Red’s stumble and Katters’ twist combine to drop them both to the floor in a tangle, Red on top of Katters’ leg. “Fucking how?!” Katters asks, not a little panic in her voice. She’s an ex-med student, not a horticulturist — she has no idea how to deal with plants. Okay — breathe, one of you has to. Don’t think of it as a plant, think of it as an obstruction — a fucking deep one from the looks of it. Pulling it out will tear up Red’s throat something good but better that than asphyxiation, in Katters’ opinion. That’s if it’ll even come out. Katters sticks her hand in Red’s mouth, grabs the vine as well she can, and pulls.
Red attempts to answer, but can only express her response in an upset, sickening wet cough around the vine. When Katters reaches forwards, she lets go of her hand, clinging desperately to the hand not trying to solve the problem in an absolute death grip, panic bright in her eyes. The vine undulates in her grip, though the thorns are spaced enough that it doesn't cause too much damage as Katters wraps her fingers around the vine and wrenches at it. For a moment, it doesn't seem like it's working... then it moves, in one slow jerk, then another, and another, drawing slowly and bloodily free. After the first foot and a half, something drips and sizzles as it passes her lips, eating away at the floor in small spots...
Still holding Red’s hand, Katters pushes against her chest, trying to get as much leverage as possible. She redoubles her efforts to remove the vine, spurred on by the progress she’s managed so far.
(( Katters gets a CRIT. )) There's a sickening sound of flesh tearing, and then Katters is tumbling back with a three-foot-long, thick vine in hand. It thrashes against the floor, smearing blood and leaving the ground hissing faintly, smoke rising from where the droplets hit. Red still has a death grip on her hand, but grabs at the vine, trying to keep any of the acid dripping from it from landing on Katters. She winces, gritting her bloodied teeth.
Katters slams the vine against the ground and scrambles to her feet. She stomps on it, and then stomps on it again, and then stomps on it some more. And then she stomps on it.
Red's focus leaves Katters and the vine once she knows the ket has the problem handled, and turns to a more present issue. She coughs, wet and awful, spattering the ground in front of her with blood and little globs of flesh ripped free by the thorns. She paws at her hood, searching, and manages to pull out a strange, red fruit, putting it to her ripped-up lips and taking a bite, juice spilling down her chin as she struggles to chew and swallow.
“Oh, shit, right,” Katters says, remembering Red’s other wound as soon as the vine has been reduced to a smear on the floor. She returns to Red and takes her leg, a little roughly for the adrenaline leaving her system. She drags her kit over to herself as she examines the injury.
The wound is rather clean - the bullet passed all the way through the meat and missed any significant arteries and bones. Red works her way through the fruit, then spits the seed onto the ground and gasps. "O...okay. I. I. T-thank you."
“Nah,” Katters says. She puts pressure on the wound and waits for the bleeding to let up. “Well, this is gonna hurt, but it’s not gonna kill you.” She eyes the seed with a little suspicion. “What was that, that vine thing? Where did it come from?”
"I... nnngh. No. I... fuck. It's. Amarinthine. A fruit. It's..." She gestures with one hand, still on her elbows, towards her throat. "....s...should clear up. Internal bleeding. I... it was in case something... I... I went back." She grits her teeth. "I woke up in... in a basement? I.... They were arguing. Someone else was there, some guy, tied up.... I... they'd just. Shoved my body to one side, in... in some kind of cage. So.. I... I went with the last resort and .... I managed to kick it open, ran for the door - I... they shot me, I mean, obviously they did, but I managed to get into the doorway and Out, into the... you wouldn't know about it. I. Somewhere else. Right into a worse problem, ahah... fuck. I was nearly... I was nearly used as a fucking plant pot. God damnit. Why do I just... keep fucking up?"
Now that she’s done eating, Katters gestures for Red to lie down. “Don’t talk if it hurts,” she says, and lifts Red’s leg, propping it on her own knees. She struggles to follow what Red’s saying. “You got out,” she says, finally. “You got out but wound up back here, anyway.”
"I... I don't know how I got out." She says quietly. "I was getting things here, then stood up... and just. Then I was there..."
“I fell into the street,” Katters says. “I was running, I tripped, and next thing I knew everything was fine.” She shrugs. “Standing up, falling down, I don’t see the connection.” She starts dressing Red’s wound. “Honestly? I’m more concerned with how you came back. Leaving isn’t going to be much help if we keep coming back here again anyway.”
"Well. Clearly we were... mid-movement?" She grimaces. "Maybe. I don't know. Maybe there's a way to control it, but we just need to find it?"
“Change in altitude,” Katters says, “although, we’ve been doing plenty of that otherwise and it hasn’t lead us anywhere unexpected.” She finishes bandaging Red and lets her leg down. “You’re not going to want to put too much weight on that for a while. But, then again, what we want doesn’t seem to matter much, these days.”
"What I wanted has never mattered much, if I'm honest," she mutters. "...we'll figure something out. I... does this mean you don't want to keep moving up?"
Katters raises an eyebrow. “Well,” she says, “three out of three rooms in this building have been doorless, so I guess best chances for that are street-level, anyway. You want me to go find one and come back for you, or do you want to hobble along for the search?”
"I'll come with you, if you don't mind. I guess worst comes to worst, I get to play decoy and buy you time to escape."
