David Vickers first came to town in 1994 when Dorian was sent to death row for the 20-year-old murder of her husband Victor Lord. He presented Dorian with a forged diary from Victor's mistress Irene Manning, in which she admitted to having killed Victor. She also said she had had a second child with Victor, a son, and Dorian convinced David to pretend to be the long-lost heir in order to validate the diary. David presented the diary and Dorian was freed, but then David met his supposed "sister" Tina Lord Roberts and they fell in love with each other. After sleeping with Tina at Viki's cabin, David admitted to her that he wasn't her real brother; he was only scamming to get the money Victor left to his long lost son. To get her hands on the money, Tina kept his secret and the two got married in Las Vegas.

Dorian found out that Todd Manning was the real Lord heir and told Viki. After Viki found out the truth, her alter Jean emerged. Jean forced David to divorce Tina and have nothing to do with her any more; otherwise she'd go to the police. She also forced him to marry Dorian, who despised him. As Dorian's husband, he lived with her and her niece, Kelly Cramer, in her mansion.

Kelly started falling in love with David and wanted him to be her first. Dorian suspected that David would have an affair and just as David and Kelly were in bed, she got in to the room with a photographer to take picture of him committing adultery. She was horrified to find Kelly with him there. Dorian promised David three fourths of her property if he'd leave Kelly alone and divorce her.

Of course she didn't mean to keep that promise. Dorian schemed with her other niece, Blair, a plan in which Blair would lure David into sleeping with her, would cover his eyes and tie him to the bed. After that Dorian switched places with her and slept with her husband while Todd Manning took pictures of them (without seeing Dorian's face) and published it in his paper. David was forced to give Dorian a divorce without getting a thing out of it.

Right after he signed the divorce, Dorian told him all about her schemes and the two made love again for the second time. David thought of a way to get back at Dorian by taking her niece's virginity. He lured Kelly, who wasn't in love with him any more, and when he tried to make a pass on her she hit him on the head with a lamp and carried his body to the woods. She was sure he died, but he wasn't dead at all. He returned, kidnapped Kelly and tied her to a bed in Dorian's yacht. He asked Dorian for ransom and went to take care of it but he didn't notice that as he was leaving a fire started on the yacht. Joey Buchanan came to rescue Kelly and before the police could put their hands on David, he hurried and left town with ex-mayor Liz McNamara.

In 2001, when Blair Cramer went to Mexico to have her child and Todd followed her, David was at the airport, trying to get on a flight. Todd, thinking the child was Max Holden's (when it was really his) lied to Blair and told her the little boy had died, and went to the airport, hoping to dump it off on someone. David saw Todd and watched him give the baby to a pair of Spanish nuns. David told the nuns that Todd was his "partner" and got the baby back. He brought the boy to the hacienda where Todd and Blair were staying, and Todd paid him a hefty sum to "get rid of the baby".

David gave him to some rich Texas couple, and when Todd found out the child was his, forced David to tell him. Todd got the baby back, saying he was "adopted." David seized the opportunity and blackmailed Todd into giving him money or he would tell Blair everything. Todd tricked David into meeting him at the waterfront and had the Moroccan police arrest him. David was hauled away, but not before he told Todd what he thought of him.

Two years later, David turned up again when he held Dorian hostage in an effort to get the Bhadra diamond. However, it didn't take long for Dorian to talk David into pooling their resources and they plotted together to "steal" the necklace to get the insurance money. As the con progressed, David fell in love with Dorian and the feeling appeared mutual. When Dorian refused to marry him until he had a job, David secured a job. However, to his surprise, Dorian backed out of marrying him. David stood by her side, though, when she revealed the truth about Adriana, the daughter she had given up to save her from Manuel Santi.

After Dorian continued to put the brakes on their marriage, though, David finally had enough. Tired of watching Dorian obsess over her family, David decided it was time to end it, and moved out, ensconcing himself at Kelly's place. Dorian and David made their way back together, though, and planned to finally marry. Around the same time, Spencer Truman showed up in Llanview. David eventually revealed to Dorian that Spencer was his older brother and that he had changed his name years earlier to get as far away from the Trumans as he could. What he didn't tell Dorian was that Spencer was blackmailing him with a secret from his past -- David had killed a man. Spencer blackmailed David into jilting Dorian at the altar, and although David tried to explain later to Dorian why he did what he did, she couldn't forgive him.

