Kitty didn't seem to notice Puppy's crying until now, either. That makes you feel a bit less guilty about missing it. You both hurry to her side.

"Puppy? What's wrong?" You ask.

She doesn't show any sign of having heard you at all. She's clutching a drill tightly and staring at it. Her entire body shakes. No tears come from her eyes, but it's still very clear she's crying.

"Shit, I think she's having a flashback." Kitty says. "Puppy? Jane is dead. We're safe. Nothing's happening right now. Can you nod if you can hear me?"

Puppy doesn't nod. It looks like words aren't going to be very helpful right now.

You gently touch her arm. She doesn't react, so you pull her into a hug. You'll just hold her, like she did for you the last time you had a flashback. Sometimes that's all you can do. Your touch doesn't seem to be making things worse, at the very least.

You take slow, deep breaths, hoping she'll follow suit. Her crying is silent, and it makes you want to cry too. She has no idea where she is and hasn't responded to anything you've said or done, but somehow the need to be quiet runs deeper than any conscious awareness. She deserves to be able to make sound as she cries, and so much more. 

You gently try to take the drill from her, but she won't let go, so you leave it alone.

Kitty goes back to the weapons and gets them all into the drawer, excluding the drill Puppy's holding. Then they sit next to the two of you and repeat reassurances to Puppy, despite her lack of reaction.

It takes a while, but she eventually stops crying and starts following your breathing. The shaking gets less and less intense. She finally lets you take the drill, so you set it aside where she can't see it.

"Can you hear me?" You ask. 

Puppy nods slowly.

"We really should get you some water…"

She shakes her head. You’re… not sure what to say to that.

"Do you believe she's dead?" Kitty asks. They look… really sweaty for some reason? …One problem at a time.

Puppy stares at Jane’s body. She starts to nod, then stops. She starts to shake her head, but stops again.

“Do you think there’s anything that could convince you? Anything at all?” You ask. You’ll do whatever it takes to help Puppy feel safe.

She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head.

"...Do you trust us?"

She nods without hesitation. At least there's that, that'll make helping her a lot easier.

"Were you listening to me and Bunny talking earlier? About how we'd rather assume she's dead and be wrong than assume she's alive and be wrong?" Kitty asks

She nods.

"Do you… agree?"

She nods again.

"We're also nearly positive she's dead. Can you trust us in that?" You add.

She sighs, lies her head on your shoulder, and nods.

"So if I get you some water, will you drink it?" Kitty asks.

Puppy immediately shakes her head. She starts to push away from you, so you let go of her. She crawls to Jane's body and lies down facing it. That's… not good.

Kitty grimaces. "I won't let her die." They say softly, so only you can hear. Their hands are shaking. "Do you remember those code words Jane used on her? I'd hate to use them against her, but I will if it's the only way to keep her alive. We can knock her out and try to get her to a hospital if we have to. So… there's no need to panic. I just don't know how long we should wait before resorting to that. What do you think?"

"Well… we should tell her, right? That her options are to drink water now or get knocked out and dragged through the woods until we find a hospital?" You wince. "That sounds really bad. Weren't we just talking about how great it is that no one's forcing us to do anything anymore?"

"It is really bad. But her dying would be worse."

You can't argue with that. "Puppy? We aren't going to let you die. I know this might break your trust in us, but… if we have to, we will knock you out and try to get you to a hospital." You remember that besides all the crying, Puppy has also been doing the hard physical labor of digging a grave and running around the house finding things to sell. How could you not have thought of that earlier? You feel so stupid. Why are you always so stupid? Stupid Bunny. "I'm so sorry, we've been doing all this carrying stuff around without thinking about how dehydrated you must be. I'll go get you some water. Please, please drink it."

You run upstairs and fill a water bottle as quickly as you can, then run back down.

You hand Puppy the water bottle. "Please, Puppy. I'm sorry to treat you like this, but I can't lose you."

You don't understand the look in her eyes, but you know it's not anger or fear, which is good. She sits up and takes a few sips from the water bottle. Quickly, the same way you would follow Jane's orders quickly to avoid thinking about it.

Now she looks afraid. Her breathing quickens and she drops the water bottle to claw at her neck. Spilled water soaks into her clothes and the ground.

You grab her hands tightly, and she goes completely still, barely breathing.

