#Station Pacific

[thestalwartheart]

And when you think about me, all of those years ago You're standing face to face with "I told you so."

RADI00Q: 31 SONGS FOR BOND AND Q SONG 1: Good Luck, Babe - Chappell Roan

[castillon02]

“Make them clean their own guns,” Nguyen said, leaning her considerable bulk over Q’s desk. She was just starting her shift. “Or at least wear gloves.” 

Q kept plunging a bore brush soaked with cleaning fluid into the barrel of 007’s Walther PPK. His eyes burned with fatigue. “I’ll take it under advisement.” 

When he finished, he left with gun oil on his fingers, fingers that had traced over the gun’s every crevice, every curve and angle, every metal and electric anatomical fold. 

—

“Why not tell us to clean our own guns?” 006 asked. 

“I'm a control freak,” Q said. “Which is also why I know that yours is in the middle of the Atlantic and not in need of cleaning at all.” 

This was a lie. 006 had reported the gun lost at sea but had actually smuggled it back into his own flat, where it was currently residing in what Q suspected was his bedroom and knew for certain was the room that also had a backup earwig that Q had personally assembled, a Ka-Bar that Q had archaically sharpened on a whetstone, and one of the decoy keychains and keys (Alaska) that Q kept on his desk so that agents had something harmless to swipe. Probably there were other things that 006 also had in his nest, but they would be things that Q hadn’t touched and could only theorize about. 

Q was bad at lying. 

006 visibly recognized this, realized that Q was lying in his favor, and couldn’t stop his eyes from widening. “Right,” he said. 

Q smiled. Fixed him with a specific knowing look. You don’t ask, I don’t ask. “If it hadn’t sunk into the fathoms below, I would recommend a new hammer spring. Sometimes these things get a bit fussy when you use a gun as a bludgeon. That’s part of why I do in-person maintenance.” 

Part of the reason; not the whole reason. 

006 muttered a Russian curse. “Thank you, Q.” 

“Happy to help.” 

---

001 brought his guns back clean, but with a new part in them each time; a replacement firing pin, hammer, ejector rod, bullets. 

Q always asked about the replacement. He did it before disassembling the gun, like a magic trick.

001 always grinned like a mischievous schoolboy. “I’ll get you next time,” he would say, wagging a finger at him. Perhaps you’re more fallible than you believe. 

“It’s good that you’re optimistic,” Q would reply loftily. No mistakes. I see your gun. I see your tricks. I see you. 

—

004 never cleaned her gun and always brought it back. Hers was a semi-automatic of Theseus, parts replaced naturally when there was wear and tear. 

“Same as always?” she asked when she picked up her kit. 

“Same as always,” Q confirmed. 

—

When Q was a child, he asked, “Mum, why do you always shout about your car keys in the morning? And why does Peter never know where his pencils are?” 

She frowned into the mirror and finished applying her lipstick. “Sometimes people lose things, dear.” 

“How?” Q asked, boggled. 

She looked at him with squinched eyes; that meant she was thinking hard. “Well,” she said slowly, “we forget where we put them, or someone puts them somewhere we don’t expect.” 

Q squinched his own eyes too. What could she be thinking so hard about?  

Mum smiled. “Tell you what, we’ll see if I can give you a demonstration after school, all right?”  

Mum didn’t turn on the telly right away after dinner like she usually did. Instead, she sat down next to him on the sofa. “Sweetheart, you know how you asked about when I lose my keys? Does that ever happen to you?” She was trying to be casual about it, but if it were really unimportant then she would have asked during a commercial. 

“One time I pretended it did,” he told her, “because I was curious to see what it was like. So one day while you were doing the shopping I put one of my books on top of the telly and stomped around in the other room going ‘Where the hell is my story book?’ in a loud voice like you do with your keys. It was a little fun, but not much.” 

“It’s not fun to lose things. Do you know,” she asked, “where your story book is now?” 

