December 6th, 1894 - Christmas Tree Event

Annie was so charmed by this little event that she'd been practically skipping around the trees for nearly an hour. Everything was so delightful that she'd had a smile on her face the entire time.

She hardly wanted to go home, so had picked up a cocoa first, enjoying it by the fires so that she could warm up a little. She wasn't sure what to do next, go make a wreath or keep wandering or see if she could find the fairies everyone said were lurking around. Annie had been keeping an eye out for the supposed enchanted mistletoe as well, but she wasn't sure if it was to avoid it or purposefully get herself stuck. It wouldn't be so bad to try and enchant a gentleman into a friendly kiss. It would be romantic.

With her cocoa in hand, Annie hovered by the fire, enjoying the warmth, taking in the scent of the pine trees around her, mingling with the chocolate in her hands. Sighing contentedly, she looked around again, over toward the little booth where she would go next to make a wreath. There hadn't been anyone around when she'd come over and so she backed up to one of the chairs by the fire, and managed to accidentally sit on someone instead!

Annie squeaked in surprise and jumped up, sloshing hot cocoa on her hands. "Oh, ouch! I'm sorry! Ouch!" She alternated between the apology and the pain, diving to put her hands in the closest pile of snow.

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Open to anyone, hurling preferable! MCAB 28+, but I'll take anything!

  

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Nick had come here less because he was enthused about the festive season, and more because he had nothing else to do. As Christmas neared, it felt like everyone around him was withdrawing from the world, because they suddenly had better things to do – like spend time with their loved ones in their warm, inviting, happy homes.

Nick had – a rather glum day spent at his father’s house, just the two of them, to look forward to as the utmost peak of the season. So forgive him for not feeling the joy here. He had considered making a wreath to brighten up his Bartonburg place, but that was frankly too much effort, so instead he had come over to nurse his (one, free) hot chocolate moodily by the bonfire.

And apparently he might as well be wearing an invisibility cloak, because no sooner than he had gotten comfortable on his chair, a woman had just tried to sit on him. “Aargh! Blast,” Nick yelped out, half in shock at the sudden contact and half because she was squeaking like mad as she sprang back up. He might have thought her foolish for spilling her cocoa on herself, but she had managed to knock his hands in the process, too – only Nick thought he’d gotten the worst of it, because the steaming hot chocolate had spilled over onto his lap, seeping in around his groin. Fucking, he mouthed, trying to bite back the swearing as he hopped off the chair and tried to decide how best to stifle the burning sensation in his trousers, a little too dazed by the pain to notice her agony. “– Merlin!”

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Too busy with her own burns to notice what havoc she'd wrought, Annie was near tears. She hadn't done something this dumb in a while. How could she have missed someone sitting in the chair she'd been about to take? She foretold the weather for crying out loud! Fortunately the snow was cooling and she managed to get the sting to a dull ache, holding fistfuls of snow to keep the cooling sensation going, she turned back to see what she'd done.

"Oh my! I'm s-so-sorry!" All she could really see was where the cocoa had seeped into the man's trousers and then she realized where she was looking and then she blushed even redder than her hands. Oh what an absolute disaster! "Here!" She offered, holding out the snow in her hands as the only thing she could think of. She had already made a big enough mess; she wasn't about to shove her hands back in it!

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Nick was trying to glance at the damage she had wreaked on herself, because the woman seemed just as uncomfortable as he was, but the sensation was enough that he found himself still almost hopping from foot to foot to bear it.

“Was an – accident,” Nick bit out, with a pained shake of the head, just to assure the woman he knew she hadn’t meant it (only she was blind enough not to have bothered to notice him in the chair, which did not say all that much in her defence, either). Her attempt to help was awkward at best – she was holding out clumps of snow to him – and since Nick (presently dumbfounded by the pain) could hardly let her apply the cold balm to him, he... just as awkwardly fisted up some of the offered snow and pressed it to his nethers.

Said snow had already been in her hands, so it was a little more like slush by the time he had it to his groin. So, to get some more and also to give him an excuse to turn his body slightly away for his own dignity, Nick crouched down by some fresh snow, gathering it up to use while he glanced over his shoulder to check on her. “How, er, are your hands?”

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Annie was relieved for a moment when he turned away, the tears stinging her eyes were visible, caused both by the pain and the embarrassment. She picked up another fistful of snow, holding it along the tops of her hands and her forearm. Her gloves had done nothing to prevent the mess from reaching her skin and she'd peeled them off in a hurry, sad and wet down in the snow near where the rest of the hot cocoa stained the snow.

At his question, she looked at her hands after wiping away some of the snow. They were red and blistering already. The cocoa had been hotter than she imagined and now she felt even worse for spilling on him in such a... delicate area. (Annie had four brothers, she was probably a little too well-versed in this area thanks to their adolescent jokes.) "They're blistering," and painful. The snow was helping, so she scooped up more. Hopefully it would numb the pain if she could get them to stop shaking long enough for the snow to stay on.

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He would have pulled a concerned face at her answer about her hands blistering, but unfortunately the face he was already pulling was about as concerned as he could be.