"Fuck… Puppy, please…" You don't know what to do. "Kitty?"

Kitty is curled up and shaking right where you left them when you went upstairs. Fuck, how did you not notice? Stupid, stupid Bunny.

"Kitty? What's wrong??"

"Nothing! Leave me alone and make sure Puppy doesn't die!"

Something is definitely wrong. Both of them need immediate medical attention and you don't know where to go to get that and you can't drag both of them through the woods to get there even if you did know where to go because you're weak and stupid–

Puppy abruptly tears her hands out of your grasp and wipes tears off your face. You hadn't even realized you'd been crying, but now the tears don't stop coming. Jane is dead, you're supposed to be happy, everything's supposed to be easy now by comparison!

Puppy kisses your forehead, then picks up the mostly empty water bottle and gets to her feet. She slowly makes her way up the stairs.

"Where are you going?" You ask.

No answer, of course. You follow her up. She heads to the kitchen and starts filling the water bottle. 

You could cry from relief, and you do. "Thank you– Thank you so much, I know it's scary, I know it's hard, thank you–"

When the water bottle is full, she squeezes her eyes shut and chugs it down. It's clearly difficult, she gags it down like she's been forced to drink raw sewage, but she does it, and that's all that matters. And when she finishes the bottle, she refills it again.

"I promise it'll get easier. And I'm– I'm really proud of you, I don't know if I'd be able to drink water without permission after going through what you've been through, you're so much stronger than me."

She shakes her head and empties the water bottle a second time. You think it seems a bit easier this time, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

She sets the water bottle on the counter and heads back into the basement. Again, you follow.

Kitty is lying in a puddle of their own vomit.

"Kitty?? Are you– what's wrong? I know it's not nothing! Puppy just drank a bunch of water, so don't worry about that."

Kitty groans and shakes their head. "I'm fine."

Puppy gets your attention and mimes… eating something? No, wait– she's miming taking a pill.

"Fuck! Of course it's withdrawal, how could I not know, I've been doing all this planning and still missing all this obvious stuff, what's wrong with me? I'm so stupid, I'm completely useless–"

Puppy grabs your face, forcing you to look at her, and shakes her head. You try to get your breathing under control.

Puppy stares at you for a moment, then lets go and goes back upstairs. You don't follow her, this time. You're too afraid of what'll happen if you leave Kitty alone.

Luckily, Puppy is back quickly, with a coloring book and pencil. That helps you feel a bit calmer. It'll be okay, Puppy knows what to do and she's going to tell you.

Puppy quickly writes something and passes the paper to you.

We need to quickly get packed and go to the hospital. We can worry about selling everything later.

You take a deep breath to stabilize yourself and pass the paper back. "That makes sense. Kitty, do you think you can get packed, or should we put together some stuff for you?"

"Wh– We can't! They'll ask questions, we can't go to the hospital!"

Puppy writes something else and passes it to Kitty, but they don't take it.

"We can't! I– they'll drug me!" They stagger to their feet.

"...Probably. But just enough to make sure you don't die from withdrawal!"

"Being drugged is dying! I'll lose myself! Again!"

Seeing them so panicked hurts, in the same way seeing Puppy refuse to drink water did. "Weren't you just talking about how you care more about Puppy being alive than anything else? Can't you understand we feel the same about you?"

"Drinking water isn't dying! I die either way!"

"They'll wean you off! Isn't that the best possible solution?"

"The best possible solution is never being drugged again!"

They’re not being rational. “Puppy was willing to do something that scared her for us, why can’t you? You’ll understand once you feel better. Last time you had seizures! I just want you to be okay!”

Kitty’s face darkens. “I had one seizure. But I’m so sorry I’m not like perfect, self-sacrificing Puppy. I’m sorry I’m not a perfect brainwashed pet like she is. I’m sorry I’m not what you want me to be, I’m sorry I’m so disappointing, I’m sorry I care more about myself than your goddamned comfort, unlike perfect fucking Puppy.”

Puppy’s face shows no emotion.

“…you’re not acting like yourself. Can you please just trust us?”

“Not when you want to drug me! You’re treating me the same way she did!”

“I am not!”

“It doesn’t fucking matter. Drag me to the hospital if you want, I’ll refuse treatment. You can’t bully me into getting drugged again. And you can’t knock me out without risking me becoming as stupid and brain-damaged as you.”