“Yes, of course,” he said. His story book was immense and well-thumbed, so heavy that it made him grunt whenever he had to lift it, but he had already read through all of it at least four times. It had hard edges and corners that were beginning to bend; chocolate fingerprints littered the pages at the beginning because his hands had still been sticky from birthday cake when he first opened it—he can put his fingers on them now and see how much he’s grown. There’s a stain of pomegranate juice at the beginning of the Persephone story from the pomegranate that his mother had bought before they read it together; a special treat, expensive, but “you have to know what a pomegranate is before you read it,” she’d said, “otherwise you’ll wonder why they’re eating the seeds.”    

“And where is it?” his mum asked. She had to know that Q knew, because why wouldn’t he know? 

He answered anyway. She ‘humored’ Q a lot, she sometimes told him, so he could humor her this time. “In the vegetable drawer,” he said. “You came home for lunch and moved it there. But that’s a silly place for things that aren’t vegetables, isn’t it?” 

His mum closed her eyes and sighed, long and deep the way she did every so often when Q asked too many questions that she couldn’t answer. “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “I’m lucky to have a son who knows that. But most people can’t keep track of their things as well as you can, so let’s not talk about it too much and make them envious, all right?” 

That was something he knew how to do. He had already had a few talks about not stirring the other kids up with how smart he was. Plus he could tell from the tightness in her voice, like when she talked to her boss’s boss or Q’s headmaster, that she was nervous. “Sure, Mum,” he said. “I won’t.”   

So he never mentioned it again. 

He also never lost his keys, or his rucksack, or his socks, or anything else he touched and touched often. He might as well try to lose his own foot.     

—

“You know, we can clean our own guns,” 002 said, dropping her pistol onto Q’s desk. “In fact, you’ll find I did.” 

Q smiled. “That will make it much quicker when I do it, then.” 

002 pursed her lips and blew a pink bubble with her gum, which Q Branch had also issued her. “And where do you want this?” She took the sticky wad out of her mouth and held it out to him. “Gonna chew it for me?” 

Q held out a petri dish. “We have better chemical analyzers than my tongue, I’m happy to say. We do want to see about the wear and tear on the product.” He met her eyes. “Reliability is important in our field.”  

002’s performatively petulant glare softened. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and next time you’ll make it into plastique instead of a tracker.” One corner of her mouth quirked up.

The sticks of gum were actually one of Q’s least favorite gadgets; like most gum, it was sensitive to heat, so he couldn’t hold it for long without destroying its structural integrity. Couldn’t sense what he usually sensed. But if it put a smile on 002’s face as well as being useful to her, he’d keep issuing it.   

—

“A gun and a radio,” Q said. He waved his hand at the corner of his desk where he’d perched the usual equipment case. “Earwig will be distributed at your landing site. Unless things go terribly wrong, the local team should be able to support you for this one.” 

Bond took the case. “Anything else?”     

Q looked up; he’d been double-checking Bond’s mission brief and wondering how much structural damage the Managua team could make excuses for. “Cufflinks.” He pulled a small box out of his desk drawer and opened it. Inside lay a pair of cufflinks, copies of ones that Bond already owned and wore frequently. “They have little folding knives in them.” He demonstrated how the outside half could be pulled apart to reach the blade in the middle. 

The corners of Bond’s eyes were all happy wrinkles. “Am I expected to need tiny knives?” 

“No,” Q admitted. “But you brought the Walther back last time and I thought you could use some positive reinforcement. May I?” He removed the old cufflinks and put the new ones on, his fingertips brushing against the warm skin of 007’s wrists as he did. “Good luck in the field, 007,” he said after he closed the last French cuff. “As always, try to bring the equipment back in one piece.”   

“As always,” Bond echoed, his eyes meeting Q’s before he left. 

The cufflinks weren’t just positive reinforcement, of course. They were a connection; this meant that it was even odds that Bond would destroy them. (Paradoxically, Bond had the best equipment survival rate when that equipment self-destructed; he wore the latest exploding watch for three months and four missions before he had to use it.) 

Q didn’t touch the other 00s, who stayed near their equipment, more or less, and who deserved their privacy, deserved not to have their footsteps tracked through the crevices of Q’s brain. In fact, he didn't touch anyone. Not if he could help it.

