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It took weeks to find him.
Five weeks, six days, thirteen hours, and seventeen minutes, to be exact.
It was unsurprising to Chris when he heard that Leon went M.I.A. The agent tended to do things like that. He'd go out on missions and get himself in some sticky situation that left him without access to communication devices, making his poor handler sweat behind the scenes. It would usually only take him a week to finally make contact again, but something about the operation the DSO sent him out on was different this time.
Chris blew air through his nose the first time Hunnigan reached out to him. He knew the guy, knew Leon S. Kennedy's reputation, so he comforted her with lazy words and did - nothing. He looked at his watch and dismissed her worries. Leon would call soon. He always called.
So when Hunnigan called him again a week after her first call, a pang of something hit the inside of his chest. Really, he shouldn't have blown off her worries in the first place - but he knew Leon. He knew the guy's tendencies and how reckless he got in the field, especially now. Leon had this suicidal streak, always diving headfirst into the worst of it. They weren't close, but Chris could see the way he was suffering. He was sure Leon wouldn't turn his own gun to his head, but he didn't know so much about his determination to die in battle. Chris had tried to reach out, but things were hard. When he was around, Leon wasn't. When Leon was around, Chris wasn't.
Their corporations didn't exactly see eye to eye, so it was rare for the two of them to be on missions together in the first place. The last time Chris saw Leon, they were leaving Alcatraz. Leon being in the same place as him was purely a coincidence at the time, but Chris didn't let the opportunity to get closer to the other agent slip away. He practically forced Leon to get checked out by medical, and then he kept his eye on him during their little outing to some fancy bar in the heart of San Francisco. He watched Leon drink his whiskey, making sure the younger brunette didn't indulge too much at the time, but he found that he didn't need to step in or even say a word. Leon just tipped his glass against Chris' with a small smile before knocking it back and turning to chat with the girls across the table.
Leon had been missing for two weeks and a day when he got Hunnigan's second call. He was down in New York when he got the third, her voice shrill in his ears as she yelled about how they had gotten him.
Chris still isn't sure who exactly it was that captured Leon, but he knew they were no good. Yet another pharmaceutical company dabbling with drug combinations that shouldn't be mixed. At the end of the day, they are all the same: power-hungry companies wanting to make money and control the world. Sick bastards who needed to be put down.
There was a sign of Leon during week four, it the tiniest little blurred image of him being dragged out the back of some building down in Moscow. That made the DSO hounds leap with Chris in tow. He felt responsible for Leon's disappearance somehow, like he could have done something about it, so he forced his way onto the search and rescue team for Leon. He knew that Leon was probably already held hostage by the time Hunnigan reached out to him, but it didn't make him feel any better. Why was Leon on the other side of the world doing covert operations on his own, anyway? Something about the DSO's high standards, something that would never fly within the BSAA.
That blurred image put a wrench in Chris' heart. Even through mere pixels, he could tell that Leon was injured. His gait looked wrong, and his eyes were sunken. Just everything about it screamed that something was seriously wrong.
Chris scoured the streets of Moscow with his team, with the DSO, even on his own. He went out to hot bars, to shitty bars, to secret underground bars, looking for Leon. Asking around for him. It took a while to find a lead and he was starting to lose his grip on hope when a bartender at the smallest little joint he's ever seen noticed Leon's photo on the counter. She tilted her head and spoke in thick Russian as she pointed at Leon and tapped on his face before bringing her hand up to her neck, saying with rough english "Is dead."
Chris startled then, every hair on his arms bristling as he immediately asked, "How do you know? You've seen him? Where?"
It was hard to extract information from the woman, the language barrier doing nothing but make things difficult. But Chris understood what she meant when she said, "Pretty boy - they take him to the mill."
By week five, they expanded their search to the outside rural areas of Moscow. Chris went out village to village, searching for this so-called mill. He only ever found grain mills, ones that, if full, would hide a body easily. The locals didn't like him sniffing around, didn't like the German shepherd he had at his side, but the dog never indicated she could smell Leon. Never signaled that he might be buried in grain somewhere.
It is by week five, day six, that they finally make it to the last of the villages, so far out of Moscow that it's not even Moscow anymore. There's hardly anything around. People are scarce, and if there are any, they level Chris with scowls and looks that say he is not welcome there. He's alone now, the rest of the teams packing up. ready to go home. But Chris insisted. He insisted. Just one more look. Just one more sweep.
