TITLE: Back In Black – (2/?)

AUTHOR: Wicked Raygun

E-MAIL: wicked_raygun@yahoo.com

SUMMARY: Xander returns to Sunnydale as an evil vampire… And that's the easy to understand part.

RATING:  PG-13

SPOILERS: General spoilers for seasons 1 through 7 for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and for seasons 1 through 4 of Angel. Everything else is of my own invention.

DISCLAIMOR: I refuse to believe this is necessary. Does anyone here actually believe I own this stuff in any way? Well… To the folks who do own a piece of the Buffster and/or her friends and enemies, I mean you no harm. I'm simply borrowing your toys to put on a little puppet show. I promise to bring them all back in near-mint condition. Even Spike.

FEEDBACK: Everyone needs a little love. It makes the world go round and writers post faster. Just remember that the next time you want to know what happened to Nonsense. J

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This takes place roughly three years after the end of season seven, but in my version Sunnydale didn't go all cratery. The Sunnydale Hellmouth is gone though.

AUHTOR'S NOTES 2: Also, for those who are interested in some of my other work, including Hero Complex, and Nonsense, it can be found here:

And here:

That's my brand spanking new website, created by the wonderful and talented Joanne W. and was the coolest Christmas gift ever! Please, go to her site, read her fine work and leave many reviews for her as well.

Now, onto the show.

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Episode 2-20 Part 2– The Prodigal Sons

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Buffy watched in stunned disbelief as the two Xanders continued circling around the other, their movements still eerily similar. The whole scenario was just too unreal, and left her feeling like she was in the middle of some nightmare.

And then the Xander with a vampire face spoke in a mocking tone, "You know, five minutes back in Sunnydale and you've already reduced your fighting repertoire to run-and-tackle. I mean, this is serious. We've been training, man. Is it the dessert air or something?"

"Could we just for once skip the Good-Ash-Bad-Ash routine and get to the violence?" the other Xander asked annoyed, removing a very long, double-sided stake from his dark blue denim jacket.

"Thought you'd never ask."

The vampire roared and rushed his twin, his right fist leading. The other Xander braced himself and blocked the punch with his arm, stepping in toward the vampire with his stake hand. But the vampire was faster. The stake was blocked by the vampire's other arm and went flying away. A few more dodged punches and the two broke off again, squaring off and staring the other down.

"You shouldn't play with pointy objects, Bro," the vampire mocked, indicating the stake that had been lost. "You'll poke your eye out."

The other Xander snarled and rushed the vampire.

Weaponless, the two then exchanged a series of punches that were nearly all blocked or countered in some way, each obviously familiar with the other's way of fighting. Then the vampire did something apparently unexpected when he grabbed the other Xander, pulled him close and head-butted him. He spun the dazed Xander around him for a moment, resumed his human face and pushed him away.

"Buffy! You have to kill him! He's evil!"

"What?!?" the other responded.

"Don't let him trick you! He's a monster!"

"We're wearing different clothes, moron. She knows you're the vampire," the surprised Xander snapped, before Buffy could respond.

"Yeah, I know," the vampire said conspiratorially, with a sly smile as he slipped back into his vampire face. "Was worth a shot though."

Snarling like a jungle cat, the vampire Xander tapped into his supernatural speed, becoming a blur for a split second before delivering a wicked haymaker that had the other spinning in the air.

Having been previously stunned into inaction, Buffy prompted herself to get involved, but before she could get close enough to do anything, the vampire Xander had the other's arm pinned behind him with his other arm placed over the other's arm and behind his head on the base of his neck keeping the other in a painful half-nelson.

"Not so fast, Buff," the vampire ordered with a sudden increase of pressure on the back of his twin's neck causing him to grunt in pain to further make his point of who was in control for the moment.

"Let him go," Buffy ordered.

The vampire scoffed. "Uh, no. I don't think so."

"What's the matter? Afraid to take me on by yourself?" Buffy chided, hoping to somehow distract the vampire.

"Not particularly," the vampire answered back, smugly. "But this one here might try to get involved again and that's just one too many variables for my liking. You have no idea how annoyingly resourceful this guy can be. Stay back!" he growled when Buffy took another step. A sharp gasp of pain was heard from Xander when the vampire put even more pressure on the back of his neck. Buffy stopped.

"Buffy," the other said with a lot of effort. "The stake… Finish it."

