Your choice of pairing - are you sure kisses
Fuck it, let's go old school. Have some Cheri/Job Violent Messiahs kisses.
Cheri'd lost it— that's the only explanation she could come up with. The stress of struggling against the undertow of filth on Rankor Island had cracked her wide open and left her sanity leaking out of her like a dripping faucet.
Citizen Pain had died saving her. Period. The end. Every time she'd chased his ghost, it just ended up being another lunatic putting Pain on a pedestal and using him to justify their own need for death. He was gone.
It didn't change the fact that he was standing in front of her. Fuck. When she closed her eyes, she could still sense the heat of his body, the way he'd cradled her like a baby as he carried her out of that explosion.
It had been the one time she'd felt safe.
"Job." Her voice shook, thin and reedy. She could barely hear herself, and yet the hulking man in the mask turned toward her like she'd spoken directly in his ear. "Is it you? Is it really you this time?"
She reached up; even on her tiptoes, she couldn't quite reach his shoulders. After a long second of hesitation, he lowered his head and allowed her to pull off the mask.
Bald still, the ink of the tattooed symbols stark against his white skin. Blue eyes— from her vantage point, she could see them even when he shied away, looking past her toward something on the floor. Gloved hands, dusted with a residue of gun powder. The tenderness in the way he stood still before her, the most terrifying man Cheri had ever met trying his best not to scare her again.
Cheri's eyes filled with unexpected tears, and she reached out, curling her fingers around Job's tie and pulling him further down. She breathed a choked, tear-filled sound against his mouth, slotting their lips together as if they were two puzzle pieces finally fitting in place. It was soft. Gentle. It felt like finally.
She jolted away in the next second, the realization building like horror in the pit of her stomach. She'd just— he'd murdered an uncountable amount of people and she had just— what was wrong with her?
Job's hand, large enough to span nearly her entire waist, settled against her side, and she tensed, looking up to glare at him because even now she couldn't stop fighting—
He was looking at her like she was something sacred, face lax with a shy, shocked amazement, like she was something more than a detective in a shitty police department, struggling to keep from going nuts. "Cheri?"
Fuck. His voice was so deep and warm and reverent that Cheri could feel her prickly defensiveness fade away. Fuck it. Fuck it all. She reached up, her fingers catching on the stitches of Job's suit jacket, and he caught on to what she wanted immediately, lifting her up until they were finally face to face.
They stared at each other silently and Cheri reached out to brush her fingers over the line of Job's cheek, touching the edge of one of the tattoos. She curled her arms around his broad shoulders and kissed him, breaking the contact only so she could lean back in again and again. When Job finally seemed to realize what was happening, he shuddered— and when he opened his mouth against hers, Cheri tasted salt. She pulled away and wiped her thumb over his cheek, dislodging a tear.
"You're really here," she said.
"I'm here," Job agreed, and he kissed her again.
