#suffice to say i will be queuing this & then taking a day-long break from my hobbies

[hilllsnholland]

Something There

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Wc: 2.2k

Warnings: none? Lots of fluff 

Summary: You and Tom were just friends. Strictly platonic. Until there was something there that wasn’t there before. 

A/N: Yeah...this is what happens after watching Beauty and the Beast and Gossip Girl. So enjoy. I might make a Disney series if this does well. 

The smell of coffee was inescapable. You had three carriers of mixed lattes and mochas in your arms, trying to be very careful to not trip and fall on your face in front of very important people. When you decided to join the film industry, you never thought it would include this much driving around for pompous assholes and getting their dry cleaning. But you were content with your pay and the people you met on set. Today you were working on an unnamed Marvel film, which was exciting because you were a big fan of the franchise, but being Marvel you were told nothing. Not who was going to be on set, not what scenes were being filmed, nothing. You were going in blind. 

   Literally. You could not see where you were going as you focused on not spilling drinks everywhere. You had to make it to one of the other PA’s to hand over the drinks, which on paper was easy but now that you had to watch out for wires on the ground and people walking past you, it was not an easy task. You were doing fine until your foot caught on a thick cord, taking away your balance and causing everything to go into slow motion. For a brief second, you thought you were going to the laughing stock of the whole production. You tried to regain balance and catch the coffees but your body went stiff. Suddenly, it all stopped. You were pulled up front and another arm grabbed the coffees that were teetering over. You sighed in relief and turned to your savior. 

“Hey, you alright there?” Your eyes locked onto Tom Holland’s. 

“Now I am. Thanks for that.” You say with a blush creeping to your face. “If I dropped those it would have come out of paycheck for sure.” 

   Tom laughed and grabbed two of the carriers from your hand and smiled at you. You had always heard about him being a gentleman from interviews or memes online, but you couldn’t believe. No person could go through becoming a celebrity and not have an ego the size of a house. But there he was, helping you carry coffee carriers like a hero he was. 

“Thanks, you don’t have to though. I’m sure you have plenty of other things to do.” You say sheepishly. 

“No, I’ve got time. I’m Tom by the way,” He stops for a second and laughs. “You probably knew that. Sorry, I’m an idiot.” 

“You’re fine. I’m Y/N. It’s nice to meet you.” 

   That is where your friendship began. You and Tom would talk almost every day at work. You were hired to be a long term assistant on the project and the two of you became really close because of it. It started off with small talk on breaks then going out to lunch when you had a chance, and then finally a constant schedule of going out together or with other friends. You two were as close as friends could be, and maybe that’s why everyone teases you about each other. 

“Your boyfriend’s looking for you,” Harrison said as he walked past you on the set. You scoffed and kept walking. 

“Not my boyfriend!” 

   You only saw him as a friend. You two were just close because you had similar interests and you got along great. There was no reason why they would think there would be anything more than that between the two of you. The two of you spent the most time together because you had the time too, not because of anything infatuation. You were beginning to think your friends were crazy, there was nothing there. No way. 

   You went looking for him though because Harrison made it seem that Tom needed you quickly. You went to his trailer, knocking on the door and waiting for him. You could hear him inside fumbling around and he said something you could not quite understand. Soon though, he opened the door and instantly started rambling about something. 

“Y/N! Thank god you’re here. I need your help…” 

   You followed Tom into the trailer to listen to his question but your mind was clouded. There he was, standing in only his boxers like it was no big deal. Of course, it’s no big deal, but at the same time, it was quite a big, big deal. Your eyes scanned his toned body, biting your lip when he flexed his arms as he ranted on about something about clothes? Something you don’t know, you were too busy trying to find a single flaw on his body. Not one though. 

“So what do you think?” He asks and you snap from his abs to his eyes. 

“Uh, red. You look really nice in red.” You say, unknowing what he had just said but hopeful that it would suffice. 

“You’re a genius love. What would I do without you?” He laughs and wraps you into a tight hug, kissing the top of your head.

   Your body instantly tightens, feeling butterflies in your stomach once his skin touches yours. You return the hug and laugh awkwardly back at him. Usually, you would make some remark but you were stunned. Never before were you a lost for words with him. But now, there was something there. Something there that wasn’t there before and you could not figure it out. 

“Hey, you still coming over to Harrison’s tonight?” His voice was soft and it made your knees buckle.