Buffy looked down to her feet, and noticed Xander's long-discarded, double-sided stake. With a dexterous move of her foot she flipped the stake up into the air and caught it, then placed her other stake inside of her jacket. She lifted her new weapon, standing there poised to strike.

"Oooh, threatening," the vampire Xander mocked. Then his grin turned vicious and he hefted the other Xander's body squarely against his own and put even more pressure on him, eliciting another yelp of pain. "More threatening," the vampire explained off-handedly.

"Buffy! Now!" the other Xander shrieked through gritted teeth, in obvious pain.

"Oh, you'd love that wouldn't you, Bro?" he asked rhetorically to Xander. "Have her kill us both at the same time? Wraps up everything nice and neat, doesn't it? Just because you're too much of a whiney baby to kill yourself doesn't mean you should drag your hero into it. That's just heartless."

"Buffy!" Xander said strained. "Don't listen to him. Do it!"

Buffy moved forward a step and the vampire started shaking his head.

"I wouldn't do it, Slayer. Even if you had a clear shot at me, just what do you think's gonna happen to my twin here, huh? We're linked. It's like that whole Toth thing. Kill one and the other goes along for the ride."

Buffy looked very unsure of herself at that moment.

"Buffy! He's lying!" The vampire put more pressure on the back of his neck, and Xander howled in pain.

"Not about this, Bro. And, besides, she's not gonna risk it now, and you know that." The vampire's gaze traveled up and down Buffy's body leeringly. "Obviously married life agrees with her. Don't you think, Bro? She's looking good, ain't she?"

"I swear to God, if you say 'good enough to eat,' I'm going to crucify you. Literally." Xander somehow managed to sound threatening, despite the obvious strain in his voice.

His vampire twin laughed loudly. "Nah, I passed the whole bad-vampire-pun stage a long time ago, Bro. You can only refer to little kids as fun-size so many times before it starts losing its charm."

Xander roared in anger, while the vampire only laughed harder.

"Well, this has been fun, kids, but Daddy's gotta go to work now."

The vampire threw Xander to Buffy and they collided together, finally landing on the ground ungracefully. Xander got to his feet as fast as he could, looking for the vampire frantically, a look of utter rage in his eyes.

"Damn it!" he cursed, before turning his anger on Buffy. "Why didn't you kill him?!? Why?!?"

"Xander…" Buffy began, but he was far too angry to listen to anything she had to say anyway, and he stormed away from her in disgust. With his back turned to her, she saw his shoulders slump in defeat, before he brought a hand up to his face to massage his forehead and sigh dramatically. When he finally turned toward her again, he looked so exhausted and weary that Buffy felt like crying.

"Do you have a cell phone?" he asked gently.

Buffy nodded dumbly, shocked by his sudden shift in tone.

"Call up the gang, especially Dawn and Willow, and set up a Scooby meeting as fast as you can. Let them know there's a vampire with my face running around, and if they see me… run." Xander sighed again. "If I'm going to explain all this, I'd rather it be just the one time."

Buffy nodded, quickly doing just that, calling up her sister first who quietly promised she'd get there as soon as possible, sounding nothing like the confident woman she had become over the last few years, then Willow who sounded as if she wanted to cry, but managed to hold herself together throughout the phone call, even promising to call Kennedy for her and then finally her husband, who cursed himself for not insisting to go on patrol with her like he usually did.

During the various phone calls, she would steal fleeting glances of Xander who looked as if he were concentrating on something and would occasionally mutter a curse under his breath. He looked equal parts terrified and enraged, but managed to keep himself still, when in the past he would have been fidgeting constantly. His face was covered with a day or two's worth of stubble and his hair was shorter then the other Xander's – perhaps an attempt to distance himself from the vampire, she wondered – but aside from that, he looked just as lean and fit as his doppelganger did.

Training, indeed, she thought.

But of course that wasn't the most shocking change. This human Xander didn't have an eye patch either. And it was humbling for the Slayer to see both her friend's dark-brown eyes once again.

"Done?" he asked finally, after she called Angel.

She nodded again. "Yeah. Willow promised she'd call Kennedy, and we're all meeting up at the Magic Box." Xander looked surprised. "Oh, uh, Giles had it rebuilt after… you left." Xander nodded then looked away.

