Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Digimon Adventure 02
Title: Dream Vows
Romance: Ken x Daisuke
Word Count: 2,000||Status: One-shot
Genre: Romance, Drama||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, section D30, write in the drama genre; Written for the One Ship Boot Camp, prompt #43, scared; Written for Word Counts Set Boot Camp, #17, 2,000 words; Written for Digimon OTP Week on Tumblr, Day 7, promises & the future
Notes: This takes place some years after the defeat of BelialVamdemon but does not include the 25 years later epilogue.
Summary: It's been said that dreams reflect desires we don't want to admit to ourselves. Ken has no disagreement with that at all.

A long, thick bar of steel ran across the room, a length of chain dropping down from the center of it. Connected to the chain was a pair of manacles, wrapped around Daisuke's wrists. Another set of manacles connected to a chain came from the floor, fastened around his ankles and keeping his legs spread wide. He wore only a pair of pants, his torso sprinkled lightly with sweat of fear, a torso much more muscular than he'd been at eleven.

The Digimon Kaiser appreciated the change. Slowly he walked around his captive, taking in every sign of maturity the other had grown into over the last eight years. He rested one hand on the small of Daisuke's back and smiled a wicked smile when the other jerked away at once.

"Ken! What do you think you're doing! Let me down from here!"

Ah, yes. Some things changed. Others did not.

"Call me the Digimon Kaiser," the Kaiser advised, tracing the tip of his finger from where he'd started around to Daisuke's stomach, enjoying the way Daisuke wriggled and squirmed in an attempt to get away. Of course, said attempt ended up fruitless; the chains keeping him here could not be broken easily, and only the Kaiser held the keys to them.

"You're Ken! We did this already, remember?" Daisuke tried so hard to get away from the Kaiser's touch, especially as his hand flatted against Daisuke's stomach.

"Things are different now. I don't care about ruling the Digital World." The Kaiser stood in front of Daisuke now and stared into those furious eyes of his. Such beauty. Such strength. Such passion.

Such confusion. Daisuke blinked, staring in disbelief at his captor. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

The Kaiser's fingers trailed up Daisuke's stomach to caress his chest, then cupped Daisuke's chin in a firm grip. "What I care about ruling now is you."

For a moment Daisuke froze, then he began to buck and thrash in his chains all over again, spitting out words that were far too heated to be coherent at all. The Kaiser let him continue until he wore himself out and sagged back down, chest heaving and eyes still furious.

"Are you done? I'd like to begin sometime soon." The Kaiser trailed his finger down Daisuke again, this time making lazy circles across Daisuke's chest and stomach. "I know this is going to take a while. You would've been difficult to tame as a child and now you're even worse. But I'm a patient man, Daisuke. I've waited a long time to have you in the first place and now that I do, I can wait a little longer for you to understand how everything is going to be from now on."

Daisuke's breath came ragged and harsh. "Ken. What happened to you? Come on. Talk to me. The real Ken. I know you're there."

The Kaiser's eyes narrowed and he backhanded Daisuke hard enough to split his lip. "I am the real Ken. The only Ken that you will ever know again." He seized hold of Daisuke's hair and jerked him closer. "I didn't want to hurt you, Daisuke, and I still don't, but if that's what it takes to tame you, then I will. Do you understand me?"

Fire still burned in Daisuke's eyes. He raised his head as high as he could, licking at the blood on his lip. "You can hurt me all that you want. Not going to stop wanting the Ken that I know back."

"Didn't we just go over this? I know you're smarter than that." The Kaiser shook his head, his grip still hard in Daisuke's hair. "I really don't want to hurt you, I want you to believe that. In fact, I'm not going to, unless you push me to it like you did now." His hand eased out of Daisuke's hair to trace a slow design across Daisuke's features. "Sadly, I don't think you're going to like what I am going to do to you all that much. At least not until you get used to it. Trust me, you will get used to it. You'll even come to enjoy it as much as I will."

His fingers brushed across Daisuke's chest, flicking here and there, knowing how sensitive Daisuke could be there. The advantages of all these years of 'friendship'. The Kaiser wished that he'd realized what he wanted earlier.

No matter. He would make up for lost time now that he'd done so. Perhaps all of those years weren't so lost after all. It had given him the chance to get to know Daisuke, to worm his way inside of his defenses, and tie into him so that Daisuke had all but thrown himself into the Kaiser's arms today.

How foolish he'd been. Though the Kaiser couldn't precisely blame him for it. Daisuke hadn't had any idea that his dear friend had had a … change of heart, so to speak.

But now the Kaiser focused all of his laser-like attention onto his beautiful captive. He'd repressed himself long enough.

All of that had passed through his mind in the space of a heartbeat. Daisuke still glared at him, though now his cheeks flamed red at the touch of the Kaiser's hand on him.

"You're wrong. You're just wrong!"

