Title: No Vacancy in Paradise
Gen/Het/Slash: Gen
Parings: None
Genre: Post S7
Story Warnings: Murder, violence, language

Summary: Things have happened over the years. People have died. Friends have died. And Xander has steeled himself against it all, hunting demons and vampires under the name of Deathbringer. But now…now answers have started to arise about things that have happened. And nothing will stop him from hunting those answers down.

Disclaimer: Written for the Dark Xander Ficathon on Livejournal. Don't own characters or anything relating to them.

Chapter 5

She didn't listen. Damn her, she didn't listen and now he was going to have to beat the truth into her.

Fucking stubborn Summers' women. Heh, he'd admired them once.

Yeah…once.

Deathbringer scowled and looked at the stubborn brunette who'd refused to leave after he'd thrown her against the bar. The locals were leaving her alone now since he'd killed Sade's brother (Yang had had two of his goons take the body out and dump it, which was what he usually did when someone died in the bar). They all figured she was under his protection.

Heh, yeah. Not for too much fuckin' longer.

Dark eyes stared at him and he could see tears welling up behind the confusion in them. What the fuck was she crying for?

"Xander," Dawn gasped, staring at him across the table, "what happened to you?"

"Time," he replied, leaning back in his chair. He sipped at his fresh beer and smirked, adding, "Heh, yeah, that's a nice answer, ain't it?"

She stared at him in shock then her eyes hardened slightly. Her fists clenched on top of the table and she ducked her head, eyes closing.

"I've wanted to see you for eight years," she hissed. "Wanted to talk to you in some way. Couldn't you have the heart to at least send me a postcard or something?"

He fixed his sole eye on her ducked head and, shock of shocks, found that a little bitty bit of him still cared. Heh, he'd been wrong. Guess there was still a little bit of Xander left after all.

Deathbringer let his chair drop back to the floor and he leaned across the table, grabbing her chin in his free hand. He jerked her head up, forcing her to look at him. She grimaced, eyes shut tight, and he growled, "Open your eyes, bitch."

Dark eyes flew open at that and she stared in horror at him.

Haha, she never thought she'd hear that from him, did she?

Stupid, stupid kid.

"Things have changed," he growled, keeping his eye trained on her. "Shit, whole world's fuckin' changed in eight years, Summers. Slayer's can't do shit for the world anymore." He let a feral grin slip across his lips then. "That's why I'm here. Somebody's gotta have the balls to pick up the pieces."

"Xander…" she breathed, voice quavering.

Ooo, fear. He could smell it.

Deathbringer grinned and leaned closer to her, his face just inches from hers. He could feel her breath on his scarred cheek – the scar he'd earned doing the job that the fuckin' Female Saviors of the World couldn't do because the Council had tied their hands behind their back.

"Afraid?" he asked, feeling her shiver under his hand. "That's good. You should be afraid of me, Summers. After all, from what the demons and vamps say, I'm the Boogeyman."

Dawn quivered, shaking in what was both outrage and fear. She understood what Spike meant now. This wasn't Xander. This wasn't her Xander!

He…this thing…this was a monster.

"Oh," she heard him say softly, "now you understand. You get it now, don't yah? Who you're looking for…"

She looked up into his eye, becoming a deer in the headlights when she saw the hazel eye gleaming with a sickly green.

"…hasn't been alive for seven years," finished Deathbringer with a smirk. He released her and leaned back in his chair, satisfied that he'd frightened her enough that'd she'd leave him the fuck alone. Dawn flung herself away from him, knocking her chair over, and staggering away. Eyes around the bar turned to look as she shivered, her eyes locked on that smirking monster that had stolen the last of her family from her.

"You…" she stared, "…you bastard!"

He laughed outright at that. Then he rose, grinning wildly, and said, "That the best you can do, Summers? Damn, I'm disappointed."

She stared at him, completely flabbergasted. Then it – pure righteous anger – surged through her and she ripped her sword from its sheath, charging at him. He just grinned at her, eye still gleaming with that sickly green light.

She'd kill that beast that wore Xander's face!

She'd kill it!

Deathbringer just let her come at him, grinning all the while, then he frowned as something came to him. His eye turned completely green for a moment, shifting to a completely different eye that an human one, then shifted back.

"Shit," he muttered before the whole bar exploded.

---

"This her?"

"Yeah, grab her. Any sign of him?"

"Nah. Hope the bastard died in the blast."

"Heh, yeah right. That fucker die like this? Dream on."

"I like dreamin'," said a large vampire as he hefted Dawn's limp body onto his shoulder. "S'fun."

One of his companions (all of which were vampires) scoffed then said, "Let's get out of here before he manages to dig himself out. Yo, Abe!"

"Oi!" came a cry from the youngest of them, who was poking around in the rubble, looking for bodies to loot.

"You got the note?"

"Yeah. Where you want me to put it?"

"Set it on the bar," replied the vampire, obviously the leader of their little group. "By the way, nice job with the explosives, Chan."

The fourth vampire, a Japanese woman with blue hair, just nodded and the leader grinned. He then said, "Alright then, folks, let's move out!"

He walked off and they followed him, the vampire called Abe lingering behind to lay a letter on what was left on the bar. As he smirked and placed a bottle on top of it to hold it down, he heard something behind him. Whirling, he lashed out at the figure that had crept up on him but the stake had entered his heart before he had the time to make the swipe hit.

Deathbringer, blood dripping from a cut on his forehead and covered in dust with his coat in tatters, snarled and shoved the vampire back onto the bar. He twisted the stake sadistically, growling, "That's for blowing up my favorite fuckin' bar, you little shit."

Abe gasped and dusted, the stake buried in him falling onto the counter with a clatter. Deathbringer sneered at the dust then turned and surveyed the damage around him, knowing by the smell in the air that he was the only one left alive. A glance behind the counter proved it, as D lay there staring blankly at the sky.

If anyone could survive the explosion besides him, he'd have figured it would have been D.

Then again, he only survived before he dived under the stairs and he was a fucking stubborn sonuvabitch.

Snorting, he grabbed a surviving bottle of vodka from the stock under the counter and took a long drink, letting the alcohol sink into his system before he turned to focus on the note left by the vampire. He picked it up in dusty fingers and read it with a scowl that deepened as he continued.

When he was done, he crumpled the letter in his fist and turned, a scream of frustration and rage welling up out of his throat. He threw the vodka bottle at the rubble, hearing it shatter as he turned and grabbed his stake off the counter, snarling incoherently.

Fucking vampires had ruined his favorite bar.

That was a killing offense in itself in his book.

Fucking vampires had also kidnapped Dawn.

Now, while he no longer gave a shit what happened to her where vanilla mortals were involved, vamp's…

Vamp's touching one of his girls was a fucking felony.

Heh, stupid vamp's.

He smiled ferally and walked away from the rubble as he heard the sirens coming, lured by the destruction. And, like it was just a normal night, he got in his car – which was unscathed, a good thing for the vamp's as there'd have been real hell to pay if it had gotten messed up – and drove away.

Hands clenched on the steering wheel, he drove like a madman down the streets, breaking laws and outrunning whatever poor sap of a cop tried to catch him. He had a Chaos Mage to pick up and some new plans to put into motion.

The vamp's and whomever they worked for wanted him bad.

So he was gonna give them their wish.

As he drove, plans flickering through his head, he never realized that he'd referred to Dawn as one of his girls. That wasn't Deathbringer talking.

That was Xander.