With Bond, Q made excuses for the tiniest bit of extra assurance, the mental tip-toe of 00 feet sneaking across the globe. 

—

“Make Hutchinson do it,” Nguyen said, back again. “He loves guns; he’d be thrilled to do maintenance on company time.” 

Q met her eyes. “I take personal responsibility for the equipment of our most senior agents. They deserve that level of consistency.” He changed out the cleaning swatch he was using. 

“How consistent will you be if you burn out because you never leave this place? Guns, radios, earpieces--you can delegate. Our work is important, but...” 

“I’m almost done,” Q said, implacable. 

Nguyen sighed. “Sleep well, Quartermaster.” She showed herself out.             

Q dried, oiled, and reassembled the gun. He would make sure to catch up with Doctor Who and a few blockbusters so he could convince Nguyen that he sometimes made an effort to think about things that weren’t work or work-related. They could collaborate on blueprints for a sonic screwdriver. It would be fine. 

He would even give the same advice if he were in her position. She couldn’t know that Hutchinson doing as simple a thing as cleaning a Double-Oh’s gun until it shone would be detrimental to the delicate safety net that Q had been building since he had arrived at Six.  

Q touched everything his agents went out with, enough that he could still sense 007's old Walther in Macau, 001's discarded ejector rod in Tunis, 004's stack of worn-out gun parts secreted in a tea tin hidden behind a book on his shelf because he liked the thrum of them all together like that, and there was always the risk, at work, that they'd be disposed of.

He never lost things that were truly his. Guns, radios, earwigs, cufflinks.

He hadn’t lost an agent yet either.

[bluebellofbakerstreet]

Q paper dolls. Shown as separate drawings below.

For scavenger hunt item #6: Design 3 outfits for a Bond character or your Station character to be worn on 3 separate occasions. and for the 2024 prompt exchange prompt #6: Missions in which Q will appear in different costumes, or uniform or just funny outfits!!  I'm dying to see him in a police uniform and cap, or in navy uniform, in a full suit of three layers, etc.. (or Q dressed as a steward, but not for flight of course)

[melynen]

Meme #3

[i-eat-your-pancakes]

For 007 Fest I had to make something in the style of another artist, so here's something inspired by Josh Agle, better known as Shag! I love his MCM style and it goes perfectly with Bond. This was a lot of fun, but oh god I hope I'll have enough time for the rest of this month's challenges now >_>

Hmm. Wonder who that cat belongs to and why it's mean-mugging Bond like that...

[tiny-tardis]

Scavenger hunt item #12 — Create James Bond-themed nail art

I tried to do it neatly but with almost zero practice in nail art it was difficult for me.. anyway, I like the result 🤍🖤

(I used regular nail polishes in black and white colors, covering it with a layer of clear polish on top)

[foxsoulcourt]

An unassuming cheese-monger

It's truly amazing how much you can learn by listening and observing.

Thank you for agreeing to meet with me today Javone. Can I get you a cuppa? Why don't you look over the cheeses and pick two or three you would like to try. I'll make us a plate and we can go sit over in that quiet corner.

As I said earlier, my name is Harriet and I’ve been a cheese-monger in this shop for many years. Before you ask me your questions, let me give you some context for why I contacted your office.

I'm worried. Several of my regular customers have not been in the store in over a week. If it was just one or two of them, especially that particularly handsome one with the gorgeous suits, I wouldn't worry. We often don't see him for weeks at a time. But the others? I'm not sure I can convey to you how unusual their collective absence is, especially for this length of time.

How do you like the Port Salut? I'm glad to see you chose it because it's one of my favourites. Understated, but consistently delicious. Such a lovely texture too.

Now, while many different types of customers frequent our shop, we are known by busy professionals in the area. They count on us for a reliable source of high quality meats, cheeses, beverages, biscuits, and breads. You probably know that type of customer. Those executives who work long hours and rarely set time aside for regular meals, yet still want to eat and drink well while working. We show our gratitude for their steady patronage with delicious goods, prices, and hours which match their needs.

