Time, She Will Be Your Living End (David Bowie Fanfiction)

Cold Fire

I was running. My feet in the platform shoes thundered across the floorboards of the hallway, creaking on every odd one. Either David or Angie were bound to have seen me peering in, watching them. I can't get that image out of my head: them kissing with passion and fire. I shouldn't be jealous, they're engaged! But I can't help it. From down the hallway I heard the door to the room they were in open, and footsteps followed. I quickened my pace and made it to near the top of the staircase. A scattering of guests came in to view and I brushed past two or three. "Hey! Watch it!" One girl with fishnets and a heavy layer of makeup screeched when I ran into her.

I had to slow down when running down the stairs, I'm not really used to wearing heavy, platform shoes just yet. Bad mistake. Although slowing down would stop me from falling head over heels, rolling down the stairs and looking like a right plonker it disadvantaged me in the sense that David was actually quite fast and was catching up with me. This feels so stupid, it's like a bloody film!

"Annie! Wait!" David was soon making his way up next to me, he could have grabbed my scarf or jacket, but didn't. I have to do something to get away, although it would probably be pointless at this rate. I jumped a few steps which was difficult as other guests swarmed like flies around the entrance and others were just coming in. Despite that I had just made it through the door and on the outdoor decking with a few steps to go down. "Annie, stop!"

There's no use. I stopped as David gently managed to hold on to my right elbow. I needed a minute to get my breath back. I find running already difficult enough, but in a huge house with hallways, a large staircase, people posing as obstacles and wearing a pair of platforms? That is by far worse. I was bent over with my hands on my knees, trying to get back both my breath and sanity before saying anything. I could feel David watching me.

"What the hell was that?" He said loudly (not shouting), he too was trying to get his breath back. I couldn't bring myself to look at him in the eyes. He's probably disappointed in me. "I s- I..." My words were tumbling over each other, I could barely string a sentence together. My eyes quickly gazed up at his face. I was right. There was nothing happy or light, just sunken eyes and lips that could barely curl up into a smile.

"I know it was you outside the room, Annie." I hung my head in shame. It felt like being told off by a parent for doing nothing wrong, almost. "And I'm assuming you heard everything we said too. And saw almost everything?" I nodded, still unable to look at him.

"David, I only want to know one thing, just one." I said with my index finger pointed toward the sky. "The song you and Marc did for my birthday. Did you really write it for me, or...?"

"Of course I wrote it for you. Who else would I write it for?" The tension was ever so slowly increasing. "I just thought-" I needed to make something up to hint at the fact that in what was real life, he wrote it to propose to Angie. Bingo! "Someone said something about you proposing to Angie with a song, like the one you sang to me, and I-"

"No. I just proposed down the phone to her, talking might I add. I never wrote a song." There was so much going on in his eyes and on his face. It was a saddening mixture of confusion, disappointment and misery. I always thought that he would be a hard person to read, but now that I'm actually here, standing a metre away from him, I can read him like a book. "Please don't think that I did and pretended that it was for you."

I took a few steps towards him and gently squeezed his hand, and with my other hand I held his arm. "I'm sorry." My hand rubbed his arm. "It's just, what I saw with you and Angie. I'm just so confused at the moment, I feel like I've fallen down to another planet." Well truthfully I might have, because wherever I am now it certainly doesn't feel like home.

I tried to stop tears from forming in my eyes. "I'm so confused, David." I stepped away from him and we both stood facing each other, motionless. That was soon broken. "You're engaged! You can't just write me a song. You're marrying that woman in there who is clearly just as upset as me!" All at once the confusion and frustration that was building up inside of me unleashed itself in an unpleasant manner. I pointed at the house and I could just feel the angered expression on my face. "The song just seemed to suggest something, and I thought you were trying to suggest that you maybe feel something for me? And it's just confusing me!" The words coming out of my mouth were not what I was expecting either. Defending Angie and feeling sorry for her certainly wasn't. For a moment I had forgotten about what their relationship was really all about. Not that David knew that I know almost everything that every fan of his has to know about him.