As four pm approached that day, Star and Sky were finally brought back out to the main part of the experimental house; the part that at least tried to pass as an actual house, anyway. They just glanced around the familiar surroundings again with continued displeasure, before turning their dark eyes to Brie and Connor.

Brie spoke first of course, “well, you two should be happy to know that at least the uncomfortable question and answer portion of this entire thing is now over” she attempted to assure them.

“And what uncomfortable portion is next?” Sky replied, his anger still just below the surface.

“Actually your---” Connor began, then reworded, “Brie and I are going home for the day. It is almost four.”

Sky and Star just scoffed, before he spoke again, “and I assume we’re staying here” he stated the obvious.

“Yes, but you’ll have the place to yourselves, and can relax. We won’t be seeing you again til morning” Brie assured.

“You mean, except for on all the fucking cameras” he glared back as he gestured around the room.

“Like I said, during the evening hours, your time is your own. The cameras are just here...in case something does happen. Then we’ll have a record of it” Brie told them with a bit of discomfort.

“In other words, in case we decide to fuck; you’ll be able to watch, and just take your little notes?” Sky continued, his sarcasm obvious.

“Believe me, we’re not thrilled that that just happens to be the time when your abilities...manifest. This is just as uncomfortable for us, you know. We did raise you after all” Brie attempted some form of empathy.

“Oh, my heart bleeds for you” Sky retorted, scoffing as he turned away.

That was when Star spoke up, “and what’s to stop us from just leaving? You know we can get through the doors, if we really wanted to” she asked with a slight blush.

Connor and Brie each took perturbed breaths before Brie responded, “the police could re-open the investigation at any moment. And do you really wanna go out there and possibly hurt someone else with that looming over your heads already? Or that video the boys made could still come out. I think you both know you’re much better off here, now don’t you?” and with that, she and Connor left the two behind and headed on their way.

That’s when Sky took a seat on the couch, running his hands through his hair in frustration again. Star sighed back at him, “so we are just gonna stay here?”

“They’d know the second we left anyway. It’s either stay here til they’re done poking and prodding us, and probably masturbating to footage of us for all we fucking know; or else we take off, and just have to spend the rest of our lives trying to keep them from finding us. Shall we flip a coin for which of those options would suck less?”

As the clock struck midnight that winter evening, the two of them were still laying there on the couch, their arms wrapped around each other as Star sniffled quietly against his chest. She finally took a breath and spoke at last “I guess we should be happy, right?”

“Happy?” Sky repeated, though simply waited for a further explanation as he gently caressed her hair.

“I mean, we finally get to be together. No one here to try and make us feel guilty for it anymore. We should be happy, right?” she repeated again, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“So why aren’t we?” he whispered back, gently kissing her hair instead.

Star thought a long moment before responding, “I guess, cause we always wanted to spend our lives together, but...”

“But what?” he asked a moment later, his other hand gently moving over her arm.

“But this isn’t a life, is it?” she stated with another slight sniffle.

Sky thought a long moment on her words, knowing they were right, but not sure how that changed anything, “so you’re saying you do wanna run instead?”

Star took another breath as she tried to determine that answer, “that doesn’t sound like much of a life either” she admitted sadly.

“So what do we do then?” Sky asked, his own voice cracked with the same emotion as hers.

“How I wish I knew” she whispered back as she moved to kiss his lips, hoping desperately that they would find that answer before it completely broke them both.

~2 years later~

Two years passed in that house. Star and Sky were now only a few months from what they had always thought was going to be their shared seventeenth birthday, never mind how inaccurate they now knew that was. But those two years were rather bleak.

Each day was spent with Brie and Connor trying to coax them into ‘performing’ in the name of science. Every night was spent once again denying their own desire for one another, and just trying to give each other the strength to endure this part of their life long enough that maybe their guardians, of sorts, would eventually give up on trying at all; though they doubted that was possible. They knew how different they were, and so did Brie and Connor.

But it wasn’t Brie and Connor who came to the end of their patience first; it was their bosses. And that’s when things went from bleak, to beyond hellish.

