ꜱᴀᴛᴜʀᴀᴛᴇ
david powers (the lost boys) x reader
mix of movie version and broadway musical
warnings: blood/mild gore (mentioned/implied)
word count: 2.8k
synopsis: david is supposed to belong to the night, but at two in the morning, he's taking up all the space in your apartment.
You got home shortly after one in the morning and nearly tripped over David’s boot.
It sat directly inside the front door, wet from the rain and abandoned on its side. The other had made it several feet farther into the apartment before meeting a similar fate beside the couch, where his leather jacket now hung across the back cushion.
You stood there for a moment, keys still in hand. David had a key. Technically. You had never given him one, but that distinction had stopped mattering several weeks ago. At least there wasn’t blood on the carpet this time.
You locked the door behind you and dropped your bag onto the kitchen table.
“David?”
No answer. Water shifted somewhere down the hall.
You followed the trail of clothing toward the bathroom. A studded glove sat on the kitchen counter. His shirt was outside the bathroom door, half-soaked and stained crimson around the collar, one of the sleeves torn completely off.
“...David?”
“I heard you the first time.” His voice came from behind the door. You pushed it open.
David was in your bathtub.
For several seconds, neither of you said anything. The bathroom mirror had completely fogged over. Steam crowded the small room, and nearly every inch of the bath had disappeared beneath an unreasonable amount of white foam. The bottle of lavender bubble bath you had bought two days ago floated empty beside his arm.
You crossed your arms, staring down at him.
David leaned his head back against the porcelain. “Relax, sweetheart. It’s not holy water.”
“You used all of it,” you stated, pointing at the bottle.
David glanced toward the plastic bottle as though he had no idea how it had gotten there. “There wasn’t much left.”
“It was brand new!”
“Then you bought a very small bottle.”
“It cost twelve dollars.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You paid twelve dollars for soap?”
“It’s not soap.”
“It made bubbles.”
“That doesn’t make it soap.”
David considered this before sinking lower into the water. “You got ripped off.”
You stared at him. He smiled—that sharp, effortless smirk that meant he’d won. His hair had been pushed back from his face, though several wet strands had already fallen loose again. A thick line of blood ran from behind his ear and disappeared beneath the bubbles.
“Whose is that?” you asked.
The smile remained. “Hello to you, too.”
“David.”
“It’s not mine.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“I know.”
You stepped inside, picking his shirt up from the ground before shutting the door. The steam immediately pressed against your skin.
You held up the shirt; the fabric was ruined, the sleeve torn nearly in half. “What happened?”
“Somebody grabbed me.”
“So you tore your own sleeve off?”
“He grabbed the jacket, I gave him some of the shirt.” David shrugged, a few bubbles sliding down his pale shoulder. “He wanted a piece of me. I let him have one.”
“Did he survive taking it?”
David’s eyes drifted toward the ceiling, unbothered, as if the question was beneath him. His smile came slow. “Look at you,” he dropped his voice, dragging the moment out, “so many questions for someone who hasn’t earned the answers.“
You dropped the shirt beside the sink, lifting a hand to rub your temple. “Great.”
“He was alive when I left,” David offered. “Mostly.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
“You broke in here covered in blood.”
“I didn’t break in. You should stop leaving your key in obvious places.”
“It was under my mattress.”
“Exactly,” he scoffed, his smile widening as he looked back at you. “And besides, it’s only blood. It washes out. See?” He gestured to the faint pink tint in the water. “Good as new.”
You walked over and sat on the porcelain edge of the tub, your hip only a few inches from his shoulder. The sight of David surrounded by lavender bubbles was still difficult to process. Most nights, he came straight from the boardwalk in leather and stage makeup, carrying himself like the crowd had followed him all the way home. Tonight, he smelled like a luxury spa and looked almost harmless.
Almost.
“You had a show tonight,” you began.
“We have a show every night.”
“How did it go?”
“Fine.” The answer came too fast.
You looked at the torn shirt again. “Looks like it.”
“The shirt had nothing to do with the show.”
“So something happened afterward.”
He dragged one hand through the water, sending bubbles sliding up the side of the tub. You waited. Silence usually annoyed him enough to start talking on his own. Tonight was no different.
“Max thinks I’m wasting my time,” David eventually muttered, his eyes landing on your face before tracking down your neck. “The band. Michael. All of it.”
“And what does Max want you to do instead?”
“What he always wants.” David looked up, his gaze heavy and dark. “Do you really want to spend your night talking about Max, baby?”
You rolled your eyes, though his words still managed to catch you off guard, a sudden spike of heat tracing down your spine.
“No,” you said.
“Good.”
You shook your head, leaning forward to dip two fingers into the water near his shoulder.
The heat made you jerk your hand back immediately.
“Holy shit, David!” you hissed. You shook out your fingers, staring at the bath in disbelief. The skin across your knuckles had already started turning red.
“How are you sitting in that? It’s practically boiling.”
