Written by pr0nz69's imouto-san for the Phoenix Wright kink meme. There's literally no GK2 fanfiction out there, so I thought I ought to remedy that. Please enjoy!
Spoilers for: Gyakuten Kenji 2
Pairing: Manosuke Naitou/Souta Sarushiro, or Horace Knightley/Simon Keyes
Content Warning: rape/noncon, violence
It's past midnight when Knightley shows up at his cell. Simon doesn't sleep much anymore, not since his arrest, and so he's awake to receive him, which he does with a cold smile.
"It's been quite awhile, Knightley," he says, pleasantly. "How's Hell?" He's had his knees pulled up to his chest, but now he slowly extends them, sliding his bare heels along the steel floor. Knightley stares at them, and then his eyes travel upward, coming to rest on Simon's face.
"You look good in prison stripes, Keyes," he quips, mouth folding open into his familiar cocky grin. "Looks like you've lost some weight, too."
Simon acknowledges the comment with a quick downward glance, noting how loosely his shirt and pants fall around him, then shrugs with practiced disinterest.
"Warden not feeding you right?" Knightley pushes, emphasis as subtle as the man himself. Simon ignores it.
"So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" he says instead, setting his hands beside him as they curl into fists. "Repayment for the time I visited you when you were in detention?"
Knightley stays silent. Then he steps forward, and the bars are nothing to him; he passes through as if they weren't there and goes to crouch before his former friend. "You're scared," he says, brushing aside the question. "You look like you did back then, when we were brats. Even your hair…"
He reaches out, takes a strand between thumb and forefinger, and holds it for just a moment before letting it go again. Simon reaches up and flattens his hair against his ears. The red has been steadily filtering downward in favor of his dark roots; he hasn't dyed them in months, can't in here, and it's been a constant annoyance for him, a piece of his old identity he can't cast off.
"What's wrong?" Knightley asks, folding his arms. "Can't stand who you've become? You're not the only one."
Simon shakes his head without removing his hands from his ears. "You're dead," he states, and then he blinks, as if that will relieve him of this apparition. But Knightley's still standing there, smiling crookedly.
"All thanks to you, friend," he says, and Simon's glad he didn't move his hands because he takes Knightley's punch on the knuckles rather than the cheekbone and it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it would have.
"You're lucky I don't have a knife on me," Knightley continues, and he rubs the right side of his neck, as if unconsciously; he's not wearing his brace, and the skin of his throat is smooth, undamaged. "That hurt like hell, you know."
Simon straightens against the wall he's been leaning back on. His throat's dry, but he's never let that stop him before. "You're one of Dogen's dogs, aren't you?" he mimics in Patricia Roland's rough alto. "I won't let that monster terrorize me and my Home any longer!"
The second punch clips him across the mouth, splitting his lip. He can taste blood, but it's nowhere near as bitter as the look that's twisted itself onto Knightley's face.
"You're in luck, Keyes, 'cause I've got something even better than a knife, or even a chisel," he growls, and he's breathing hard as his hand dips to his belt and he draws his gun, leveling it just beneath Simon's jugular.
Simon's grinning, probably madly, but it's just another mask he's hiding behind. "You crawled out of Hell just to kill me?" he says, and then he feels the gun's barrel pressing a ring into his Adam's apple. But he doesn't stop. He never does. "I'm flattered you hold our friendship in such high regard, Knightley."
Knightley shifts in front of him, getting down onto his knees and sliding his leg between Simon's. It's an intimate position, and both of them know it, but neither says a thing. Then Knightley drags the gun upward against the underside of Simon's chin, using it to prop up his head.
"Do you want this in the neck like me, Keyes?" he asks, but for once, his finger on the trigger is shaking. "Or would you like it somewhere else? The head, maybe? Quick and painless. How about the groin? It might not even kill you. It's your choice. You never gave me one, but I've always been the better friend, haven't I?"
Simon chuckles, but it's devoid of any mirth. "You're so predictable." He says it to the ceiling because he can't move his head anywhere else, not with Knightley's gun holding it up. "That's why you're so easy to manipulate, you know?"
"Predictable?" Knightley repeats, and then, suddenly, he's got hold of Simon's shirt collar, and he's jerking him forward and down, laying him out flat on his stomach like a fish on a chopping block. Simon doesn't even think to resist, and Knightley's always been stronger than him anyway, and now he's got a knee pressed down on his tailbone, pinning him to the floor.
"Bet you weren't expecting that, were you?" he murmurs into his ear, and Simon doesn't say anything because it's hard to breathe like this but also because it's true, he wasn't expecting it. Knightley has a rope in his hands now, and Simon doesn't know where he got it from, but it doesn't matter; Knightley binds his wrists tight with it, just like he did eighteen years ago, and even though he fights against him, he's still too weak to stop him.
"Well, this brings back memories," he snaps, and he stops struggling because he knows Knightley's enjoying watching him do it.
