#palmer's fascinating stories

[catbellybuttons]

writing the first half of a fic: yaaaay! wooo!!! 🌈💝 fun ideas 😊💖✨️~

writing the second half of a fic: I am in a fight with god himself and he is winning

[catbellybuttons]

I'll probably never write it but I do think this would be an extremely funny setup for a comedy fake dating/ husbands fic:

"Married?" Bond scoffed. "Can he not be my useless son or something?"

Q made an offended noise. "Useless, really? Could you not be my recently divorced disaster of a father?"

"Department budgets only stretch to a one bed," Moneypenny continued dryly. "And more importantly the mark's husband-"

"Can we not just send someone to seduce him?" Bond cut in impatiently. Hell, he'd do it himself if it really came down to it. He wasn't above ruining someone's marriage in the name of getting what was required.

"-Is a couples therapist." Moneypenny finished.

"Ah." Bond said, suddenly this ridiculous set up was starting to make an annoying sort of sense.

Q laughed darkly. "And we're to be the couple made of — how do people put it — more red flags than a communist rally?"

Bond cocked his head at Q and raised one eyebrow in lieu of a question.

"Married extremely quickly, absolutely nothing in common, concerningly large age gap." Q listed off on his fingers. He turned and locked eyes with Bond. "One struggling with his masculinity and sexuality."

"I think you'll find I'm perfectly content with my masculinity, thankyou."

Q shot him a withering look.

"And there's a beautiful example of you bickering like an old married couple already." Moneypenny smiled smugly.

Moneypenny gives them each other's files and tells them to brush up on both their backstories but both of them independently go "No?? The cover will work much better if neither of us know anything about the other."

In session 1 the therapist is like "dear god I don't even know where to BEGIN with all this" gesturing at their everything. but by the end is like "you know what I don't understand it but somehow it works"

(assorted addenda can be found on ao3 (not an actual fic))

[catbellybuttons]

I know it's better for the story to pretend that mi6 has access to all the best, most cutting edge technology but I know in my heart of hearts that q is forever raging that he's losing upwards of an hour a week watching the spinning wheel of death on some timesheet or internal request logging system that hasn't been updated since the mid 2000s and is held together by prayers and one long suffering person in the IT dept

[catbellybuttons]

I've always thought not enough hay has been made of the fact that steve's surname is litterally rogers

[catbellybuttons]

when it's hot and/ or I'm wearing a white top that I want to keep clean I sometimes do this thing called "topless dinner" where I, unsurprisingly, eat dinner topless

so just picture James Bond doing this. he's obviously much less clumsy and much more heat tolerant than my weak ass but him being like "oh dear it's 30 degrees and this shirt was clean on today, it'd be a shame to spill something on it..." then just whipping it off and lounging around the dining table taps aff and smirking while Q is in equal parts annoyed and salivating in the corner of the kitchen

[catbellybuttons]

at pride today we were trying to explain the chess vibrating anal beads controversy and this span out into us riffing on a chess set that vibrates your anal beads when you put someone into check and you can only cum when you get someone in checkmate ect ect. v funny. now we've been home a few hours and the gf (K) is like

K: imagine James Bond and your man...what's his name... Q?

Me: yes Q...?

K: doing the anal beads chess thing

Me: wait what?

K: James Bond is wearing the anal beads

Me: ...have you seen any of these films?

K: no

Me: I mean i'm down with this conceptually, i'm just confused as to why you think this is a 00q thing...?

K: It just seems like something they'd do

K: you can have that

K: *points at laptop* tell your little friends about that

[catbellybuttons]

hmm maybe I should... crop out all the ao3 tabs... before I submit this receipt for work expenses...

[catbellybuttons]

Bond is back at his old club, after an injury to his right shoulder (inflicted in practice by his protégé Moneypenny, some kind of flèche into a flèche situation) he went through surgery and a lot of physio which meant he was away from the sport for years and he wasn't sure if he wanted to do it anymore. But he gets depressed and starts drinking so when dench!M hears about it she immediately turns up at his flat, tells him to pull himself together and have a wash. She expects him back at the club. She doesn't take no for an answer.

Now he's back in brand new shiny white kit but still looking haggard (he sold all his stuff when he was in mardy about the whole thing and quit) He's having a complex about moving into the veteran's (over 40s) category. Everyone else at the club is in awe of him bc he's a former world champion and Olympic medallist. But that was a long time ago.

There is, however, one person who is absolutely not impressed by his whole shtick, a young upstart épéeist who he's told is new to the club, but seems to be very promising. His quite dismissive when Bond introduces himself so Bond immediately asks him for the first bout. He's a leftie – always something to be wary of – but Bond's not worried. The chap's en garde position is horribly awkward, stiff, slightly hunched. Bond gets an easy first hit to elbow, something like that. 1 - nil. The second hit is more difficult. The bloke does know his distance. Bond pushes him back and hits with a reprise. 2 - nil. Third hit also easy, right in the mask, 3 - nil. Bond grins, he's still got it. Now he's confident he lands and extravagant flick, much to the delight of the small crowd of gathering onlookers. M just rolls her eyes. 4 - nil.

When Q next comes en guard Bond notices something different about him, his postures still awkward, Bond can't put his finger on what it is. He doesn't have to wait long to find out, he lunges but Q gets him with a stop hit to arm. He doesn't even register the second hit at first, one second he's fine the next second the lights are on and the box is beeping. He'd been hit neatly and efficiently right on the joint of his ring finger where it must be just visible below his guard. The next hit lands exactly the same, and the next. He frowns. 4 - 4.

It's not wholly one sided, Bond gets more wary, especially of his hand, but then Q switches it up and gets him three times in the leg. They get twitchy, keeping their distance and toying with each other while the clock runs down. Eventually Q wins out. It's close, but not that close: 12 - 15 and nearly the full 9 minutes gone.

Everyone is fucking horrified and thinks Bond's going to blow a gasket (he's got a history of being a sore loser) but when he takes off his mask and goes for the handshake he's smirking. Q makes a quip and points out the flaws in his technique. Bond listens quietly and smiles. Don't get it twisted he's NOT happy about losing but he has the bit between his teeth now. A new challenge for him to sink his teeth into. Over the weeks and months they fall into this back and forth, Bond starts winning but only rarely, and at some point Bond's like.... hmmm I'm interested

Bond is a sabre and épéeist, Q is a pure épéeist (focus on one thing, no faffing about). Q's handy with electrics and a screwdriver and is always finding some tiny thing to adjust and fiddle with his own weapon.

Bond is rough on his equipment so when he notices this he immediately starts bothering Q to fix everything. "It's not difficult, you'd be perfectly capable of doing it yourself." "I know I just like seeing you work with your hands." "If you've broken another blade I will run you through with it." "No you cannot borrow mine, I know you won't give it back!" "Does that sound like something I'd do?" "Yes! You've done it no less than FOUR TIMES!!".

Bond is a french grip purist, but Q insists on getting him a more ergonomic handle to help compensate for his shoulder injury, and maybe a super bendy blade bc bond loves to flick hit (he's a show off and an arse).

Moneypenny's no longer competing, she's training to be a coach under dench!M and Mallory. Bond is so put out by this and he can't understand it at first but eventually comes around to her being perfectly good but just not enjoying competing anymore/ having other priorities and not wanting to give up her entirely life for sport/ a little bit of residual trauma from nearly killing Bond. Maybe Tanner's a strength and conditioning PT, and a mediocre non competitive foilist, and Bond's former bestie from his Olympic days.

(fencing au tag)

(or read this whole thought process on ao3 (not an actual fic))