That is when he finds it.
The not-so-abandoned mill house on the corner of a dried-up creek.
At first glance, it is a decrepit looking thing. Run down with rotting wood and a wheel that no longer spins. From a distance, it looks deserted, like it's more home to the creeping weeds and wildlife than anything else.
But Chris has a trained eye.
He catches the poorly hidden tracks in the tall grass, easily noting the way it is bent in the form of a desired path. He takes post by a tree up the pathway, hiding himself from the view of the windows as he studies the ramshackled place through the scope of his rifle. With a magnified view, he can see the corner of the building through the lens, but nothing there gives away that there might be people inside. He sits there, rifle in his palms, contemplating when to enter the building when he hears it. A low whistle and the flick of a lighter. He instantly has his sights set on the man who appears behind the tall grass. He cant make out his face as he ducks down to light up his cigarette, but something about him seems - off.
Another man exits the building while Chris remains silent, observing the two as he strains his ears. He expects Russian, but is met with English words that make his blood run cold, "The agent - he's out again. That sad sack won't know a god damn thing when he wakes up."
That is enough to make Chris shift his rifle to the side, firing off a round into the dirt at the men's feet before rolling forward to take cover in the grass. The men scramble, startled shouts falling from their mouths until Chris manages to pop up behind one of them, knocking him in the back of the skull with the butt of his rifle just as the other man turns around. Before the man can so much as yell, Chris whips his pistol out to fire a single round right between his eyes.
He prepares himself for more people, expecting an onslaught of footsteps to barrage up from some secret underground base, but nothing comes. Chris' brows twitch as he sweeps the outside of the building with his eyes before stepping to the door. He swings his gun inward to quickly clear the room, ready to shoot anyone on sight that isn't Leon.
He doesn't see another soul in the dusty building. Its walls are bare besides the cobwebs draping in the corners, and there's a thin line of dust crowding against the walls' edges. It's clear that there's been foot traffic here. There is a pathway of footsteps towards a set of stairs leading downward, it clearly walked recently.
Chris stalks over to them, still alert as he takes one creaky step at a time. His shoulders tense with the noise, his movements freezing as he holds his breath, but nothing comes.
He continues down the rotted wood, the creaking making him twitchy as he keeps his gun close to him. He enters a small room with a single bed in the corner, a derelict table, and a sleeping Leon S. Kennedy.
Chris immediately slings his gun around his back, his voice coming out in a shouted whisper, "Kennedy?"
Leon doesn't respond, and it's clear that he won't be. His skin is nearly sheet white, his brows crunched in his unconscious state. The sleeve of his shirt is bunched up at his elbow, and there are bruised track marks up the expanse of his forearm. Chris scowls as he takes a few steps across the room, his gaze going from Leon to the small box on the table. He blows air through his nose, attention going back to Leon as he reaches down to press a finger to Leon's neck, calling out, "Leon?"
Leon doesn't move an inch, his chest subtly rising and falling being the only indication that he's alive, save for the thready state of his pulse.
Chris mumbles under his breath as he reaches into his pocket to fish out his phone. He knows the DSO has units stationed in Russia without even having to ask. That organization is seedy like that. Having spies all over the world.
Found him.
Chris types out to Hunnigan before quickly following with his coordinates.
This move fast after that. A helicopter cuts through the air, its blades sending air in waves against the tall, dry grass. A small group of agents descend on the building, their footsteps loud and hazardous as they disturb more of the dust collected in the building. Chris stayed at Leon's side until they arrived. He looked in that box and found two syringes set in foam padding. One of them was empty. The box was immediately confiscated, and soon Leon's lifeless body was hauled up on a gurney and into the copter, Chris in close succession. His ride back to the secret DSO location was quiet, and soon he was on a plane back to America, Leon still unconscious and strapped up in the DSO's version of a private air ambulance. It takes hours for them to arrive back in the States, and Leon is quiet the whole time. He doesn't utter a single murmur of pain when they cart him off the tarmac, and he remains unconscious for three more hours.