David knew the only way to get Spencer to leave him alone (and to continue to protect his secret) was to get something equally damaging on Spencer. Convinced that Spencer knew more than he was saying about Margaret Cochran, David pumped his ex-wife Paige for information, and finally put two and two together and realized that Spencer was connected to Margaret's death. But all he had to go on was supposition, while Spencer finally clued David in on the truth -- the man he killed was Thomas McBain, father of John and Michael. David had been a scared sixteen-year-old when he had been doing a favor for Spencer and had shot blindly, hitting Thomas McBain. The secret went even further though -- Paige was the doctor in the operating room that night, and Thomas McBain died on the table because she had been drinking.

Not knowing that John McBain was learning the truth about his involvement back in Llanview, David headed to Thailand looking for clues on Margaret's disappearance, and was shocked to find Margaret alive and well, but with no memory of her baby or her life in Llanview. Before he could get her back to Llanview, John and Natalie showed up looking for him. John saved David from being killed by Denton, a man Truman had hired to follow him, and the four returned to the States -- John was determined to see David pay for his crimes, but also determined to make sure that an innocent man didn't die for a crime he didn't commit. The entirety of Llanview soon knew about David's crime, and he was arrested, but Spencer soon bailed him out of jail. David was all set to flee town when he had a change of heart and pled guilty to Thomas McBain's murder. However, it was later revealed that Spencer was the one who shot Thomas McBain and then murdered him in the hospital after the operation, meaning that both David and Paige were innocent. The gun David had used when he shot at Thomas McBain was filled with blanks. After Spencer's trial, David made a quick exit from Llanview, only having a telephone conversation with Dorian on Christmas.

An unhinged Spencer managed to escape police custody and turned up in Blair's Llanview hospital room. As he staged a wedding ceremony with an unconscious Blair, Spencer was stabbed from behind with a pair of scissors and killed. David soon confessed, and it was revealed that Asa Buchanan had promised David $10 million to kill Spencer. Eventually John McBain ferreted out the truth and released a furious David. With no money and nowhere to go, David ended up on the doorstep of Viki Lord Davidson; always amused by David's charm (and always happy to annoy Dorian), Viki invited David to stay with her at Llanfair.

Viki's daughter Jessica was rushed to the hospital as her body rejected her recent liver transplant. When David was determined to be a match to donate part of his liver, he saw his chance; David made a deal with Jessica's father Clint Buchanan to go through with the transplant in exchange for the $10 million he had been promised by Asa. Anxious to save Jessica, Clint reluctantly agreed to the deal, and to not tell Viki. Finding out about the deal, Dorian also promised not to tell Viki, but let David know that she would someday cash in a big favor from him. Later, Viki did find out from Clint. After Viki ended their friendship, David felt guilty as he had grown to respect and admire her, so he returned the money and asked Viki for her forgiveness. Viki forgave him; David shared a somewhat heartfelt goodbye with Dorian, and made yet another quick escape from Llanview. A few weeks passed before Dorian and Viki each got a postcard from David.

In October 2006, David had discovered that long ago Asa had engaged in an affair with David's mother, Emma Bradley. Asa had denied it. Spencer had claimed to be Asa's son, but a DNA test proved otherwise. On August 17, 2007 during Asa's funeral, his longtime butler Nigel Bartholomew-Smythe told Max Holden that Asa indeed had another son: David. One of Asa's many ex-wives, Alex Olanov, overheard the conversation and began a search for David herself. In November, Alex found David working at a rehabilitation clinic; acting the part of a wealthy widow with a sex addiction, Alex preyed upon old acquaintance David's greed to convince him to marry her, never mentioning his true parentage. They wed that month and Alex brought her new husband to Texas, where Asa's will was being read. Desperate to protect the family and keep the secret that con-man David was a Buchanan, Nigel turned his own inheritance over to Alex in exchange for her silence. Alex annulled her marriage to David, who was still unaware of his paternity, and Nigel reluctantly conspired with Jared Banks to pass off Jared as Asa's son. Dorian, meanwhile, showed up at the Buchanan ranch to be with Clint, whom she was dating. But when Dorian falsely believed that Clint was having an affair with Nora, she slept with David. Clint walked in on Dorian and David and called it quits with her. Down on his luck and not realizing he was really an heir to the Buchanan fortune, David soon left town, armed only with a $1 lottery ticket given to him by Viki.