That move hurt Buffy for some reason and so she moved past her initial numbed shock enough to start to get angry.

"Just what the hell is going on, Xander? Why do you have an evil vampire twin? And while we're talking about that, maybe you could include a small anecdote explaining your brand new set of peepers."

"It's complicated," Xander replied coolly, crossing his arms defensively. "And I believe I said that I'd only want to explain it the one time."

"Fine," she returned through gritted teeth, and began walking away. "Come on," she called over her shoulder.

Xander rolled his eyes and followed her.

When he had caught up to her, she said flatly, "You lied to us."

"How so?" he asked, his tone falsely calm.

"You told us a hundred times that you were living some nice, normal, happy life. People with evil vampire twins are not living nice, normal, happy lives."

"Nice, normal, happy. You know, I don't think I ever used those words to describe my life. Ever. And besides, last time I checked, my life was kind of my own to live. So please drop the you-just-killed-my-favorite-puppy act."

"So, are you slaying? Or is this some spell you cooked up?"

"Once, again. Complicated. And I'm only going to say it the one time. So stop trying to piss me off."

Buffy turned to him wildly. "I'm pissing you off?!?" she spat incredulously. "I just had a fight with your evil-vampire twin! At best, things like that only happen every five years!"

He turned toward her fully also, the two standing off against the other.

"Hey, Buff, it's not like I planned any of this. I never wanted any of you guys to know about what I did in San Francisco. I had a sneaking suspicion it might lead to a whole lot of yelling."

"And what is it you do, Xander?" she asked quietly, anger peppering every word.

"Well, if you're that desperate to know, I believe the technical term is 'demon hunting.' There's special effects, death-defying stunts, thrills, chills, spills. And, sometimes, there's ponies," he finished in a mocking tone.

A flash of hurt crossed Buffy's features before she turned away, looking angrier than before.

The rest of the walk was silent, but hardly peaceful. The tension between them felt like an oppressive, intimidating thing that neither felt like addressing or resolving for the moment. They made it past the cemetery gates and into the parking lot. Xander made it to his car, and then cursed.

"What is it?"

"I don't believe this. He slashed my tires. The evil bastard slashed my tires!"

Buffy sighed. "Well, come on, we'll take my car," she said pointing to a dark blue SUV that was across the street in another parking lot. Once they had reached it, though, they found that its tires had been slashed as well.

"I'm really not liking your vampire twin here, Xand," she said after finally calming down.

"Yeah, well, wait till he starts killing people you care about. That's when he really starts to grow on you," Xander said darkly.

Buffy looked at him then, truly looked at him, and saw the misery underneath the seething anger. Her face softened. Whatever Xander had done, she felt, it wasn't right for her to judge him.

"I'm sorry, Xander," she apologized. "I shouldn't have—"

"Just… don't worry about it," he said quickly, cutting her off. He sighed and then started walking around Buffy's car with a puzzled look on his face.

"I've never seen this car before. How in the hell did he know this was your car?" Then he came to the front of the car and looked down, his eyes open-wide in surprise.

That's when he started laughing. It was slow at first, beginning as an amused scoff, but it steadily grew into a hardy, gut-busting guffaw that began to hurt his sides and made him gasp for breath. Buffy hurried over to see what Xander was laughing at and saw that he was staring at her license plate.

She blushed. "That's not that funny," she said meekly.

That only made him howl harder.

She shook her head, but his laughter was so infectious that she began laughing as well.

After a while, Xander's laughter finally began to die down. He looked at the license plate and gave one last chuckle. "Slayer-One?" he asked amused.

"It was Dawn's idea," she answered back sheepishly.

Xander smiled at her and suddenly Buffy could see her old friend behind all of the rage and fear. "Can we hug now? I've really missed you."

Nodding slowly, Buffy smiled back at him and moved into his arms, closing her eyes, she melted into his embrace.

"God, I must've picked up the phone a million times to tell you everything," he said finally, still holding her.

She pulled back a little to look into his eyes. "Why didn't you?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "I guess I was worried that you'd ask me to stop. And that I would."

Buffy smiled at him sadly, and then her hand moved to trace his left eye, utterly mesmerized by the sight of both of his warm, caring brown eyes staring back at her. Xander shuddered and stopped her hand, slowly bringing it down before releasing her completely and stepping away from her.

"How?" she asked simply.