"You're right," Knightley says, barking out a laugh. "I should tie your feet, too, to really take us back."
He drags up Simon's baggy pant legs, then thrusts the rope against the white skin of his ankles, winding it around them until it's tight enough to hurt. Simon's palms are hot, and he's pushing them against the coolness of the floor to try and keep from having flashbacks, but he's already back in that freezing car on that subzero day, has probably been there all along.
"Damn you – why don't you just kill me already?" he finds himself suddenly shouting, but he doesn't know if he really wants to die or if he's just scared and looking for a way out. But Knightley doesn't shoot him; instead, Simon feels his fingers, cold like ice, gripping his sides before drawing down his pants – boxers, too – and climbing on top of him, nimbly, like he's done this before.
"You said it yourself, Keyes," he says; Simon feels the warmth of naked flesh against the backs of his thighs, and he realizes Knightley must have removed his own clothes as well. "I'm too predictable. So I decided to shake things up a bit. Just for you."
Simon doesn't expect the sudden breach into his body to hurt like it does, but once it happens, he has to bury his head between his arms and bite down on his tongue to keep himself quiet. He doesn't tell Knightley that he's never done this before, that he's a virgin, but he wonders if he's already made that obvious. Knightley's grunting as he rocks himself forward, the sweat from his abdomen rubbing off against Simon's lower back. He doesn't seem like he's enjoying it, either, but he presses on, though Simon's body won't accept much of him.
It takes longer than Simon likes to get himself talking again, and then the first thing he gasps out once he does is, "G-go on, Horace!" He hardly realizes he's clawing at the floor until one of his nails splits and there's blood on the pad of his finger, smearing prints across the steel. "You can hurt me… better than this… right?"
Knightley pauses, and his ragged panting is so close to Simon's ear that he can feel his hot breath even through his hair. His lean chest is sleek with sweat, and it feels scalding against Simon's back as their bodies finally collide. The weight is almost crushing until Knightley lifts himself onto his elbows, and, still breathing hard, manages a dry laugh.
"Never knew you to be such a glutton for pain, Keyes," he says. Simon squirms, testing his limits, but Knightley's still inside him, and the burn of friction is enough that he exhales out from between his teeth.
"I – I enjoy playing chess with you, b-but I'm looking forward to your performance as well," he manages to get out, in his best impression of Knightley's voice, and then he's being driven back into the floor as Knightley bears down on him, pushing himself deeper.
"Then enjoy it," he growls. "My last performance – just for you!"
The pain has become almost unbearable. Simon lurches forward with each thrust into him, gritting his teeth, chewing his tongue, and finally, biting into the flesh of his own wrist and holding to it like a dog until he can't take it anymore, he has to let go to scream. The other inmates probably hear him, howling like a madman, and they probably don't care. Knightley doesn't, and maybe he's encouraged by it because his hips rock more forcefully now, and he's grunting harder, like he can't take much more either.
And despite the pain, and the humiliation, and the fear, and amidst all of it, between his cries, Simon's shrieking, "Come on, Horace! Try to break me! But I'm not weak – I won't break!"
It's his favorite lie of all, and he knows that he broke a very long time ago.
...
He doesn't know when Knightley finally stops, just that he fills him up before he takes himself out and collapses again on top of him. They're both out of breath, and Simon's sore and exhausted, and he feels like crying, but he doesn't have the tears for that, or maybe he's just not capable of it anymore. He can't move under Knightley's weight, so he stays where he is and tries hard to breathe while feeling for a heartbeat against his shoulder blade, but either Knightley doesn't have one or it doesn't reach him at all. Simon wants to talk because he can't lose, not to him again, but there's blood in his mouth from his tongue and from the wound he bit into his arm, and if he shows it, he knows he'll look vulnerable.
"Now," Knightley says, still catching his breath as he pulls himself up and rolls to the side; "we're even, Simon."
He sets about untying him, and there's blood in the ropes pulled from his hands and red welts around his wrists. Knightley sees them, then the spot where Simon scraped away his own skin with his teeth, and he raises his eyebrows. But he doesn't say anything as he redresses. Then, still without a word, he turns to go.
"Don't leave!" Simon screams, and he drags himself up onto his knees, onto all fours, like an animal. "I don't want mercy from you! Come back here and break me! Break me like I deserve!"
Knightley doesn't even look back as he steps through the bars. "But there's nothing left to break," he says, and then Simon blinks, and he's gone.
...
When Simon wakes to the morning bell, it's with tears in his eyes and Knightley on his mind. He doesn't hurt anymore, except for his tongue, which is swollen, and his arm, which has already scabbed over, but there are no marks on his wrists and no bruises on his cheek. A guard sees him picking at his scab, and suddenly, he's on suicide watch again because they think he's tried to kill himself. He doesn't tell them about Knightley, though; they wouldn't understand.
He doesn't really, either.