On May 7, 2008, David turned up as an employee at the Bon Jour Café in Paris, Texas, working as a dishwasher. The lottery ticket had first brought him luck, making him a TV star with his own show in Hollywood, California. But then he lost the ticket during a party at the Playboy Mansion and his luck vanished as well, as his show was canceled. David had returned to Paris, Texas - where Viki had purchased the ticket - in search of a new source of luck. He found it when Jared and Natalie showed up at the diner and David learned that Jared was a fraud. David followed them back to Llanview and blackmailed them. As they planned to reveal their ruse to the family rather than pay David, Dorian revealed the secret as part of her takeover of Buchanan Enterprises. Jared was arrested, but Natalie secured his freedom by offering Clint his real brother's identity in exchange for dropping the charges against Jared. Clint and Bo reluctantly agreed to her terms on June 18, and were shocked at the news that David was their brother.

Still in the dark as to his parentage, David married Dorian's sister Addie Cramer to secure his financial future. The news enraged Dorian, but Addie refused to listen to reason. In July 2008, Dorian and Viki were in a car accident and Viki died. When David happened upon the accident, he convinced Dorian to save Viki's life in exchange for him divorcing Addie. Dorian reluctantly complied and then quickly had annulment papers drawn up, forcing David to sign them. The annulment couldn't have come at a worse possible time, as Clint Buchanan then offered David $10 million if he could get Dorian to give up control of Buchanan Enterprises if David agreed to divorce Addie. David proposed to Addie again, but Addie turned him down, explaining that she knew David didn't love her. Addie said she wanted to turn to the next item on her list, finding true love.

David, meanwhile, feared he may have accidentally set fire to Carlotta's diner when he burned Clint's check while sitting at a table. He soon started to have weird feelings and noticed that he couldn't see his reflection in the mirror. Little did he know that, back in 1968, his mother Emma Bradley had just called it off with Asa Buchanan, meaning that David might never be born. Bo, who appeared to be Asa in this alternate universe, couldn't bring himself to sleep with Emma, who resembled Rex's lover Gigi Morasco. But Rex, who appeared to everyone in 1968 as Bo, did sleep with her before he and Bo were returned to the present, leading to the possibility that Bo and not Asa was David's father. David, now able to see his reflection in the mirror again, left town in August 2008, narrowly missing at the airport his ex-wife Tina, who was just returning to Llanview.

David turned up in Llanview in December 2008 as a very different man. After a scary plane ride where he thought he might die, David had converted to Buddhism and was going by the name "David Vickeroshi." David said he had rejected all worldly possessions and had returned to town to make amends for his past actions. He told a stunned Viki and Charlie that Dorian had drugged Charlie and plied him with alcohol the previous summer. He then went to Dorian and apologized for marrying Addie to get back at her for not offering to share her newfound wealth with him when Dorian took over Buchanan Enterprises. Dorian, who had just learned from Alex that David was in fact Asa's son and was entitled to inherit the entire Buchanan fortune, pretended to convert to Buddhism herself to win over David. David was skeptical, even after Dorian signed over her beloved home to her chef Moe Stubbs. But when Dorian opened her heart and proposed to David, he accepted. The two left town, and the Buchanan's began a frantic search to find David so they could tell him the truth about his parentage before Dorian could sink her teeth into him. But the Buchanan's were too late. Dorian and David were married by a Buddhist monk and returned to Llanview, where Dorian revealed her new husband to the Buchanan's and the rest of Llanview during the Go Red Ball in February 2009. David then learned from Asa's attorney, Beaver Calhoun, that he was entitled to the entire fortune per a codicil in Asa's will. David at first was hurt by Dorian's scheme to trick him into marriage, but he quickly embraced his newfound lineage. He and Dorian marched to the Buchanan mansion and announced to a stunned family that he was kicking them out of the house. The Buchanan's left briefly but soon returned after an initial DNA test performed on David revealed that he wasn't related to the Buchanan's at all. Oddly, the test showed that David was Rex Balsom's father, but David knew that couldn't be true because he had never slept with Roxy. A second DNA test revealed the actual, shocking truth: David was Bo's son! Bo realized it was true, since he had a one-time encounter with David's mother Emma Bradley when he was 20 years old, the night before he shipped off to Vietnam. Bo didn't know how to accept the news and rejected David's effort to embrace his newfound father. But David held Bo in high regard, and told Dorian he couldn't go through with their plans to hurt the Buchanan family now that he knew Bo was his father. After a heart-to-heart with Viki, David realized the last time he was truly happy was when he was acting on television. David told Dorian he wanted to return to Hollywood and asked Dorian to go with him. But Dorian said she couldn't leave her family. She and David shared a quick goodbye, and David left to try his luck in Los Angeles.

