Written for Hogwarts' February Meet Cute Marathon: I was watching that hot jogger while driving out of the neighbourhood but got distracted and crashed but i just woke up in a hospital room and said hot jogger is at my bedside because apparently they're the one who called the ambulance, Serpent Day: Boomslang - (word) wild, the 365 Prompts Challenge: Event - First Meet, the Insane House Challenge: Scenario - I was watching that hot jogger while driving out of the neighborhood but got distracted and crashed but i just woke up in a hospital room and said hot jogger is at my bedside because apparently they're the one who called the ambulance, the Writing Club - Showtime: I'm Not that Girl (reprise) - (word) wishing, Count Your Buttons: (word) dare, White Shirt Day - Write a fic featuring two Order members or more, Lyric Alley - And I'm on the ground, Restriction of the Month: Write a story wihout using any of the Hogwarts houses, (setting) Hogwarts, the Transfiguration Assignment: Write about a character developping a phobia.

Word count: 760

you knock me down (I fall apart)

Edgar comes back to himself slowly. Everything aches and the air smells softly of that antiseptic smell he's come to associate with the Hospital Wing.

Not that he's been there a lot, but this smell is so distinctive he'd recognize it anywhere.

His head pounds painfully as he tries to remember how he ended up here, and he doesn't dare open his eyes just yet — he knows how white everything is, and his head is already hurting enough as it is. He has no wishes to inflinct more pain on himself, now or ever.

He was flying, he remembers. He's never been very good at it, but steady practice since his first year has seen him improve. He'll never be a Quidditch player, but at least he won't fall off (now that had been an embarrassing first lesson).

He was flying, and he wasn't alone.

His eyes fly open, blindingly bright white walls be damned.

"Oh thank Merlin, you're okay! Mrs. Pomfrey, he's awake!"

Edgar turns his head slowly — very slowly — toward the speaker, heart pounding in his chest as he tries to convince himself that the one speaking isn't the one he thinks it is.

But it is.

Merlin, Edgar wishes he could melt into his mattress and never come out again. He can already feel his cheeks burning.

"Hi," he manages to croak out. The boy — even more gorgeous from up close than he'd been on his broom — smiles back at him. It is even more blinding than the room, and Edgar's poor heart skips a beat.

The boy has freckles. Edgar is doomed. Doomed.

It is, thankfully, all he manages to say before the nurse gets there.

"You've got a great friend in Mr. Prewett here, Mr. Bones," she tells him once she's told him his diagnostic — a couple broken bones that she's fixed already, and a concussion that she gives him a truly nasty potion for. "He carried you over here all by himself.

"We're not friends," Edgar blurts out at the same as the boy — Prewett — replies in a high-pitched tone, "I didn't carry him, I used a spell!"

Mrs. Pomfrey smiles at them knowingly. "You have a good boyfriend, then," she tells Edgar, before departing with one last nod.

Edgar makes a strangled noise. His cheeks have never been this red before, he's sure of it.

Somehow, he manages to make himself look at his rescuer.

"Well, thanks, I guess."

"You guess?" the boy replies, drawing up in mock offense. Chocolate brown eyes sparkle with mirth, and Edgar's stomach flops. "I saved your pretty little ass back there."

"Well I wouldn't have needed saving if you hadn't —" Edgar bites his tongue so hard he draws blood, flushing as he swallows back his next words.

"If I hadn't what?" Prewett's face only reads open curiosity, but Edgar doesn't trust it. He has a feeling this boy could make anyone believe anything if he wanted to.

If you hadn't distracted me with your everything, Edgar doesn't say. Instead, he merely mumbles an embarrassed "Nothing," wishing that can be the end of it.

It's not.

Prewett's eyes blaze with a wild fire that spreads a shiver down Edgar's back.

"I'm Fabian," he says.

"Edgar." It only seems fair to reply with his own name, after all.

Fabian only nods like everything makes sense. "Well, Edgar," he says, purring his name like a cat, "Since apparently we'd make a good couple, what do you say we give it a try?"

"You mean like go on a date?"

"Mmh-mmh," Fabian replies, nodding in agreement. "So, what do you say?"

It's too good to be true. "I — Yes. Yes, of course."

Fabian grins. "Perfect! You won't regret it. Any request for our date?"

At first, Edgar thinks about letting Fabian have free reign for the planning, since he asked, but something tells him that wouldn't be a good idea.

Also, a part of him still remembers the fall — this feeling of weightlessness, of flying untethered through the air, of being so sure he would die when he hit the ground — and dread pools in his stomach.

"No flying, please," he says, felling like he's chocking.

Fabian's grin eases into something gentler. "Sure — no flying. We can do that."

"Thank you," Edgar breathes out. Just the thought of seeing a broom makes him shiver, he can't imagine how he'd deal with having to fly one.

Fabian winks, cheerful again. "Anything for you, Edgar. Anything."