Chris is sitting in Leon's hospital room when he starts to wake. Hunnigan is here too, her body a tense line of stress as she grips at Leon's palm. For a moment, Chris contemplates also holding the younger man's hand, wondering if it would give the boy any comfort, but he decides against it and chooses to remain sidelined.
"Leon?" Hunnigan calls softly, her grasp reaching up to barely touch Leon's face, "He's waking up."
Leon's eyelids flutter and he groans something horrible. Chris can tell he's hard to wake; his vision is probably blurry as he finally peels his eyes open. The first thing Leon can see is Hunnigan with Chris off to the side, Leon's head tilted to meet Hunnigan's gaze with bleary blinking.
"H-Hunnigan?" Leon rasps, his rapidly blinking eyes slowing.
Hunnigan smiles and squeezes Leon's hand as she speaks softly, "I'm here. I'm here." She reaches up to brush at Leon's hair. Chris examines the gesture, but nothing about it reads romantic. If anything, it just appears as caring, as worried.
"What…" Leon tries to ask, but his voice is heavy on his tongue.
Hunnigan is quick to explain, her fingers slipping from Leon's hair while she explains, "That op in Moscow, it fell through. You were captured - gone for weeks. We couldn't find you. I sent every agent out there and we couldn't find you, but - Chris did. Chris found you."
At the mention of Chris' name, Leon visibly flinches and then freezes. His eyes dart to the man at his bedside, his throat bobbing in a harsh swallow as his limbs begin to shake. His mouth parts, but the words there are nothing but airy noises, his irises shifty.
"Leon?" Chris finally speaks, standing from his chair to move closer to Leon's bedside.
Leon visibly shrinks, his body tilting toward Hunnigan as his expression morphs to one like a deer caught in headlights, his mouth quivering with stuttered breaths, "Y-Y-Y-"
The behavior is odd, but not surprising from someone who has been held hostage for weeks. Even if Leon is a seasoned agent - the best agent - he too could suffer the mental strains of being held in captivity.
Chris raises his hands in a placating manner as he tilts to the side, asking gently, "Leon? You okay?"
The question seems to flip a sudden switch inside Leon, the man's stare going icy and hard as he scowls. "It was you," Leon says flatly, tone accusatory as he levels Chris with a stare.
Chris' heart flips in his chest, the anger directed at him making him worry - Did he do something wrong?
"Y-You -" Leon starts again, his voice wavering. His gaze is pained, his eyes flicking around rapidly before they settle on Chris fiercely. There is so much rage there that it makes Chris take a step back, Leon's voice dripping and venomous, "You killed them."
Chris shakes his head, trying to maintain his placating stance as he speaks, "What? Leon -"
He can't finish his sentence, the wind getting knocked from his lungs as Leon suddenly launches himself at Chris. "It was you!" Leon seethes, his hands scrabbling across Chris's chest to grab at his vest, tugging on it harshly as he spits in Chris' face, "You did this!" Chris falls backward as Leon tumbles into his chest, barely able to maintain his footing as the smaller man raises his fists with a screech, "You! You! You!"
Chris ducks his head from Leon's poorly wielded hand, grabbing at his arm as he gasps, "What? Leon? What are you -"
"It was you!" Leon screams, his voice shredding at the edges as tears burst from his eyes, his chest heaving with each breath as rage and terror color his eyes.
"I don't -" Chris starts while Leon struggles in his grasp, repeating the same words over and over and over again. He has never looked at Chris with such fear in his eyes. No one has ever looked at him with such fear in their eyes.
It is not a moment later that Leon's body is falling lax in his grip, his whole body slumping into his chest with Hunnigan at his back, her palm holding an empty syringe. Her hair is tousled and her glasses are askew as she huffs out a puff of air, her shoulder rising and falling with each breath.
Chris shifts Leon's dead weight to his shoulder, hands hesitant while they cradle Leon around the waist, as he asks breathlessly, "What the hell was that?"
Hunnigan shakes her head, pushing up her glasses before gesturing back to the hospital bed. Chris gets Leon back into it, tucking him beneath the white sheet before Hunnigan speaks quietly, "Those drugs they injected him with? They were memory-altering chemicals."
Chris blinks, his fingers lingering on the sheet at Leon's shoulder as he looks to Hunnigan, silently asking for more information.
She swallows thickly, brushing her hair behind her ear as she finally mumbles, "They messed with his memories. His memories of you."