, he wraps an around around her back, below her arms to steady her a bit. "Come on, Miss Lichfield. It's a bit of a walk to the parking lot yet."

And he'd rather her not end up with a concussion or something too from falling down the stairs.

[sweet_caroline]

Caroline might normally take exception to suddenly being touched like that, but not falling over is really more important. And Nygma isn't a pest like Mellark. So they slowly make their way up the stairs. She'd snark back, but she's focused on staying on her feet.

As they make their way out of the basement and through the ground floor, they pass base camp. And that means Mellark. Who jumps up from the chair he was sitting in when he sees them limp into the room.

"Caroline! Are you feeling better?" He stops his worried approach when he realizes Nygma has a supportive arm wrapped around her. And frowns at them. Oh boy, here we go.

[confound]

Eddie normally really isn't one to do much in the way of invading someone's personal space (unless that someone is named Murphy Pendleton, apparently, or your otherwise on a very short list) but he's really rather more concerned with Lichfield not getting hurt further than if this is... awkward.

When Mellark starts up, Eddie honestly has even less patience for the intern than he perhaps normally would, which is saying something.

"I waved my wand and fixed it, she's fine now, obviously," He snaps in response. Bread boy can frown all he likes, as long as he does it out of Eddie and Lichfield's way. "Sit the fuck down, Mellark, and wait for Pendleton."

He pays very little attention to Mellark past that. Pendleton, however, is a lot speedier than Eddie anticipates. By the time they make it to the front door he hears a near-echo of himself in Murphy's voice, somewhere behind them back in base camp.

"Sit your ass back down," Murph growls at the intern with even less apparent patience than Eddie did.

[sweet_caroline]

Caroline giggles very quietly when Nygma snaps at Mellark. It'll probably be waved off as blood loss making her goofy, and that's probably contributing, but seeing Mellark get put in his place is deeply satisfying. Especially since her current state is entirely his fault. That was some Zak Bagans bullshit.

She looks over her shoulder at the sound of Pendleton also snapping at Mellark. Unfortunately, the sudden change in perspective makes her dizzy and she stumbles again. "Sorry," Caroline says with a grimace.

[confound]

"Woah, ok," Eddie mutters quietly when Lichfield stumbles again, and he's glad he had the foresight to keep an arm around her. "It's fine."

Every once and a while, it strikes Eddie how little he knows about Murphy. It's not hard to tell from the very grimly calm way the lead cameraman eyes Lichfield's bloody shirt that he's rather accustomed to the sight of blood. "Ouch, kid." He starts, though quickly turns his attention back to Nygma. "What happened?"

"Hell if I know," Eddie says with a very careful shrug. "We'll go over it after she's been taken care of at the hospital."

[sweet_caroline]

"I'm not sure what happened either," Caroline says slowly, "but I never moved out of frame once we started the EVP session." That's something, right? This ought to be good television, at least. She tries not to wince at the reminder that she's going to be spending the foreseeable future stuck in the emergency room. She also carefully doesn't think about how her injury and the subsequent breaking of lockdown mean she's probably not going to be invited back. What an impression to make, huh?

[confound]

Eddie beams at her a little for that, but it's dampened by the whole her bleeding thing. "I'll go over the footage when we get back."

"I'll go over the footage while you're gone," Murphy corrects matter-of-factly. "And take my car."

Murphy's searching his pocket for his keys is halted suddenly when Nygma produces them from his own jacket and jingles them obnoxiously. "That was the plan. I'll call with updates."

And with that, he goes back to leading Caroline out and to Murphy's shitty sedan.