David glanced down at the water.
“It’s fine.”
“It is absolutely not fine.”
Before you could move away, David’s wet, bare hand shot out of the water. His fingers wrapped around your thigh, pinning you to the edge of the tub.
You gasped. The contrast was a violent shock—the water on his skin was near boiling, but his actual hand, his flesh, was freezing cold against your bare leg. It felt like dry ice pressing into your skin.
His gaze dropped to watch your skin flush under his touch. “You’re dramatic,” he murmured, drawing a slow line up your thigh. “Get in.”
The invitation sounded much more like an order.
“I’m not getting into a boiling bath,” you said, your voice a little breathier than you wanted it to be. You reached down, twisting the faucet to take the edge off. David watched the water level rise slightly before you turned it off. “Turn around so I can change.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I’m changing.”
“I know.”
“Turn around.”
Reluctantly, David listened, releasing your leg and presenting you with his back. You stripped quickly, leaving your clothes in a pile on the counter before stepping over the edge into the mountain of foam.
But the second your foot broke the surface, you stopped dead.
“What the hell?”
David frowned, looking back over his shoulder. “What?”
The water wasn't hot anymore. In the short time his hand had been on your thigh, David’s icy, unliving mass had completely leached the heat out of the water. It was freezing.
“David! You refrigerated the entire bath!”
David’s eyes narrowed as he turned back around. “Don’t.”
“You’ve been sitting here so long you turned it into an ice box!”
“You don’t have to get in,” he murmured, the corners of his mouth twitching as his eyes tracked the line of your collarbone. “But I know you’re going to.”
You ignored his comment and put your foot in again before you could change your mind, shivering as you lowered yourself into the opposite end of the tub. The tub was small; your foot pressed against his thigh while his knee rested beside your hip. His skin felt colder than the water.
"You can't stay away from me," he teased, and you felt the words more than heard them, low against your ear. Angered by his smug expression, you gathered a handful of bubbles and threw them directly at his face. They landed across his cheek and nose.
David slowly blinked. The teasing dropped out of his face entirely.
“Come here.”
“I think I’m fine.”
“You have three seconds.”
You went to throw another handful, but David caught your ankle beneath the water. With a sudden, powerful jerk, he pulled you forward. A wave of water crashed over the side of the tub. You shrieked, sliding across the slick porcelain until you collided hard against his chest.
David’s hand moved from your ankle to your wrist, pinning it against the edge of the tub. His other hand came up to cup the back of your neck, his fingers tangling in your hair. His thumb rested directly over your racing pulse; the steady, frantic beat thudded against his cold palm.
“You’re shivering,” he murmured, his face inches from yours.
“Because you stole all the heat,” you whispered, your pulse jumping hard enough that you were sure he could feel it under his palm.
“Let me give some back.”
David leaned in, his lips brushing against yours first—a freezing contrast to the warmth of your skin. You gasped at the cold shock of it, and he used the moment to deepen the kiss. He released your wrist, his hand sliding down to grip your waist and pull you completely into his lap, his solid chest pressing unyieldingly against yours. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer as he bit your lower lip just enough to make you sigh into his mouth. The kiss grew slower, heavier, melting the chill between you until your skin tingled. He tasted of rainwater and the sharp, copper sting of iron—faint, but unmistakable beneath the sweet mask of the lavender.
When he finally pulled back, his breaths were shallow. A faint, unnatural flush of life had actually risen to his cheeks from the sheer heat of your skin. He returned his grip to your wrist, thumb tracing your pulse point again.
It was then that the pieces finally clicked in your head: the scalding hot water, the bath over the ocean. Why he had stayed here instead of choosing to bring you back to the cave.
“You were trying to warm yourself up,” you whispered gently, “before I got home. That’s why the water was so hot.”
His thumb paused against your wrist. “I was covered in blood.”
“You could’ve cleaned off anywhere.”
“I wanted a bath.”
“You don’t take baths.”
David released your waist, deflating just enough that you knew you'd hit the mark. “You complain when I’m cold.”
You blinked, your brows pulling together. “I do not.”
“You move away.” David leaned back against the tub, looking somewhere over your shoulder.
You thought about the mornings you woke up on the opposite side of the bed. It happened almost every time he stayed over: you always fell asleep close to him, but sometime during the night, your body would subconsciously drift toward the warmer side of the mattress. David had never said anything. Apparently, he had still noticed.
“You took a bath so I wouldn’t push you away.”
He didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice had gone flat. "I took a bath because I had blood in my hair."
“You used lavender bubble bath to make yourself warm enough to cuddle.”
David’s eyes snapped back to yours. “Choose your next words carefully, angel.”
You reached up, brushing a wet strand of hair away from his face. “I love that you wanted me close.” Before he could respond, you leaned forward to press a soft, lingering kiss to his jawline, right over the faint trace of dried blood. “Turn around. Let me wash your hair before we both freeze to death.”