"I expected you to think nothing else. But I can be very persuasive, Daisuke. You'll see." Again his hand slid into Daisuke's hair and pulled his head closer. Daisuke squirmed harder yet again but the Kaiser would not let go. Instead he pressed his lips onto Daisuke's, tasting those sweet lips and the shock that resonated through them as it dawned on Daisuke just what was going on.

Mine. The word resonated through him. Mine, forever.

Ken's eyes flew open and he stifled a scream through raw willpower alone. His entire body soaked in sweat, he clenched one hand on the soft sheets beneath him, breathing in and out, trying to get his heart to calm down while he wrapped his mind around what happened.

A dream. A nightmare. That's all it was. A nightmare, but so vivid that in the depths of it he hadn't even imagined that he might be dreaming.

He looked around, the outlines of the room only dimly visible thanks to the streetlights and the few electronic gadgets in his room. He was alone; Wormmon was spending tonight in the Digital World. It was somewhere in between too late and too early, possibly around two or three. Too late to expect anyone else to be awake and too early to get up and stay that way.

He wiggled his way out of bed anyway and headed for the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face. The movement and the chill helped to clear his thoughts to some degree and he focused back on what he'd dreamed.

It was a dream. I couldn't be the Kaiser again. The spore's dead. And if not dead, so close to it that it made no difference. So long as he didn't think the kind of thoughts he had as a child…

Though in the dream, it seemed he'd been different, even as the Kaiser. He hadn't wanted the Digital World; he clearly recalled telling Daisuke that, feeling it himself.

More ice-cold sweat sprang up along his neck and he ran himself a glass of water, hands shaking the whole time.

I can't… I wouldn't.

It wasn't the first time he'd dreamed about being intimate with Daisuke. He doubted it would be the last. But it was, by far, the first time that he'd dreamed of it like that. With Daisuke held in chains and Ken lusting after him…

He drank another glass of water, trying to get himself calmed down in every way. He'd been so shaken by the dream itself he hadn't even noticed its other effects on him…

No. I won't. He could barely keep himself coherent. He swallowed, trying to get his thoughts into some kind of order and not having a great deal of luck.

He glanced back into his bedroom; his D-Terminal rested beside the bed. He could send a message to Daisuke, see if everything was all right with him.

Of course it is. It was my dream. Why would he be anything but all right?

No, he didn't want to check on Daisuke for Daisuke's own sake, as much as he did for his own sake. To hear Daisuke's voice, not roughened by anger or shot with pain and anger, and to know that Daisuke trusted him and could trust him safely, that he wasn't in any danger from Ken at all.

Slowly Ken made his way back into the bedroom and settled down on a chair. He didn't want to go back to sleep just yet. Every part of him still jangled with nerves.

Why would I dream that, though? He'd never studied dream imagery or meanings and off-hand, couldn't think of anyone who might. Even if they had, it wasn't as if the dream had been full of cryptic imagery. It had been fairly straightforward. Somehow, in a way he'd seemed to know in the dream but couldn't recall now, he'd had at least some of the Kaiser's way of thinking back, of wanting something and taking it.

Not something: someone. Daisuke. In the dream he'd remembered Daisuke coming to him, innocent and trusting, and how he'd...done something. Something that led to a room with Daisuke in chains and unable to get away.

I know what I was going to do to him. That was something he recalled as clearly as if he'd made up his mind to do it himself. It sent more sweat sprinkling all over him and he hated the thought of it, hated himself for even thinking it, hated himself more for dreaming it in the first place.

He should stay away from Daisuke. Shouldn't give whatever thought spawned that dream a moment's more ammunition in his mind.

Only that wouldn't work at all, because Daisuke would just find out he was being avoided and run after him to find out what the problem was, then shake Ken by the shoulders, insist that the Kaiser was gone, and there was nothing for Ken to fret about, and then Ken could…

Ken really wished he had something alcoholic to drink right now. But his parents had never acquired the taste for it and he wasn't yet old enough to buy it himself and he still wished that he could, because water wasn't doing a whole lot for him right now.

All right. Staying away wouldn't do anything. He needed to do something, though. He didn't think he could so much as look Daisuke in the face if he didn't think of something.

For that matter, he didn't know if he could look him in the face now. He could still feel that warm skin underneath them, the flow of Daisuke's blood through his veins, he could scent Daisuke's sweat, born of fear and anger and …

He needed to do something.

No. He didn't need to do something. He specifically needed not to do something and the something he didn't need to do was whatever it was that had caused him to fall like that again. He didn't know what that was; he might never know, it might only be a dream spawned by his dinner or having studied too much.

I don't care. The second I feel anything that's like that, that's even close to being like that, I'll stop myself. I won't do that to Daisuke. Not to anyone, but especially not him.

He drank one more glass of water, staring at his own reflection in the mirror.

"I won't." Two words but they meant everything to him. A promise that he would never break. A vow mad in his deepest heart.

He would never be the Kaiser again. And he would never, ever do that to Daisuke.

The End

Note: Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the story. Please let me know what you thought of it if at all possible.