“Of course! Do you want me to bring something over?” 

   You watched Tom throw on some jeans and rummage for a shirt in the mess of a trailer. Your eyes locked on his back muscles as he leaned over. He turned to you with that stupid grin of his and pulled a fitted red shirt over his upper half. 

“Only your cute self.” 

   Shit. 

xx

   You paced outside Harrison’s apartment for about a minute, trying to gain the courage to knock on the door. Today, somehow you were turned into a puddle of mush from seeing your friend in his underwear. It was like a movie trope come to life. You spent all day trying to talk yourself out of it, blaming it on the lack of sex you’ve been having. Blaming it on the lights in the trailer that accentuated his toned body. It was to no avail though, your mind was wrapped around your best friend and how he made your body light up like a fire. 

   You snapped yourself out of it and knocked on the door. Harrison opened it with a smug smile. You began to think if you saw Harrison in his underwear would the same thing happen. Probably not though. It was Tom, and you had no idea why. It was like something clicked in your brain what you saw him like that. 

“Tom, your girlfriend is here!”     

   You pushed at Harrison’s chest and walked into the apartment and saw Tom sitting on the couch. He was turned around and looking at you with puppy dog eyes, instant melting of your heart. 

“Hello love, are you up for watching a movie?” Tom had an action movie queued up and ready but he was waiting for your approval. 

   You nodded your head and took a seat on the opposite end of the couch from Tom. Usually, you two sat very close but you could not control your thoughts tonight. Harrison placed himself between the two of you and began watching the movie. Your eyes switched periodically from the film to Tom, who was engrossed by the action scenes and exploding cars so he did not notice. Neither did Harrison thankfully, you didn’t want to hear about it for the next month on how you were giving Tom ‘sex eyes’. 

   Halfway through the movie, you became bored. Normally you loved watching the mind-numbing violence and stupid plots of movies like this, but you were not in the right headspace for this. You laid back against the couch and turned your head to the boys but this time Tom caught your eyes. He was looking at you with a blissful half smile, his hair was pushed up creating a mess of curls that sat on his head like a nest. You giggled softly, earning Harrison’s attention. 

“You think it’s funny that a bear ripped his arm off?” Harrison motioned to the movie and the scene. 

   The three of you laughed. Tom’s laugh was infectious and created another storm of butterflies in your stomach. You hated having these childish feelings, but it felt different. Your eyes met Tom’s and the feeling erupted again. There was something there that you never saw before. You were so engrossed by looking at Tom that you didn’t notice Harrison start to get up. 

“I’m gonna take a shower. You two keep your clothes on.” You rolled your eyes while Tom slapped him on the back. 

   Harrison left and an odd silence fell over the two of you. This was strange because it seemed like you two couldn’t go five seconds without speaking. Tom was staring at you from the other side of the couch while your eyes focused on the movie. 

“Why are you sitting so far away?” Tom asked. 

   You gave him a shrug then felt an instant shift in the couch. Tom had pulled himself closer to you but he was not directly next to you on the couch. There was still about a foot between the two of you. You leaned your head on the back of the couch and looked back to Tom. 

“Does it bother you?” 

“No, you just always sit next to me. No offense to Harrison but you smell a lot nicer than he does.” 

   You closed your eyes and laughed at his stupidity. You wanted to make a joke about how weird that he smells you when you are watching a movie but you just look back at him. 

“Good thing Harrison is taking a shower then.” 

“Yeah, it’s great.” 

   Tom shuffled another inch closer, head leaning on the back of the couch mirroring your position. The closer he got the more of a fire you felt on your skin. Your eyes locked on his lips, so pink and kissable. 

“How’s the movie going?” You ask. Your eyes were unmoving. 

“The one we’re watching? Boring. The one I’m in? Good. It’s good.” He starts and moves another inch. “It’s great having someone like you on set.”

   There were still nine or ten inches between the two of you but you could smell his cologne and almost feel the heat that radiated off of him. You looked down at the couch and played with the fabric of the blanket that laid across your bottom half. 

“What makes me so special?” 

   The two of you moved another inch towards each other. Eight inches of space between the two of you. Tom was staring straight at you when you looked up from the blanket, his eyes were soft as they met yours. His hands were nervously fumbling with the pillow in his hand. 