David hesitated, then sighed, shifting so his back faced you again. You picked up the plastic cup by the faucet, filling it with water and pouring it carefully over his head. The first stream ran pink down his neck.
“Was it Max?” you asked, working your fingers through the damp strands.
“No.”
“...But you argued with him?”
You worked through another section of hair. For a while, David said nothing. Then he sighed.
“He thinks I’m taking too long with Michael. That the band’s making me careless.” David’s mouth tightened. “He thinks the boys need discipline.”
“He likes that word.”
David glanced over his shoulder. “Exactly. And he’s…fixated on you.”
Your fingers stilled in his hair for a fraction of a second. “Fixated how?”
David went quiet for a second too long. “He’s been watching us. He likes how you take care of things. He thinks you're soft…loving.” David let out a low, rough hiss of a laugh, though there was zero humor in it. “He thinks a savage house like ours needs a heart. He told me you’d make the perfect baby of the family, once we fix that pulse of yours.”
The baby of the family.
The words hung heavily in the steam, and your arms prickled with goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold bathwater. You had met Max at the video store months ago. He had approached you with a warm smile and introduced himself as David’s adoptive father, sounding more like an exhausted suburban parent than anything remotely dangerous. According to him, David was a good kid going through a rebellious phase. The cave, the band, the leather—none of it was supposed to last forever.
After that came the dinners.
Max always insisted on hosting. He remembered things you mentioned once, bought you gifts you never asked for, and asked about your future as though he expected to be part of it. Sometimes, one of the boys would appear outside your work or follow you home and claim they had simply been nearby. Max called it looking out for you.
He had never had a daughter before.
Apparently, he liked the idea.
You worked the last of the blood from David's hair. "And what do you think?" you asked, voice soft.
David’s shoulders tensed beneath your hands. “I think he needs to stay out of it.” He glanced back at you, voice dropping. “He doesn’t get to decide what happens to you.”
You poured another cup of water, rinsing the last of the blood away until the water ran completely clear, and pulled the plug. “You could’ve called,” you said.
“And said what?”
“That you didn’t want to go back to the cave.”
“I can go wherever I want.”
“You know what I mean. The boys would’ve asked questions.”
“They know better.”
“They still would’ve noticed.”
He turned enough to glance at you over his shoulder. “And you didn’t?”
“I always notice.”
Your fingers remained against his shoulder, tracing absentmindedly over the cold skin at the base of his neck. David’s head tipped back against the edge of the tub. His attention dropped toward your hand.
“Good,” he mumbled. His hand closed around your wrist before you could pull away. “Let me know when you’re done playing with the soap.” His thumb moved once against your pulse. “Then we can do this properly.”
You didn’t really know what to say to that. David turned back around before you could figure it out.
By the time you finally drained the tub, the water had become unbearable. You climbed out first and wrapped yourself in a towel. David stayed where he was until most of the water had disappeared, staring down as the last of the bubbles circled the drain. His plan had failed completely. Any warmth the bath had given him was already gone.
You dried off and changed in the bedroom, eventually convincing him to finally get up and track down a spare pair of black pants he’d left behind weeks ago.
When you climbed into bed, David was still standing beside the window, watching the rain run down the glass.
“Aren’t you coming?”
He looked back. “I don't want to freeze you out of your own bed.”
You lifted the heavy comforter in response. The mattress dipped as he slid in beside you. Neither of you said anything. But as sleep finally began to pull at you, you didn't drift away to the warm side of the mattress.
Instead, you reached across the gap, caught his cold wrist, and pulled his arm around your waist. You backed up until your spine was pressed against his chest, absorbing the chill of him without a second thought.
David went completely still. Then, his arm tightened around you, pulling you securely against him. His mouth brushed the warm skin at the back of your neck.
“Go to sleep, baby,” he whispered.
When you woke the next morning, David was gone.
His clothing had disappeared from the bathroom floor. The water had been cleaned up, though one of your towels was missing. So was your spare key.
None of that surprised you. The brand-new, twelve-dollar bottle of bubble bath sitting on the bathroom counter did.
Vanilla.
A small piece of paper was tucked underneath it. In messy, jagged handwriting, it read:
Lavender was terrible.
You turned it over. A second line had been written on the back.
Keep the water hot tonight.
a/n: apologies for the delay friends! honestly, i've been super drained recently and haven't felt like i've been producing my best work, so i wanted to wait until i was satisfied with at least this to share with you all. i have a couple of other fics in the works, but honestly, i've just been super overwhelmed recently. i decided to step away from my inbox for this one, to right something just for me. and what's more self-indulgent than a david fic, a bubble bath, and a steamy makeout scene? (get it, steamy? because it's steamy? ok im going to shut up now) thanks for reading, feel free to send in a request! there is no human way for me to directly write every single one, but i do read them all for inspiration. i love hearing ideas! spit them out! p.s. if there's any stranger things fans that made it this far....send in some billy requests!