Mostly still for himself, but still – “I could – send for a mediwitch, or try a cooling charm?” Nick suggested quickly, his thoughts a little scattered still from the flares of pain from the heat of the cocoa. She had gotten off the gloves, but he daren’t take off his trousers, so if there was any blistering on his part (parts), he preferred to be in denial of it. “You’ll be alright,” he bit out – but the comfort and consolation simply had to wait. “I just need to –” Patting himself down with handfuls of snow had not been enough: Nick threw himself bodily onto the snow, in some kind of ungainly faceplant. He was sure he looked deranged, but he groaned aloud from the relieving sensation of just lying here, face down.

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Annie had the good graces not to laugh when the gentleman flopped down in the snow; this was her fault anyway, even if his approach was unconventional, it must have been soothing. The snow in her own hands was helping immensely and she bent down to pack more on, laying them onto the snowbank hoping to stop the blistering and numb the pain.

They would indeed need to head to the hospital or summon a mediwitch. Well, he would certainly need to head to the hospital and she might suffice with treatment here. There didn't seem to be anyone else around at the moment however, and Annie was torn between being relieved and distraught by that. "I think that's a good idea," she finally managed, meaning the medical help. This was already embarrassing enough, she didn't need to stick around for more.

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It was a good idea, and a sensible one – Nick only ever had good ideas, so this was no surprise – but he did not make any move to summon the medical help he had suggested.

Because lying in the snow had given him a new vantage point beyond their little clearing with the bonfire, through the underbrush of a row of Christmas trees, and a little ways down the aisles, he had spotted a face he did not want to see. Two faces, for that matter. (Why the hell was Ned talking to Victory King?)

“No!” He exclaimed roughly, abruptly reaching out for her arm to keep the woman down in the small snowdrifts with him. Getting help would mean getting up, and drawing attention to themselves – and Nick was not prepared to have either Ned or King witness him here, like this. “You’re right,” he said nonsensically. “We should – stay like this for a while.”

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The gentleman's protest startled her a little bit and Annie stayed resolutely put in her spot in the snow. The cold felt good on her hands, but she knew the longer they dawdled, the potential for things to get worse got higher. "I can go by myself, if you need to remain here?" It was her fault after all. She ought to shoulder the responsibility for causing this whole disaster. She really was just a walking disaster.

Dithering on what to do, she sunk further into the snow, feeling the cold seeping into her skin and wondering if she was doing more harm than good. No, cold was good for a burn, surely it would be alright. Gingerly she pulled her hands from the snow to survey the damage, it was mostly the back of her hands, nothing on the palms thankfully, but the skin was red and blotchy and there were little blisters forming in some spots. Merlin she hoped she hadn't done the same damage to the gentleman in such a... delicate area.

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He was now almost more focused on the familiar faces across the way, the horror of which might even be distracting from the painful sensation in his trousers. Although – the sight of Miss Cocoa Spill’s increasingly blotchy and blistering hands out of the corner of his eye did worry him enough to drag his attention back to the conversation at hand.

“Fine, you’re right,” Nick agreed in a harried tone, although really medical help had been his suggestion, “let’s go. Just – quickly,” he hissed, pressing onto all fours and springing back up from the snow. He chivved her along too, motioning with his hands to say get us out of here.

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Relieved that he finally agreed, Annie decided to pointedly keep her gaze of his face and not look at the damaged she'd caused. Hopefully it would be alright. At his insistence, she started to move along the path, back the way she'd come, toward the front entrance. Would leaving without her chaperone get her in too much trouble? Surely this constituted enough of an emergency where it wouldn't be too much, right? Right.

"Do you think there is someone here, or should we go to the hospital?" Without the cold of the snow, Annie's hands felt as though they were on fire, the tight skin painful and raw. She could feel the sting of tears in her eyes both from the discomfort and the embarrassment and she tried to blink them back. She hoped it was not this bad for him! What a mess she'd made.

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She was at least heading in the right direction – Nick hurried along with her, with a restless hopping-almost-jogging pace. He glanced about – there was a chance there was a mediwizard or witch already on call, or who happened to be visiting, but he didn’t particularly want to draw any undue attention to their situation by asking someone.

“Hospital,” he decided, sizing her up to see how much pain she was in, and whether she had any calm left. “Can you apparate?” He asked, although as he said it he felt a little cruel: this may be her fault, but he may as well side-along apparate her, rather than let her fend for herself. She’d probably splinch herself on the way. (Nick thought; although no one would have ever called him particularly accomplished or precise at apparition, either.) Still, he grasped – well, not her red-raw hands, but her upper arms, and thought of St. Mungo’s.

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Apparating felt like a stretch right now, could she even hold her wand? Surely not. Fortunately she was saved from answering and attempting as she looked up just in time to feel the uncomfortable squeeze before they landed in St. Mungo's.

Everything was painful and awkward, holding her hands aloft uselessly, the feeling on her skin getting worse. This was beyond embarrassing and she was near tears again. It didn't take long for healers to step in and whisk them off in separate directions. Annie should have said something, apologized again, thanked him for getting them here, but she was too distraught to think it through. Right now all she wanted was her hands fixed and to go home and to crawl under the covers. Hopefully it would happen soon.

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