You take a sharp breath in. The insult itself doesn’t hurt that much, you know you’re stupid, but the fact that Kitty wanted it to hurt stings. “You’re not acting like yourself.” You repeat. But they’re right, you can’t force them to get treatment.

Puppy writes something down and passes it to you.

There might be nothing we can do. Even if we did decide to knock them out, it wouldn’t last nearly long enough to get us to the hospital. We can wait to see if they lose coherence completely, but beyond that, we can’t force anything.

Jane is dead, but you still feel so powerless. "Okay. It's– we can't force you. What do you think we should do, then?"

"Well, I'm gonna shower. You two should get the drawer upstairs." They look at Jane's body. "And figure out what to do about her body, Jesus fucking Christ!"

They clumsily storm upstairs. Fuck, what are you supposed to do?

A/N: Let me know if I should tag anything else, or if you want to be added to or removed from the tag list!

Tag list: @eatyourdamnpears @whump-in-the-closet @scp-1296 @thecosmicmap @quins-whump-stuff

At first, you and Kitty thought Jane was forgetting to drug Kitty, but it quickly became obvious it's very intentional. It's been three days since their last dose and they are definitely feeling the effects.

Jane takes them down into the basement every day. She sees how bad they're doing, she sees the withdrawal. She knows, and she's doing this on purpose. And Kitty is overjoyed.

They tried to hide how happy they were at first, worried that if they showed how much they preferred withdrawal to being drugged Jane would go back to drugging them regularly. But even when they slipped up, she didn't seem to care. Kitty thinks she's waiting for it to get bad enough that they beg for the drug, and that she'll be waiting a long time.

"I mean, withdrawal only gets worse for so long, right? And if this had a risk of killing me, or at least a higher risk than the other stuff Jane does, she wouldn't do it, cause that would be too painless of a way to die. So I have until she realizes that I'm not going to beg for it, which can be quite a while if I play my cards right, maybe exaggerate how bad it is… she probably wouldn't fall for that, especially now that I've said it out loud, but still!"

They're the happiest you've seen them in a long time. Since before you left with Barron, Diya, and Ray, actually…

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean they're doing well. It just shows how absolutely miserable they were while being drugged that this is preferable.

You don't think Kitty has been still once in these past few days, at least ever since the last remnants of the drug left their system. They are constantly shaking, constantly moving, mumbling to themself whenever they're not talking to you. They've been assigned two buckets by you and Puppy, one to carry around for when they throw up and one for when that one is being cleaned. If either of you touches Kitty at all they completely flip out, screaming about how no one respects them, no one cares about what they want and everyone just touches them for their own selfish gratification, caring more about appearing to be comforting than what they actually want-

And despite it all, they insist that this is better than being drugged. That they hope the withdrawal lasts a long time so they get longer to be themself.

You can't help but agree. They have more moments of misery, but more moments of joy too. You would like to help them slowly wean off the drug, to not have to deal with these symptoms while still coming back to themself, but that's not an option. Out of two very shitty options, this one is ever so slightly better.

You try to ignore the obvious: there's no light at the end of this tunnel. When the withdrawal symptoms get better, they'll be put back on the drug and back to freaking out about if they're even a person instead of freaking out over being touched. But that's okay. You'll be taking a sledgehammer to the walls of this metaphorical tunnel soon enough.

You're thinking about it all the time. If you could get some kind of weapon inside of her body, something that could destroy her over and over again so that even with instant healing she can't hurt anybody, and she wouldn't be able to teleport it out…

But you don't have anything like that. And to cast a spell that continues forever would have a high cost, you're sure. You'd be willing to pay almost any price, but you think you should explore your other options first. Preparing a spell like that would take a long time, and you want to get out of here as soon as possible.

You need to know why she's immortal. Maybe you could convince Jane to tell you? She did say that if you think you can figure out a way to kill her that she hasn't already tried, you should tell her…

Jane is powerful, but so are you, and it's only a matter of time before you find a way to get rid of her. Next time she's around, you'll ask her. What's the worse that could happen? 

~~

Puppy is near sick with worry about Kitty. They're only getting worse. Before, she could stomach it, even though it was awful, because Kitty was themself and choosing not to beg for the drug. She thinks she would choose differently, but that's okay. Kitty's allowed to be different, and if this is what they prefer she'll do her best to keep them safe while it's happening.