“You’re funny. You help me with my lines. You always save me a muffin when you deliver food to the crew. You’re great.” 

   A layer of red covered both of your faces. You placed a hand on the back of the couch as you moved closer to Tom. Now, less than six inches away from him and you wanted to be closer. Tom glided closer, his hand meeting yours on the back of the couch, both of your heads leaning on the back also. Eyes were locked as you bit harder on your bottom lip. 

“That’s all?” You spoke softly nudging your head closer to him. Another inch closer to each other. 

“No, no,” He starts and mimics your actions, creating a smaller gap. 

   Your faces are barely two inches away from each other. You could feel his breath against your skin. His hand wraps around yours behind the couch which causes your body to heat up. 

“No, there’s something there…” 

“That wasn’t there before?” He laughs. 

“Exactly.” 

   His voice was soft, almost breathless as he leaned over. Both of you were still leaned on the back of the couch, nudging your heads closer until your lips met. His free hand left the pillow on his lap and cupped the side of your face. His lips felt like silk against yours, moving in perfect sync that made the butterflies disappear and in their place was your heart beating a million miles a second. Although your body was hot and racing, your mind was at peace. Clarity washed over you as his lips were the only thing you wanted to think about. This was right. Tom pulled away, brushing his thumb across your lips. 

“Wow.” Is all you could say. 

“Yeah, wow is right.” Tom kisses your nose. “I really like you, Y/N. Like a lot. Could I take you out sometime?” 

“Yes, a million times yes.” 

   Tom chuckled as he kissed you again. You still had no idea what that something was, but it was there in those kisses. It filtered through your body with every touch and lingering stare. Your heartbeat quickened with every second you spent with Tom. Whatever it was, you were happy it was there. The two of you pulled away, eyes locked on each other with the love-stricken smiles etched into your faces. 

“Finally!” Neither of you noticed that Harrison entered the room. “I thought I was hallucinating that you guys had something.” 

   You smiled at Tom, then looked to Harrison with the goofy grin still on your face. 

“Yeah Haz, there’s definitely something there.”

[long-cosmos-overhead]

Walk with me

Story: Reader is injured and left bedridden for months with the company of Elrond who askes her for a walk

Pairing: Elrond x reader

Hues of of silver moonlight ghosted your face in the crisp Autumn air. An unsettling fog of confusion lay heavy in the atmosphere as silk bedding brushed your palms. It felt as if going back to a sleep you never remembered taking was better than facing the pressing issues at face. You arose your body, slowly, like a cat analysing a foreign area. Your head spun like you’d been led down for days, probably the most logical answer you could’ve reached. Suddenly, a flaring pain shot through your right leg halting all movement queued to make.

You feebly pulled back the silken sheets to rest eyes on your leg. From the knee upwards to your thigh had been woven tightly with gauge, scented like herbs to assist healing. Panic welled in your throat and in the moment you wished to see someone familiar, that you knew and trusted, someone who had answers. You let out a throaty, mangled cry, sounding gritty from dehydration. Several healers rushed over overwhelming you with questions of how you were feeling. Some beginning to remove the gauze wrapped upon your leg. The second you saw the vicious wound you wished you stayed in slumber for a bit longer; it wasn’t the blood or flesh that bothered you but the pain and disorientation of it all. The wound stretched from a swords width plunging deep through muscle and blood was soaking through the dressing past the inflamed red skin around it. The more people bustling around you the more scared you felt yourself getting, letting out whimpers of fear.

“Enough.” A smooth voice spoke firmly yet with a tone of appreciation. The nurses began to part from your bedside returning back to their business. A much needed familiar face came to view one who could give you answers and one of whom set your worries to rest. Elrond sat in the chair perched beside the bed you lay in, a hand reaching out to cup the side of your face. “Oh y/n.” He spoke, his hair falling at the sides of his face, the silver crown he wore piecing together with the moons modest glow. “I have anticipated this day for months tiresome, how could you do such a thing. A simple wound could not suffice the years I would spend grieving for you, Mellon.” Crystal tears built up in the depths of his eyes. His worry lines ever visible from creasing his brow in thought and sorrow.

