Sweetener (Book 1)

Another rookie. Fresh out of the academy.
Someone you'd have to train, protect, and probably keep from getting themselves killed.

You've done it before. You know the routine.

What you didn't expect... was the end of the world getting there first.

By the time you fight your way through the ruined streets and into the station, the city you swore to protect is already gone-overrun, suffocating, unrecognizable. Survival has replaced protocol. Instinct has replaced trust.

And then you find him.

Leon S. Kennedy-wide-eyed, exhausted, but still standing. Still trying. Still asking if people are okay like that question means anything anymore.

He's not what you expected.

He's softer. Kinder.
Too hopeful for a night like this.

And somehow... that's exactly what you need.

Where you are sharp edges and survival instincts, Leon is something warmer-something steady in a way that doesn't come from experience, but from belief. He trusts you without hesitation. Looks to you like you already have all the answers.

You don't.

But for the first time since the outbreak began... you wish you did.

As the two of you move through bloodstained corridors and shattered silence, something shifts. Your orders become suggestions. Your distance becomes conversation. And the space between you fills with something neither of you were trained for:

gentleness.

He reminds you to breathe-
not like a command, but like a promise.

And you teach him how to survive-
even if it means losing pieces of himself along the way.

But in the middle of everything falling apart, there are moments-small, impossible moments-where the world feels almost... quiet.

A shared look.
A steady hand.
A laugh that shouldn't exist, but does anyway.

You were supposed to be his partner.

Instead, somewhere between fear and faith, you become something more.

Because even now-
even here-

hope isn't gone.

It's just... learning how to survive, too.