Except they just had a seizure and that's fucking dangerous and Master might actually kill them this time, what the hell is she thinking??

When the fever first started Puppy was worried, but still willing to respect their wishes. But they just keep getting more and more confused, and then they had a seizure, and that's not okay, she can't let this keep happening!

She briefly considers taking off her muzzle and collar just to tell Ja- Master that this isn't okay, that she can't let Kitty kill themself because they're having this battle of wills, but then she thinks of the last time she spoke without permission to save Kitty's life, of burning hot barbed wire all over her body, and she just… can't. Master said if she spoke without permission again, she would never see Kitty again. And speaking without permission is the whole reason she's muzzled and not even allowed to hum anymore. No, she can't do that. 

So what can she do? Kitty is going to die without this drug. She can't let that happen, even if it would end their suffering, because she's too selfish. She can't let them die.

Bunny is terrified too. They'd agreed to have Puppy watch Kitty tonight since she doesn't have permission to sleep, with Bunny sleeping on the floor by Kitty's bed in case Puppy needed any help. And fuck, if he hadn't been there, if she hadn't been able to shake him awake to see what was happening, no one else would know about the seizure. She wouldn't be able to tell anyone. 

"She's not taking them into the basement today." Bunny says, his eyes dark. As if he has any control over that. He's so angry lately, responding to scary things with threats and promises he has no chance of keeping. It's going to get him in trouble. Anger is only a liability here. But she has bigger things than that to worry about right now.

She needs Kitty to beg for the medicine. That's the only way Master will give it to them, and therefore the only way for them to survive. She grabs their face, forcing them to look at her, and then mimes taking a pill.

They stare at her blankly, rubbing their face where she grabbed them.

"I think Puppy wants you to start taking the pills again." Bunny says softly. Puppy nods in confirmation, pleading with her eyes. Please, I can't watch you die. I can't lose you.

"No!"

Without thinking, Puppy strikes them across the face. Bunny and Kitty stare at her in shocked horror.

It doesn't matter. They can hate her, it doesn't matter, so long as Kitty's alive. She mimes taking a pill again.

"'m sorry." Kitty mumbles. "Didn't know- didn't know she told you to make me. If I'd known I wouldn't have…" I wouldn't have made you have to hit me.

Bunny reaches out and takes her hand. "Right, you wouldn't have done that if you didn't have to. We understand."

Puppy forces down a twinge of guilt. That's useless here. She did the right thing, because now Kitty is going to beg for the pills and survive and that's all that matters. That's all that matters.

She continues to take care of Kitty until sunlight starts to come through the window and Master comes to take them downstairs.

"Please… please give me my medicine."

"Hm?"

Tears run down Kitty's cheeks. "Please, I want the withdrawal to end, I want you to drug me again, please."

Master grins. "Well of course! All you had to do was ask."

She comes to Kitty's side and gives them the pill. Puppy is so relieved she could cry.

"Now, we still have our project to work on-"

"Jane." Oh no. Bunny's going to do something stupid. "Can I talk to you in private for a moment?"

Master raises her eyebrows. "For a moment."

She walks out of the room instead of teleporting, and Bunny follows her.

They walk far enough away that she can't eavesdrop through the door, and she doesn't want to leave Kitty alone, so she doesn't know what Bunny and Master are talking about. Probably Bunny's insistence that Kitty won't go in the basement today.

Kitty has buried their face in their pillow, crying softly as they wait for the drug to kick in. Puppy has more trouble forcing the guilt down, this time.

She did what she had to do. She did…

It felt good. Horrible, but good too. She felt… powerful.

This is a dangerous habit to start. She hates herself so much it threatens to consume her, and she can't push it down no matter how hard she tries. She did what she had to. She didn't do because she thought it would feel good, she did it to keep Kitty alive. She did what she had to.

She grabs a pillow from Kitty's bed and joins them, trying to keep her crying quiet enough that it won't set off the collar.

A/N: Let me know if I should tag anything else, or if you want to be added to or removed from the tag list! Five more chapters before the start of season 4 :)

Tag list: @eatyourdamnpears @whump-in-the-closet @scp-1296 @thecosmicmap @quins-whump-stuff