Xander took a long breath, before answering, "It was this bracelet thing. It gave me superpowers for awhile—"

"Whoa!" she interrupted. "You've got superpowers?!?"

"Well, no, not anymore. It was a temporary thing."

"Oh."

"Don't worry about it; it's not like I miss it or anything. It was evil, dark power anyway. And much destruction of private property ensued, trust me. It almost made me…" Xander closed his eyes and sighed. "Anyways, one of the fun little side-effects is that it gave me back my eye."

"Well, then everything turned out alright in the end."

Xander hesitated. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess." Buffy looked at him questioningly, and he sighed again. "It's complicated."

Unsure how she should react to that statement, Buffy looked down and said. "Well, come on. We better get going."

And with that they started walking to the Magic Box.

After a few moments of silence, Xander asked, "So, married life. How's that working out for you?"

"Only slightly less terrifying than an apocalypse."

"Angel snores, huh?"

Buffy gave him a withering look, but Xander just smiled lopsidedly at her. She shook her head, amused.

"All kidding aside, I'm happy. For the first time in… well, probably ever, I'm content. Things make sense. I have purpose, direction, a future…"

"It's driving you nuts, huh?"

"I've had no training for this!" she whined good-naturedly. "I mean, who would've thought that I'd be happy?"

"I did."

Buffy turned to him.

"You're a special woman, Buffy. I always knew it was only a matter of time, before the right stars aligned for you to have something real."

"Yes, and it only took a half a dozen prophecies, the world nearly ending several times and my dying. Twice. Life's too good."

Xander smiled.

"So what about you? Any special women in your life?"

Xander sighed. "Well, it's com—"

"Tell me 'it's complicated' and I'll have to hurt you."

Xander smiled. "Okay… Well, I'm single right now. Hunting down an evil-vampire twin is hell on your social life." Buffy smiled reassuringly at him. "There's been a few dates," he said slowly. "And, hey, only one of them tried to kill me, so that's gotta be a silver lining, right?" Xander joked, forcing a smile on his face, but Buffy didn't smile back. She could tell he was avoiding something.

"There was someone," he admitted finally with a trace of reluctance in his voice at having to discuss this subject with her.

"What happened?"

Xander shrugged. "She couldn't deal. The vampires, the demons… She told me that as much as she loved me…" Xander trailed off, closing his eyes and pushing the painful memories away. "It feels like a long time ago," he said sadly.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm past the evil, soul-sucking guitar stage." Buffy raised her eyebrow. "Long story. Really don't want to get into it."

"Well, it sounds like city life hasn't been boring."

Xander scoffed. "No, definitely not."

"So what else has been going on in good, old Sunnydale?" Xander asked, a little desperate for a subject change.

"Well, let's see… Willow's not dating Kennedy anymore. They're doing the 'just-friends' thing. Angel's wearing earth tones now. Oh, and Dawn lost her virginity."

Xander broke out laughing, then noticed Buffy's silence. "Oh, god, you're not kidding, are you?"

"Nope. I'm just happy the guy was nice, normal and human."

"Huh… You can find one of those in Sunnydale?"

~~~~~~***~~~~~~

It didn't look any different from the outside. Same ugly, brick facing, same rusted metal doors… The place still looked like a dungeon.

"The more things change…" the vampire Xander muttered, leaving the rest of the cliché unfinished. He grinned.

The Bronze. The place had been more like his home than, well, his actual home. He had so many memories of this place. Good, bad… apocalyptic… They all start to blend together after awhile, he mused.

He could hear the music from his place in the parking lot, just beyond the luminescence of a streetlight, a shadow to the rest of the world.

His grin grew into a smile, and he began his walk to the Bronze, rubbing his hands together. There was something amusingly ironic about coming back to the Bronze, and he couldn't help but be excited. He should've come back to Sunnydale sooner.

He walked past the so-called security and was greeted by the sights, sounds and smells of about fifty high school adolescents and college students who thanked God they weren't still high school adolescents.

"First a game of pool," he said to himself offhandedly as he admired the large group of writhing young people on the dance floor. "And then maybe something to eat." He took in a long breath, savoring the essence of the Bronze in a way that he couldn't before becoming a vampire, and grinned at the thought of his next new game. Something that being in good, old Sunnydale he couldn't help but want to try.

"It's good to be back."

******To*Be*Continued******