Even though we are not supposed to know many details beyond their name, a career retail employee like myself learns to pick up subtle clues about even casual customers.

Therefore Javone, I can reliably tell you several SIS senior staff frequently shop in our store. Partly it's due to our quality merchandise and, frankly, because we open at the crack of dawn and don't close until very late. It also helps we are an easy ten minute walk away from their home office through Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. That's just the right amount of time to clear your head after a troublesome meeting, isn't it?

Excuse me young man, did I say something funny? Oh, is it that name? I know, it seems a bit silly, but no need to snicker. <clears throat> Now, back to our mutual concern. I believe I have information you want, is that correct?

Over the years both Mr Tanner and Ms Moneypenny have become particularly friendly. They're terribly kind, both of them and they work such long hours. It's been through helping them I've learned to separate out which cheeses Mr Mallory prefers from the ones he does not care for, the beverages that gentleman in the beautiful suits prefers, and which biscuits to keep in stock for the often distracted younger man with the ever changing hair styles and glasses. He's always so kind to me. I really like talking with him.

Which explains why when I didn’t see any of them come through our doors this past week, I became concerned. They rarely all come in on a daily or even weekly basis, but not seeing any of them this past week felt downright odd. I knew immediately something horrible had happened.

Now Javone, what can you tell me? What do you know? And how can I help you?

[wandererrofthewinds]

007 FEST HEADCANONS!!

Alec Trevelyan-

-Pansexual king.

-hates strawberries. Both the fruit and the essence.

-hates Azithromycin too. Because it tastes like strawberry essence.

-because of the number of languages that he knows, sometimes when he's in a verbal fight, he goes non-verbal for like 10 seconds, then his brain restarts itself.

-knows Persian. Sometimes reads persian poetry.

-Q once stumbled upon his Spotify account. His top song was Dark Is The Night.

Q-

-when he's busy and someone asks how much sugar he wants with his tea, he says it in this weird equations that you need to solve.

-sometimes when he doesn't have enough time to wait for his tea to cool off,(which is like, always)throws in 1-2 ice cubs to help it cool off faster.

-knows Neon Genesis Evangelion's lore by heart.

-has a vault for his snacks.

James Bond-

-really cold hands. Like. Really cold.

-once sent a 45 minute audio message to Q. It was silent. The version he sent for Alec was 79 minutes.

-once fell asleep on Alec's shoulder. Threatend to kill Alec if he told anyone anything.

-has the 10% damage bonus. Iykyk.

-he would be the typa guy to not sleep for like 29339282892 days and still not have 299292 shades of black under his eyes(only M could notice)

[dassandre-00qpidsarrow]

007 Fest 2024 Introduction Post

[themerc]

Some of my 'Bond Truths'...

So I need to post something to reach my weekly goal for the Fest. I have less than an hour. More headcanons? Takes too much time. But there are some universal Bond Truths that are always present in my writing and in my personal headcanon universe. So let's go with a list of those. * Bond knows he's not mentally stable and well-adjusted or even a good person (whatever that means). He genuinely doesn't care, and doesn't really want to change 'for the better'. He might want to change his *life* in some ways but not who he is. * Q is older than he looks. I choose to think of him as around the same age as Ben Wishaw, it's still very young for his position at the time of Skyfall. * Mallory is not the bad guy NTTD makes him look, and neither is he stupid. *Felix Leiter lives. Except in London Burns, because that is a bleak, hopeless world. * Q is a head over heart -person and perfectly capable of putting his feelings aside. How else would he survive? * Moneypenny's greatest strength as a person and as a character is that she gets things done. She is a strong character that drives the narrative. My Moneypenny is the Skyfall Moneypenny who also recognises what is best for herself and doesn't take the new desk job as a demotion. *Bond is not anyone's father and never will be one. Duh. He'd cringe at the idea. *Bond and Q... they might be fated, but never to live together happily ever after. * Bond never retires. He never dies either - but we all know that's not really true. When he dies, he dies 'off-screen', in the line of duty, in whatever imaginary role the universe has given him. His legacy will be his life-long service, and only a few within the agency will truly remember and mourn him.