In early April 2009, Dorian got a call from David, who was excited about a new nationwide television commercial he had just filmed. Dorian was embarrassed when she watched the commercial and learned it was for a hemorrhoid cream called Hav-A-Seat. But when David called back to get her reaction, Dorian feigned delight and encouraged David to come to Llanview so they could celebrate. But David said he was under contract and couldn't leave. After Jack Manning snapped a picture of Dorian and Ray sharing a passionate kiss, Dorian sent the photo to David in the hopes that it would make David jealous enough to either break it off with her or come back to Llanview. But when David called, Dorian laughed off the picture as a joke. Later that month, though, David returned to town and immediately could tell that Dorian and Ray shared an attraction. Dorian and David both agreed that they had grown apart and decided to end their short-lived marriage amicably. After a brief visit to Viki, David headed back to Hollywood to film more Hav-A-Seat commercials.

David returned to Llanview in August 2009, showing up on Dorian's door and trying to convince her to participate in a reality TV show he was filming. But Dorian kicked David and his crew out. David next went to Viki, but she also kicked him to the curb. David then decided to try his luck at the Buchanan mansion, but his father Bo wanted nothing to do with him and Uncle Clint actually fired a shotgun at him. Matthew agreed to stash David and his crew in the stables, however, since David was bankrolling Matthew's attempt to win the right in court to get a surgery that could enable him to walk again. But with the Buchanan family resisting the TV show idea, David's crew eventually quit and David was out of a job. When Dorian decided to run for mayor against Viki, she hired David as her campaign manager but later regretted her decision when Viki took the lead in the polls. When David refused to pretend he was gay to help Dorian win the support of Llanview's liberal voters, Dorian replaced David with lesbian Amelia Bennett, who showed up on Dorian's doorstep looking for a job. David was demoted to Amelia's assistant. When Dorian announced on live TV that she was engaged to be married to Amelia, David lied and confirmed that his recent marriage to Dorian ended because she was a lesbian. After Dorian refused to stop the charade that she was a lesbian, David took off to London with Destiny to help her track down Matthew, who had been enrolled in a school there against his will by his parents to prevent him from undergoing surgery in Seattle. While in London, David spied Bo and Nora kissing but agreed not to say anything to Clint. Later, however, he spilled the beans to butler Nevil and Kevin Buchanan overheard. Kevin confronted David about what was going on, but also agreed not to say anything to his father because it would hurt him. After seeing Dorian tie the knot with Amelia on live TV, David decided to stay behind in London permanently.

In early 2010, David returned to Llanview on the hunt for Robert Ford, his former reality TV producer, who had created his own internet show based on David's life. While trying to track Ford down, David learned that Kimberly Andrews had moved into the Buchanan mansion and confronted her about tricking London butler Neville into telling Clint about Bo and Nora's affair. Kim turned the tables on David by revealing the truth to Clint, who said he was grateful that she made sure he found out about Nora's unfaithfulness when no one else would tell him. David ran into Dorian, who told David that her faux marriage to Amelia was over and asked David to move back in with her and resume their relationship. David said he would have nothing to do with her until she hired back Bo as police commissioner. David finally tracked Ford down and felt vindicated when Ford agreed to share the royalties of the online program with him, only to learn that his cut was 87 cents.

