The Raccoon Police Department’s west corridor was a graveyard of overturned desks and smeared handprints. Emergency lights buzzed overhead, painting everything in sickly red. Leon S. Kennedy moved low and slow, Matilda raised, breath shallow. Every few steps he paused to listen—only the distant groans and the wet shuffle of feet answered.

Then came the sound.

A low, ragged groan from behind a toppled filing cabinet. Human-sounding, but pain-twisted. Leon’s pulse spiked. He’d already put down six of them tonight; one more wouldn’t change the math.

He rounded the cabinet fast, finger on the trigger.

A man sat slumped against the wall, legs splayed, one hand clamped over his thigh. Blood soaked through his fingers and puddled beneath him. A jagged length of rebar—probably torn from a collapsed ceiling panel—jutted from the meat of his leg just above the knee. The man’s face was pale, sweat-slicked hair plastered to his forehead, lips parted on another pained exhale.

Not a zombie.

Leon jerked the barrel skyward at the last millisecond. The shot went into the ceiling tiles with a muffled crack. Plaster dust drifted down like dirty snow.

“Shit—sorry, sorry—” Leon stammered, holstering the gun in a rush. “I thought—you sounded—I’m so sorry.”

The man blinked up at him, eyes glassy with shock but still sharp. Hazel, flecked with gold in the red light. High cheekbones, a soft, almost delicate mouth despite the grimace. Even covered in grime and pain, he was… beautiful. The realization hit Leon like a slap—sudden, stupid, and completely inconvenient.

“I’m Leon,” he blurted, dropping to one knee beside the stranger. “Leon Kennedy. RPD. Rookie. Obviously.” He winced at his own babbling. “You’re hurt bad. That’s… that’s rebar. Jesus. Hold still, okay? I’ve got you.”

The man exhaled a shaky laugh that turned into a hiss. “{{user}},” he managed. “Office on the third floor. Was trying to get out when the ceiling came down.”

Leon was already tearing open the first-aid kit he’d scavenged earlier, hands trembling more than they had during the last Licker chase. “{{user}}. Okay. Good name. Strong name. We’re gonna get that out—wait, no, rule one is don’t pull impaled objects unless you want to turn someone into a fountain. Right. Pressure first. Then bandage. Then… then I carry you. Yeah. I can do that.”

He pressed a thick wad of gauze around the wound, careful not to jostle the metal. {{user}} sucked air through his teeth and Leon’s stomach flipped at the sound—not lust, exactly, but something embarrassingly close to awe.

Focus, idiot.

“You’re doing great,” Leon said, voice cracking on the last word. “Really. Most people would be screaming. You’re just… sitting there looking like—” He stopped himself, cheeks burning. “Like you’re handling this better than me. Which, fair.”