“Elrond, forgive me.” Shame struck each nerve and your head lowered out of instinct. “I do not remember such tragedies.” Elrond took a long sigh of relief and pain. Moving his hands to grip yours before starting. “We were fighting, y/n, to save our people, I told you to stay here where it was safe but it seems you defied my best intentions and went out.” He breathed outward a pained small smile momentarily twitched his mouth. “I was in danger, not enough to maim or kill me but you ran infornt and took the full hit. The filthy orc plunged its blade right through you. There was so much blood, when I got you to a healer they didn’t know if you’d make the night. I was so worried, Mellon.”

“Elrond, I don’t know what to say.” Your voice was weak and a sense of helplessness washed your body. “Say nothing, my dear, for you must rest. I assume the healers took to re-dressing your wound” He looked saddened every part of his body was lesser than in comparison of the months previous. “How.. long was it, Elrond, how long was I asleep?” His face changed from sorrowful to pitiful and he looked down. “You left us for a month, my dear, these halls have been so very isolated.” Your mouth dropped a little. “A month.” You we’re getting quite overwhelmed. “Elrond, I should be out I have duties.” You swivelled your legs as best you could in an attempt to jump out the bed and catch up your list of overdue duties. Elrond gently caught you, ever careful not to cause more damage and moved you back into the sheets countless others had ached in. “Mellon, it pains me to see you so please allow yourself a rest I will see your duties are taken care of.” You would’ve protested but the sorrow in his grey eyes suddenly made you feel a lot heavier. “For you.” Your voice still gritty and laced with exhaustion.

Countless nights you had awoken led in your own blood, crying in pain. Elrond was always there coaxing you to calmness and distracting your pain with tales of old while healers scrambled to your assist. He brushed your tears astray until you fell into the cove of sleep. He never cared what time it was neither did he for the work. He sensed your boredom growing with each hour in the same room, he himself had royal duties to attend therefore only allowing a fraction of his day to be spent with you. Elrond did his best as a healer to speed along the process but it would be at least another month before you could properly walk again. He stayed through your frustration, anger and sorrow whether you were weakly hitting his chest or crying into his shoulder.

It was late in the day, where the sun began to set welcoming a new night. You had been awake for a few hours having taken a short rest around midday. You lay staring at the wall in front of you until the door swung open somewhere between hastily and somewhat slowly leaving Elrond to pass though. His cloak reaching out behind his nimbly fighting the breeze that pushed it back. He sat in the chair which had been allocated to him like an unspoken rule. “Mellon.” He said tenderly. “How are you feeling?” You reached out to touch his dark hair and ran your delicate fingers through it before letting your hand rest at your side. Elrond loved your fingers combing through his hair it fuelled the warm feeling that grew in the pit of his stomach and it left him always wanting more. “Better though I do feel rather bored laying in these halls watching the vast sun set once again.” You stared out wishing to be soaking up the suns rays. Elrond seemed to pick up on your feelings, he too glancing at the golden streaks. “Then perhaps a walk, y/n.” You turned around to properly face him, excitement bubbling within you. “I do believe a walk would suffice, my lord.”

Cautiously, you maneuvered your body with Elrond’s warm hands to support you over the side of the bed. Your bare feet touched the cool ground and for a moment you felt different as if it wasn’t real and you’d fall down through the abyss back to the start of it all. You gripped the the top of Elrond’s arm finding purchase in the soft fabric before easing yourself down until you stood upright. Immediately you leant on Elrond who wrapped an arm around your waist. A warm feeling grew in your stomach that left you wanting something more.

The first step was the hardest a heavy limp powered your leg and it took a long while until you even made it to the door. Hope started to dwindle by the time you reached outside the medical wing but if the view wasn’t worth it. The halls were empty coated in golden shine, each glance was more than you could’ve asked for and you felt such happiness. It seemed like years since you had last seen what lay outside. Your limp prevented most movements below your hip and for a moment it felt like walking alone was a far fetched fantasy. “Stray your thoughts, Mellon, in a few moons you may be able to walk alone.” The pair of you walked further stopping in between to take a rest. Neither realising the elves behind the corner watching their king clutch the wounded agreeing you had broken the walls to his heart.

The gardens were beautiful woven with radiance, such love it had seen in its ages. The sinking sun kissing your starved skin as Elrond helped you down onto a stray bench, the pain was more manageable now than before something about Elrond’s presence was calming, it left a fuzzy feeling whenever he fretted over you. His voice was alluring. You watched the elf sit down beside you. Your mind raced though everything he has done for you through any pain and sorrow you felt. “Thank you.”

