Kerberos spent perhaps an alarming amount of time on the surface, instead of tucked away in the Rift like many of his Ascended siblings preferred. No, he had a roost above-ground, somewhere that he had long claimed as his. It was nice to be on the surface, and certainly better than lurking in darkness and trying to get away from monsters.

The old house he had shared with Luka, when he had been more...human. It had been his for a long time - even before the Negaverse rose to power and it could publicly be his, the Ascended had murdered anyone who had so much as considered purchasing the place. No one could have it, because he needed it - it was the only place he could keep Luka forever.

He pushed open the door to the bedroom that had been theirs, sank onto the bed, and ran a nail over the crystal coffin that held Luka’s sleeping form.

Once, when Kerberos was still Alex, when there was still a human under the Senshi guise, Luka had been the love of his life. He still was, as far as Kerberos was concerned - as much as an Ascended with all the humanity sucked out of him and replaced by Chaos could love anyone. It was why he had kept him, instead of killing Luka like he had his own family.

And oh, his family had been so easy. None of them had expected it. He had gone home ostensibly for a visit - and instead, he powered up, and ended them all.

His parents had fallen easily, too shocked to do anything at all. Rebekah had, briefly, become a Knight before his very eyes - all graceful lines and long dresses and prismatic sparkles, but only for a few brief moments before he ended her, too. By then Thalia hadn’t even resisted, she’d just sat down and let him kill her too.

They had been a sacrifice to Metallia, proving his dedication to Chaos and to Her.

It had been a measure to prevent them suffering when Alex vanished as Cait had, because if they were dead they could no longer miss him.

(It had been a salve for his own pain - the dead never abandoned anyone, the dead could not cast him aside and leave him lost and alone like Cait and like Avalon.)

And then he had gone back to Luka’s house as Alex, and greeted him with a kiss, and whispered his henshin phrase against his lover’s lips with the intent of ending him, too.

He couldn’t. He’d wrapped his fingers around Luka’s starseed - because Luka had suffered more than anyone and he couldn’t just leave him to keep suffering, couldn’t cast him aside and let him think Alex had abandoned him too like so many others, it would be a mercy to end his life (and he would never move on, never kiss anyone else, never love anyone else, he would be Alex’s forever and ever).

He couldn’t do it. He didn’t know why he couldn’t - he had just killed his parents and his little sisters without a flash of remorse - but there was something in the way Luka looked at him, in the way he’d said “Alex?” - so surprised and confused, even a little betrayed - that had stopped him.

Instead he had drained him until he was unconscious and carried Luka with him to the Rift, to Metallia’s own door, and demanded as a condition of giving himself and his planet to Her completely and unconditionally, that he get to keep Luka. In crystal, asleep forever, but still forever and ever and ever his.

And she had granted it, because putting a civilian in a crystal prison was as easy for her as breathing.

And she had linked it to Kerberos’s own lifeforce. As long as he was alive and draining energy, he could maintain the crystal prison outside the Rift, and keep Luka at home exactly where he belonged.

Kerberos no longer needed to sleep, but sometimes, he liked to drape himself over the crystal and pretend to.

It wasn’t perfect, of course, but it was certainly plenty for him.

No one else would ever have Luka, after all, and he couldn’t exactly complain about that.