[thestalwartheart]

La la la-la la la la, he's a little bit Alexis Bond.

For Mads, who threw this idea into the universe like it wasn't the most cosmic-brained crossover of all time, and for @non-compos-mentis-nimbus who sent me the prompt "a particularly interesting/weird ringtone." (I'm so sorry if you've never watched Schitt's Creek!).

Fic behind the cut. It's nothing but crack, I must warn you! And yes, you can read this on AO3, though I'm not sure it needs to be preserved for the internet's eternity!

“Christ,” Q groaned, in the panic of a morning rush. “Where the hell is my phone?”

Beside him in bed, with a pillow bunched under his head, looking every inch the layabout, Bond smirked. “Well, you were so quick to shed your clothes last night, darling—”

Q held out a hand to shush him. He was disastrously hungover. He didn’t need to be subjected to this sort of insubordination at seven in the morning.

“If you have something useful to say, say it. Otherwise, be quiet.”

Bond tutted. While he sat up, he subjected Q to a lecture on manners. Perhaps Q had been born too late for elocution lessons to be the done thing in his childhood, he said, but that was no excuse for a lack of common courtesy, especially towards a man who only last night had acquiesced to every filthy thought—

Q stopped listening. He rummaged around in his bedside drawer.

“— to call it?”

“Hm?”

Bond let out a huff of amusement. “Your phone. Shall I call it for you?”

“Oh, yes. Fine. Thank you.”

It would be fair to say that Q wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. Perhaps if he hadn’t missed his alarm or drunk quite so much gin last night—martinis were never a good decision, least of all ones made by James Bond—he might have taken precautions. As it were, he was bleary-eyed, a bit stressed and, frankly, exhausted from a long night of Bond pummelling him into the mattress.

Without warning, Bond pressed the call button on his phone.

La la la-la la la la—

“Oh, shit,” said Q. The ringtone came blasting from his rumpled suit, which had landed in the doorway sometime last night. Hours ago. Hours and hours and hours—

Q made a beeline for it, stumbling over the bedsheets and then himself.

“Q.”

His hand delved into the wrong trouser pocket. “Oh, balls!”

—hide your diamonds, hide your exes—

“Q.”

The other pocket was empty, too. Q nearly tore his jacket apart searching. Its two external pockets contained a pen, three folded post-it-notes, an Oyster card, the key to his work desk and an errant Percy Pig. But no phone.

I’m a Prada handbag—

No, his phone was in an internal pocket (the second one he checked, naturally — when did anything ever go smoothly in a crisis?), and Q grasped at it with the desperation of a found-out mistress, declining the call with a quick couple of taps on its side button.

“What was that I just heard?” asked Bond, seeming far more awake than he’d been five minutes ago. “A naughty elf?”

Q winced. His headache was suddenly the least painful thing in the room.

“I’m not sure you want to know.”

“Oh,” replied Bond with a dangerous, only half flirtatious glint in his eye. “I think I do.”

[castillon02]

January: an Omega watch that could level a city block. February: a Montblanc garotte-pen that could write a headline as easily as take a head off. March: a tuxedo jacket made out of a new stab-proof nano-fiber.

Q Branch had assigned these to 006, 005, and 009 respectively.

When the new Aston Martin was ready in April, Bond was too: ready to put his persuasive blue eyes to good use.

"Q."

"No."

"The odds of one going into the Tiber again are---"

"I specifically waterproofed it. It's technically a nautical vehicle. The answer is still no."

Bond smoldered.

Q kept his dark-ringed eyes on his monitor. His shoulders slumped for a moment before straightening. "Fine. If you sign this." Q handed him a letterheaded sheet of paper.

Under the circumstances that the man known as Q is removed from his position at MI6 due to the destruction of a gadget that Q has provided to me, I, the undersigned, pledge to provide at minimum a replacement monthly salary for at least 48 months immediately following the removal of Q's employment.