“Do not thank me y/n, I should be thanking you, without your noble sacrifice I would be under care and the people should be without their lord.” He didn’t really look at you out of shame he despised seeing you so weak. “Lord Elrond, forgive me for asking but why are you doing all this for me?” Something flashed in his eyes only for a split second, he turned his head to look into your eyes his hair falling gracefully past his shoulders before parting his lips.

“Y/n when you fell, I immediately felt all the worlds break down around me. It hurt me so to know I inflicted this pain upon your body and I felt I could not live with myself if you left me you see your kindness, bravery and love awoke a desire within me and then I knew I could not sit and watch you waste away in a healers wing. You deserve far more than I can give, this small act is a mere fraction of the love I hold for you. Please tell me if the love I feel for you is requited or you wish to rid of my incessant ways.” He pleaded.

You stared wide eyed at the beautiful eyes in front of you watching them gloss over with tears fearful of rejection. “Elrond.” Your voice fading before it had the chance to be spoken. “You’ve captured my heart.” He placed a loving hand on your cheek pulling you in before halting giving you an option to pull away. You leaned in closer fluttering your eyes shut.

His lips were wondrous more than you ever imagined. He kissed with such love and passion ghosting his hands to tilt your face up to his. You couldn’t think in the moment only feel love radiating between two bodies sparking a flare in your stomach making your heart race like a great stallion. After what seemed like a blissful eternity, you pulled back for air. His scent of mint and books all over your body.

“Meleth nin.” He whispered.

“Elrond.” He wrapped an arm around you pressing your sides against each other, leaning your head onto his shoulder. The sun had since fallen below the horizon leading in a new night. And that was how you stayed side by side until the crescent moon welcomed a new sun.

[rachelisnotatwork]

Week 10: the one with two Fridays

Monday morning was actually hot and sunny! Which was great as we had agreed to rent a car for the day as it was half a price (and definitely half as socially awkward) as a hotel tour of the sites.

In our very blocky Japanese car that had a weird talking dashboard display (no idea what it said) we set out. Our first stop was a place called To-Sua trench. This is a natural swimming hole that is filled by the sea coming in under the cliffs. It is beautiful. It also features a terrifying ladder to get down into it. Now I had been warned there would be a giant ladder, but I thought it would go straight into the water so should my crushing fear of heights be a problem, I could just fall off into the water. No. Some genius has built a wooden platform at the bottom of the ladder over the water, presumably so if you lose your balance on said giant, slippery ladder you can fall onto the wooden platform instead and sustain a serious brain injury/paralysing spinal cord injury.

So suffice to say I enjoyed neither the descent or ascent. I did enjoy the swim though and only required 10 minutes recovery time at the top for the adrenaline levels to settle back down (luckily there were kittens there to distract me).

The main island of Samoa is small, so our plan to enjoy the views on a drive over the mountain passes was, whilst pleasant, over swiftly. 

We then drove to the end of the island where they have apparently a super nice beach. Everything in Samoa is owned by a village clan (and they really make an effort, they have lovely planted verges through every settlement along the sides of the road to make it look nice) and you have to pay to access the beach. The beach was nice-looking but in a white sand, looks like the beach we have at our hotel for free, way. So we decided to instead do something you can’t do in your own hotel and go to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum. Except for when I say “we” I mean “I” because only one of us is obsessed with Treasure Island.

RLS was advised to go to Samoa for his TB (apparently thought to maybe really be sarcoid- oh the medical mysteries!) and so he came and looked sinister and cadaverous in a very nice mansion, which is now his museum.

It’s a slightly creepy museum as it has been recreated after being destroyed by a cyclone (and occupied by German colonists since his time anyway) and they’ve some slightly weird interior decor items like very malformed lions, rotting dresses and zombie portraits of RLS. 

It’s a lovely house though. He died here following a cerebral aneurysm whilst straining to open a bottle of wine (unexpectedly prosaic and middle class death for the tropics) and is buried here on top of a giant hill. I like RLS, but not enough to climb a mosquito-plagued hill in the sweltering humidity to see his tomb.