After Kelly Cramer feared she had sent her cousin Adriana off with a killer during a chance encounter in Paris, Kelly called David for help in finding Adriana. The pair tracked down Adriana at a hotel, where it turned out she was engaging in kinky sex with the harmless Frenchman. David showed up in Llanview a month later, just weeks after Clint and Kim had married, and told Kim he wanted her out of the family before she spent everything he hoped to inherit. David then presented Kim with a document containing a secret about Kim's past that was so devastating Kim admitted it would kill Clint if he found out. As David hid within earshot, Kim told Clint she had cheated on him and quickly left town, but not before privately vowing revenge on David.

David returned to Llanview in June 2010, just in time to attend his father Bo's wedding to Nora. When both the priest and rabbi failed to show, David told Bo he could marry them because he had become an ordained minister while in California. During the middle of the ceremony, Clint barged into the church with a shotgun aimed square at David, who Clint had learned was behind Kim leaving town. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and the wedding continued. David helped Viki relax after she admitted being upset over Charlie working with Dorian and offered his services in other more intimate ways, which Viki politely declined. To get under Dorian's skin, Viki hired David to work for her at the Banner as a trend spotter.

The harder Dorian insisted that she was no longer romantically interested in David, the harder David tried to convince himself he was over her too. David was thrown when Viki suddenly came onto him, explaining that she and Charlie were through because Charlie was sleeping with Dorian. But before David could sleep with Viki, Dorian walked in on them and Viki was forced to admit that she and Charlie were only trying to get Dorian and David to realize they belonged together. Dorian and David sparred through their MyFace accounts, each claiming they were seeing other people. When Clint confirmed that he and Dorian were back together, David hired a hooker to pretend to be his girlfriend.

David gave Clint a thumb drive containing all of the information he had dug up on Kim, and in exchange Clint admitted on tape that he didn't love Dorian. Dorian, meanwhile, got a similar confession from David's hooker friend in exchange for jewelry and cash. The two confronted each other in front of Rodi's and admitted their love for each other. They hastily arranged to get married at the country club. But just before the ceremony, David was tackled by a group of men and carried away. He woke up in a prison in Morocco, in the same cell where he had been incarcerated years earlier after trying to blackmail Todd. David was shocked when Clint revealed he had arranged for David to be jailed for forcing Kimberly to leave town. David told Clint that Dorian wouldn't stop until she found him, but Clint said Dorian wouldn't be looking for him at all: He had hired a forger to write a note in David's name, telling Dorian he was leaving town because he couldn't commit to just one woman. Clint even had someone hack into David's MyFace account to make it look like he had already moved on. David, it seemed, would be locked in Morocco for the next 20 years.

In January 2011, prison guards discovered that David was trying to dig his way out of his cell using a stolen spoon and alerted Clint Buchanan. Clint flew to Morocco to dash David's hopes of ever getting out of prison. He had David's sentence extended another four months, erasing David's first four months in prison and effectively restarting his 20-year sentence. David traded an autographed photo of himself starring in Super Model Crime Club to a prison guard in exchange for a phone, which David used to call Dorian. David told Dorian he was in prison but Dorian hung up on him before he could say anything about Clint's scheme. The guard took away the phone before David could make another call. David found a yak bone with his supper and resumed his attempt to dig out of his cell.

Bo and Rex flew to Morocco to find David in March 2011 after Rex revealed to Bo what Clint had done. David was nowhere to be found, but Bo was tipped off by a guard that Alex Olanov knew about his current whereabouts. Bo and Rex flew to St. Blaize's Island, where Rex found David in bed with two Asian beauties. It turned out that Alex had had David tanned and manicured to make it seem like David had been on St. Blaize's for some time and not rotting in a Moroccan jail. When David found out that Rex knew all along where David was, David nearly strangled him before Bo pulled him off. David was incredulous to learn that Rex was Clint's son and his cousin.