"No one's going to fire you."

Q arched his eyebrows. “Here: your current issue.” He handed Bond a plastic Bic pen. The top half had been chewed on and not by Q; the molar imprints didn’t match. 

Bond’s lip curled involuntarily. 

Q smiled. 

Bond signed the contract. 

Later, after the car and its surrounds exploded, Q turned up at Bond’s flat with two cat carriers in tow. “I expect we’ll be kept in the manner to which we’re accustomed.” He flopped onto Bond’s sofa.  

It’d probably be a month or two before MI6 hired Q back, which was time enough for good Quartermasters to have a rest and be spoiled. Bond would have to thank 006; the Omega had worked perfectly.

[bluebellofbakerstreet]

May Day

[melynen]

Rec list #3 - Alternate Universe

Aka some of my favourite AU fics. 🩷

Treason, Traitors, and Treachery | 00Q | M | by Kryptaria and zooeycigar

Summary: All James Bond wanted was a quiet holiday on his luxury motoryacht on the Costa del Sol. Time to recuperate and think about his future with MI6. But his plans get hijacked when a traitor to the crown returns, bringing news of an even greater threat to MI6. And the traitor isn't working alone.

Thankfully, neither is James.

This is absolutely wonderfully written. There’s a well thought out plot, characters that feel real, and the greatest OC that I’ve encountered in a long time. Love it.

Project Monster | 00Q | E | by swtalmnd

Summary: What if there really were monsters in the shadows? What if James Bond was one of them?

This is the cutest, sweetest, most precious fic series ever. Very fluffy indeed! Andy (Q’s new pet) is absolutely adorable (I want an Andy of my own! 🩷), and Bond as a monster is a very intriguing concept. Also, Q’s virginity is a thing here, but it fits the plot well.

Les signaux croisés (Crossed Signals) | 00Q | not rated | by lalunaticscribe

Summary: “So I said to myself, let's see, I'll try it on one man, only on one, just to see,” Q narrated. “What could happen to me, after all? Nothing! We'll exchange a smile, and that will be it, I'll never see him again. I start looking out for the right man. I wanted one who was good-looking, very good-looking. Suddenly I see a big fair one, a very handsome young man. You know how I like the fair ones. I chose him; I gave him the signal, oh so subtly, so very subtly. He nods at once and, Mon Dieu, he comes straight in, ma chère!”

This fic has a charming writing style that also feels very authentic. I love how the characters are true to themselves while also feeling like they belong in the fic’s time period. And I absolutely adore Q in this, he’s the cutest.

I’ll Be Your Light, Your Match, Your Burning Sun | 00Q pre-relationship / gen | M | by Only_1_Truth

Summary: In an MI6 where Dragons, Basalisks, Cerberii and all sorts of other creatures exist, Q is a lowly Level Three Fury who's innate ability to drain away the rage in others is mediocre at best. Still, he watches wistfully when the official Fury of MI6 interacts with all of the 00-agents. Sure, being the Quartermaster is probably less dangerous than dealing with the Dragons of MI6... but Q wonders if the risk would be worth the reward?

He gets his chance to find out when a mission with 007 goes bad, and Q is stick with thirteen-stone of enraged Dragon on his hands.

Q's got a choice: step up or step out. He can either rise to the occasion and play Fury... or play the odds of Bond going absolutely ballistic on the world at large. Either way, the fallout will be fantastic...

This is adorable, well-written and beautifully fluffy with lots of feels. One of the fics I keep returning to over and over again when I need a pick-me-up.

[i-eat-your-pancakes]

I wanted to draw someone totally unexpected for the free space of the characters table. Here's floating broom guy from the background of Quantum of Solace. Easily the greatest of all the side characters.

[tiny-tardis]

Scavenger Hunt Item #30

Well, it looks more like a well than a tower, but still, as indicated in scavenger hunt #30, I killed some time and tidied up my desk.. sorting out my gel and fountain pens..

(and realizing that I actually have about 12 different pens with different tones of purple ink and five with green ink...and also that there are only two regular blue pens💀)