We then headed for a supposedly amazing marine reserve about a hundred metres off-shore for some snorkelling, which is in the capital of Apia (weirdly). We rented snorkels, headed out into the water and whilst I was roughly knee-deep I was knocked over by the incredibly powerful current and pulled my quadricep (the pain of which reminded me repeatedly of how often you use your quadricep over the next few days). I promptly decided that if a current is so strong I can’t remain standing in it, I’m sure as shit not swimming out to sea in it. That’s how weedy unfit people die. So I read a book on the beach whilst Marcel struggled out to it and had a look. To add to his woes he got attacked by a tiny fish that bit his toes until he bled, so whilst he said the snorkelling was quite nice there, I was fine without.

We then went for dinner at a super cheap Indian and then had the problem of how to refill the car. We had to return the car full, but the only petrol station on our side of the island shut. So we had to fill up in Apia until the tank was overfull and then drive very slowly the 40 minute trip home so as not to deplete the tank. Thankfully we made it.

Tuesday as a result I spent limping about the beach, reading a book. It was Valentines day and finally our hotel had filled up enough (about 12 guests) to serve dinner in their restaurant on the pier rather than on the shore.

Which was lovely and they’d decorated all the tables with flowers etc. 

They then decided at dinner to get the bar band to wish each “room” happy valentines as the whole place was small enough that they knew all our names from the guest list. It was pretty much all couples except one table which was a woman in maybe her late 20s or early thirties with her parents. They got around to announcing her table over the microphone and wished her parents (by name) happy valentines and then went “Elena doesn’t have a valetine”. Nothing like announcing someone is alone with their parents on Valentines day like shouting it out on a microphone to the whole restaurant. I felt so sorry for her.

Afterwards since the sky was incredibly clear and the moon was very late to rise we went down to the beach and lazed on the deckchairs- which were perfectly angled for watching shooting stars. Very pleasant.

Wednesday was pretty quiet, again more reading in the sun and limping for me. In the evening they had a “cultural show”and buffet for dinner which I would normally avoid like the plague but...there wasn’t anywhere else to go. After a long discussion about what they should do with a vegetarian at the buffet (normally they only offer buffet but the buffet was all spit-roasted pig and a thousand types of fish) they decided to break with convention and let me order off the menu. Oh the rebellion! The cultural show was actually okay (although none of us women got offered kava...) because it mostly involved dancing at high speed with fire, which is fun to watch and made me revisit mentally how to treat any major burns should they occur (thankfully they did not). And it didn’t last very long. And despite not paying for the buffet I did sneak some dessert from it (hardened criminal that I am).

Thursday we woke up with the same plan as every day (go to the beach, laze on the loungers, read books and occasionally swim when we got too hot) but when we got out of our room, horror of all horrors, the resort was hosting cruise ship guests for the day. Now being one of a tiny number of guests in a sizeable resort (February is off-season) I was already getting annoyed if we saw a single other person on the beach, so it was DEEPLY upsetting to find scores of elderly Australians taking all the loungers and swimming in OUR ocean. We were forced to...sit by the pool. I grumped with my book until they left mid-afternoon, after which we went back and claimed all the deckchairs on the again abandoned beach for ourselves. So the day was almost redeemed, save they drank all the coconuts and there were none at dinner. Oh the trials of my life! Dinner was quite fun though because just as we were finishing dinner a little storm blew up and threw all the table clothes off the tables etc and we had to race inside for cover.

Now our next stop after Samoa was Hawaii. This meant we had to cross the international date line, so we got two goes at Friday.

The first go of Friday the 17th we arose, ate a huge breakfast, checked out, then pottered down to the beach to enjoy a few hours of swimming and reading on the sun loungers before a late lunch. Then we went to the airport, where I realised I had forgotten to post our postcards and had to beg an airport employee to take them to the postbox outside the airport for me as I had already gone through security and been stamped out of the country (I’m guessing I won’t know for a really long time if he did post them or not as I doubt the service from Samoa to the UK is particularly swift).

Our flight was on Fiji Air and had come from Fiji so it ended up being late as for reasons unknown to me they got all the Fiji passengers to disembark, then re-embark. I thought since it was a pretty big plane and we had movies on our 2 hour flight from NZ to Fiji, that we’d be in for quite a nice flight. Nope. The plane had a couple of those overhead projectors and were midway through showing an ancient Matt Damon movie I didn’t recognise that had clearly started in Fiji. When it was over they didn’t show another one. What was slightly more alarming was when I got to the toilet, the toilet had been fixed in two places with ancient duct tape. Both the duct tapes were different so this clearly was not a recent problem in a well-maintained plane. I spend the rest of the 6 hour flight alternating between anxious, bored and concerned at what sort of germs the loo was breeding in that duct tape.