David hurried back to Llanview to find Dorian about to make love with young stud Cutter Wentworth. David and Dorian reunited after David explained what had happened, and they agreed to pick up where they left off and get married. Before the ceremony, however, David got a call from his publicist with an offer to star in a movie about his ordeal in the Moroccan jail. David wanted to postpone the wedding until he returned from the shoot, but Dorian insisted they get married at once. With Bo and Viki standing by as witnesses, David and Dorian finally exchanged vows and were pronounced husband and wife.

Dorian and David took over production of the movie after firing the director. They hired Markko Rivera to direct and convinced Langston to move to Los Angeles so she could write the screenplay. Dorian and David briefly left town to oversee production of the movie. When they returned to town, David was in for a shock when the woman who played Dorian in the movie, Ionia Masters, showed up and began throwing herself at David. Ionia insisted that she and David were an item, but David told Dorian that there was nothing going on. When photos began emerging showing David and Ionia in compromising positions, Dorian feared the worse. Dorian opened a package addressed to David and found a gun and a note from Ionia urging David to kill Dorian so they could be together. Dorian pulled the gun on David and ordered him out of the house. When Dorian later went missing, David was sure that Echo had something to do with her disappearance and setting him up. Dorian in fact had been kidnapped by Echo, but she was rescued by her young nephew Sam, much to David's relief.

Dorian and David's big movie premiere turned into a fiasco when porn producer Rick Powers switched out Vicker Man with his own movie, Hold the Diploma, featuring Nate Salinger and Deanna Forbes. David unwittingly helped Bo determine that Nate Salinger was responsible for a severe head injury Matthew had sustained.

In August 2011, David went to meet his agent at Capricorn and ran into Rex Balsom, who mentioned that he was trying to track down a clue from Delphina about a spotted pony. David was startled to hear the phrase and eventually told Rex that there was a Spotted Pony strip club in Anchorage, Kentucky, that David had frequented in the past. Later, David learned that Rex had gone to the club and discovered that Kimberly Andrews was working there. Kim returned to Llanview after hearing that Clint had nearly died from a heart attack and went to see David to convince him to keep quiet about the secret that had forced her out of town the previous year. David, aware that Clint was broke, told Kim that he wouldn't say anything about what had happened at the Spotted Pony. David got offered another movie role -- this time in Sweden -- and told Dorian the good news, only to learn that Dorian had just been tapped to serve as the U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. Dorian decided to go ahead and move to Washington and told David to join her there once his movie was done filming.

David briefly returned to Llanview once filming was complete on his latest movie, "The Boy with the Chipmunk Tattoo," and was ashamed when his movie bombed at the box office. David rebuffed Roxy's request for his help in saving her favorite soap opera, Fraternity Row, which had been cancelled. But he later consoled her after Roxy learned the final scenes had been filmed. David confided in Matthew that he had gotten a girl pregnant while he was in high school and had regretted turning his back on the girl. David chided Matthew for wanting nothing to do with Destiny, who was about to give birth to their son. David urged Matthew to step up and support Destiny. In the end, Matthew raced to Destiny's side just before she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Bo thanked David for getting through to Matthew and said he was never more proud of his sons than he was in that moment.

Despite David's words, Matthew did not follow through on fatherhood. David continued to be there for his younger brother but spent most of his time filming a reality show about his life. He tried to involve Bo in his show as much as possible and repeatedly tried to stage family moments for the camera but Bo refused to participate. Dorian also initially refused until she was forced to resign from her position as a U.S. senator. David also found screen time for his new friend, Shelter nightclub server Rama Patel.

David and Dorian drifted apart as David pursued his reality show, "The Life and Times of Vickerman" and Dorian followed interests of her own. While Dorian was engaged in other quests, David spent more time with Rama and they shared a kiss. Dorian witnessed the kiss, which led to a separation between David and Dorian and plans to divorce. Meanwhile, a producer approached David with plans for a new show, "Anatomy of a Divorce." David agreed to star in the reality show which would film the breakdown of his marriage.