They were now known as ‘Project Nebula,’ a clever take on the names the two teens had been given by Brie when they were first taken home with her. And once Project Nebula was taken out of the hands of the two people who had raised them for a decade and a half, things got so, so much worse for them.

They were taken to an underground lab that was more of a labyrinth, so even if they were willing to give in and ‘perform,’ so to speak, in the hopes of short-circuiting the security measures there; the place was a nigh inescapable fortress. And that fortress came with a complete staff of scientists and their henchmen who were more than willing to inflict whatever means necessary to stop any escape attempts from their most valuable ‘experiment.’

Their days and nights at this place were the stuff of nightmares. They would be ordered to perform, and when they refused, that’s when much more painful means were inflicted to get them to agree. What used to be something so beautiful and pleasurable and loving between them had now been twisted into trauma and nightmare, for the sake of ‘science.’

The two easily became shells, shadows, forced to perform on command, never mind the crowd of scientists and lights and cameras around them. It was agree to do it, or be made to agree. And that was that.

They lost track of how long they had even been in that place, as both were numb at this point, and could literally feel nothing; not even the physical part of the pain they endured, and definitely not any of the pleasure that they used to give each other.

Considering it was nigh impossible for them to even reach that point of pleasure anymore with each other, the point when their powers used to kick in; the team of sadistic and cold faces in lab coats decided that another approach would be needed.

That was when the teens were coldly informed that Project Nebula would soon be discontinued, but only after Star and Sky agreed to one more condition. And that was for the two of them to ‘provide’ the scientists with another set of test subjects in the form of their own children with one another.

And after agreeing to a tiny little thing like that, then the two would be free to go. Free to go... back to their lives, which were sure to be so blissful and happy after spending months or even years, they weren’t sure which, being forced into sexual slavery. And all they had to do was provide the team with their own children to torture instead. And then they would simply forget all about Star and Sky. And all would be well again. How could it not be after a simple little thing like that?

Needless to say, the night after they were told that, that was the night Star and Sky finally agreed to perform again, on their own. And after their performance....a lab full of dead bodies was all that they left behind.

The two were probably seventeen now, though even that they were not sure of, not that it mattered. Not much of anything mattered to them anymore, as any sense of identity they ever had had now been more than destroyed by the last several months of their lives.

The morning after their bloody escape, Star awoke with a start, from where they had given into exhaustion at some point the previous night in an abandoned building somewhere near the lab. Not that they were even sure what state or country that even meant, as they had spent probably close to a year in that underground torture chamber.

When she awoke, she looked over to find Sky staring intently down at that long, vertical scar on his wrist, his eyes glazed over and lost in some deep dark mental spiral of sorts.

“Sky?” she whispered his name, to which he barely reacted.

Then he finally whispered back, though he was still frozen in place staring at that scar, “this should have been the end. This would have been better. It should have been the end” he whispered again, almost as though he were about to break down in tears, but he honestly had none left.

Not sure what she could even say in response to his words, Star took a long moment to try and force herself into any sort of logical thought pattern. Though that was easier said than done, considering she had done everything in her power over the last year to stop thinking at all, let alone logically.

“Where are we gonna go, Sky?” she finally managed.

“Here’s fine, isn’t it?” he replied numbly.

“We have to go somewhere” she told him in the same barely audible tone.

“Do we?” he asked as he finally let his eyes move from his wrist for the briefest second, “I know what I did wrong, that time” he stated as he held up his scarred wrist, “I can do it right, this time” he stated simply.

“Sky, please” she whispered, her voice faltering. She wanted to reach out to touch him, to comfort him, but somehow couldn’t make herself, as she just looked at him with a plea in her eyes. “We escaped for a reason, didn’t we?” she stated, sounding like she was trying to will those words to be the truth, “if you were just gonna kill yourself, you could’ve done that back there.”

“I had to help you get out. And I did. And now I’m done.”

Star sniffled slightly, “well, now you have to help me again. You have to help me find us someplace to go.”

“Why?” was his only response.

“Because,” she swallowed hard, “I’m still here; at least what’s left of me. And you promised.... promised me you’d never leave me.”