We arrived in Hawaii at 10 past midnight, which meant... we were back to the start of Friday the 17th! Friday round two was less fun. First we queued for immigration (lots of posters about not accidentally bringing in brown snakes- I always endeavour not to mistakenly pack snakes), then we got a shuttle to the world’s most expensive shitty motel (Honolulu is not a cheap town). The only other guest in sight was an incredibly drunk guy who in the lift got extremely “animated” about our Emirates address labels and only calmed down and shambled off when we said we’d come from Samoa not the middle east. Nice introduction into Trump’s America....

Thankfully we were leaving first thing (after a short night) for Big Island, officially known as Hawaii, which makes things confusing and hence most people call it Big Island. We arrived and went to pick up our rental car. The man enthusiastically tried to persuade us to upgrade from the tiniest rental car we’d booked (a Spark) “for a great 50% discount” because “there are a lot of hills here”. I said we’ve taken a Spark off road up a Bosnian mountain before, I think we can cope with your highways. He then decided to “give you guys an upgrade for free”- I checked outside the window. There were no small rental cars in the lot, so they’d clearly sold out of those.

After some lunch by the seaside in Kona, we headed over the centre of the island to our airbnb accommodation, which was near the town of Hilo. This involved driving up through the rain clouds (yay!) to a beautifully sunny plateau....and then back down into rain again. Apparently Hilo is one of the rainiest towns in the USA. I was less than thrilled to learn this fact. I was however thrilled to find their supermarket weirdly sold Maltesers (I had been missing cheap British chocolate). Less thrilled to find that apart from Maltesers, the weak pound plus everything being imported into Hawaii meant our shop was eye-wateringly expensive.

The next day we had evening plans but not day plans. First we went to the local state park where lava came at some pint in the past and entombed trees in...moderately amusing shapes.

Now my mental image of Hawaii was mostly hot and beachy. So after the surprise of discovering it was quite rainy, I had a further sense of humour failure when I realised that if you go up any of the volcanos, it gets very cold, very fast. We therefore decided to look for some cheap coats. I will spare you the scintillating story of us going, rain-sodden, into various stores but there are basically no coats on Hawaii despite the fact one of the main tourist attractions on Big Island has a DAYTIME temperature of 4c and is mostly a nocturnal activity. I did manage to get a hoodie, but only nearly died of impatience buying it (the man in front after requesting to use a coupon and paying all in change decided to think for about 3 minutes when asked by the cashier if he’d like to receive offers by email and when I thought he might have just died standing there responded “do other people chose to get emails” and then after a chat about that decided to get out his mobile phone to find out his email address in order to spell it for her letter by slow letter).

We had a late lunch (extra late because they forgot about our sandwiches, redeemed by free cookies) and then drove up to the Mauna Kea visitors centre. Mauna Kea has the northern hemisphere’s big astronomy centre up there because it’s super high (the atmosphere is so thin stars don’t “twinkle”), because it’s an isolated volcano clouds go around it and because there is basically no light pollution because there are no towns nearby. They therefore have a nightly nerdy programme at their visitors centre.

We arrived just before sunset and (wearing all of our layers) climbed an outlook to enjoy the sunset from above the clouds. Which was beautiful. We stayed up there until we were the last people (since there wasn’t anything to do until the stars came out at the visitors centre anyway) although this wasn’t such a great idea as it sounded as we then had to find our way down a very steep and rocky hill in the dark.

They had set up lots of telescopes and after giving us a star tour of all the cool stuff you could see with the naked eye there, they then showed us stuff on the telescopes like the orion nebula, venus, mercury, a close up of the seven sisters and the Andromeda galaxy (that one is sort of rubbish, looks like a smudgy thumb print). It was really cool. In both senses of the word. When we left we had the heating on max until we descended below the clouds (and it started raining again...)

Sunday it rained. Sensing a trend? We decided to improve our newfound star knowledge and visited the local astronomy centre. It was pretty good (you got a free planetarium show) and it also featured the posters from a school science fair, which was fascinating in a “oh so this is what they are always doing in the movies" way.

And so the week ended- last week we went from rain to sun. This week from sun to rain. Let’s hope the sun returns next week...