#00q choose your own adventure
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Love Letters - Day 9
Here we are at the end of our choose your own adventure, friends. I've said this before, but it's been an absolute delight, doing this with all of you, and writing this together. Your choices shaped every step of the narrative, so if you've enjoyed the story, you should feel proud (and if you didn't, uh, not it? 😉)
If you need to catch up on a day or two, you can find the other installments here. I'll keep this post pinned for a day or two as well, and may put the finished version up on ao3 eventually.
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8
Last, but not remotely least: my wife has been making noises about joining Tumblr, because I told her about this, and she wants to read it in its original form. I hope she does, because all of this is for her. 💜
Conclusion starts below the cut!
And tomorrow at noon, as instructed, he would meet Q in front of the Fighting Temeraire.
At precisely twelve o’clock, Bond walked into room 34 of the National Gallery. Q was already there, this time, a reversal of the day they’d met a little over a year ago. He’d swapped his anorak for a wool coat, his suit for a navy blue cardigan and a white button-up, and, in a nod to the day, he sported a navy blue bowtie with tiny white hearts on it. So much had changed, since the last time they’d been here, much of it because of the man waiting for him on the bench, looking at a Turner painting.
“James,” Q said as Bond approached. “You got the package I sent?”
“Yes,” Bond said. “It’s the best thing anyone’s ever sent me, Q. Even without the exploding pen. Though thank you for that, by the way, I still haven’t managed to clean up all the confetti hearts. I even found some in my pants, last night.”
“How in the world—actually, never mind, I’m not sure I want to know.”
Bond gestured to the envelope Q was clutching in his right hand. “And you got your letter as well, I see.”
“Yes,” Q said. “I, ah—I haven’t opened it, yet. You’re going to think it’s silly of me, but I was too nervous.”
Bond sat down beside him. “Don’t be nervous,” he said, taking Q’s hand in his own. “You can open it with me, if you like.”
Q nodded. He squeezed Bond’s hand, and then released it, taking a shaky breath as he opened the envelope and began to read.
My darling Q,
A wise man recently told me that I should be honest above all else, in my letter to you, so I’ll start with a small confession: I have read countless love letters in the last few days, preparing to write my first to you. It was the best thing I could have done, but not for the reason you might think: it showed me that there are as many ways to tell someone what they mean to you as there are people in the world.
I needed to know that, because so many of the traditional idioms people use to describe love didn’t seem to fit the way I feel for you. Take “falling” in love, for example. I haven’t found that to be particularly apt. I’ve fallen from any number of things—helicopters, buildings, construction cranes, moving cars—and loving you hasn’t been like any of that.
I’m beginning to suspect that I’m doing an absolutely shit job of writing this letter, but the thing is, so many people treat pain as a kind of virtue, as something that must be surmounted before you gain anything of value. It’s astonishing how untrue that really is, though, and it’s equally astonishing how long it took me to learn it. How the only reason I’ve begun to learn it is because loving you is the only thing in my life that never hurts.
I’m not trying to say that relationships are effortless. I’m not that daft. What I mean is—loving you isn’t falling at all, Q. It’s a lie-in on a Sunday, with you in my arms, and the cats at our feet, and the certain knowledge that all of me is welcome there. That all of me is home, because by some miracle you know me better than anyone, and you love me anyway.
So much of my life is a fight, and you remain the most effortless surrender.
I love you with all of me, Q. And I always will.
Love,
Your James
Q sniffed, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to swipe at his face. “Don’t look at me. I’m not crying.”
“Of course not,” Bond said. He reached out to wipe Q’s cheeks with his thumbs, and rested his forehead against Q’s. He stayed there for a long moment, leaning into Q, feeling the warmth of his body alongside his own.
“We’re quite the matched set, aren’t we?” Q asked eventually.
“I’d say so,” Bond said. “Oh, and there’s one more thing.“ He reached into the leather satchel at his feet, and pulled out the snow globe he’d bought in Bath. “I bought this to throw Moneypenny and Tanner off the track, but do you know, it’s rather grown on me.”
Q shook it, and watched as snow fell on the replica of the Bath Circus. His smile widened.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
“By the way, I presume that Moneypenny and Tanner aren’t actually having an affair.”
“Do you know, I’d convinced them to go down with me to Bath to mail your package, since we all had the Saturday morning free—I thought we’d make a day of it. If you’d taken the train into Bath, instead of driving, you might have run into all of us. As it was, I had to take the train back by myself. But I gather I had the more comfortable journey.”
They sat in silence for a while longer, looking at the Fighting Temeraire on the wall.
“Does it still make you melancholy, when you look at it?” Bond asked.
“Maybe a little. It’s a melancholy painting, in many ways. A painting about change. But then, not all change is bad, is it? Something ends, and something else begins. Maybe there’s hope in it, in its own way.” Q shifted on the bench, turning to look at Bond. “And what about you? Do you still just see a bloody big ship?”
“Well,” Bond said, considering. “There are actually two ships, sailing toward the viewer, aren’t there? The older, wiser, stately ship, and the younger, cheekier ship there in the front, dragging the older one into the future whether he wills it or no. It’s a metaphor, you see.”
“A metaphor for what, exactly?”
“The ships are a metaphor. The painting’s actually about shagging.”
“Oh my god. And here I was starting to think you were a romantic.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“I do love you, you know,” Q said. “In case you needed reminding.”
“I do,” Bond said. “Frequently.” He reached up to tuck a stray curl behind Q’s ear. “And I love you too. Obviously.”
“Obviously.” Q looked down at his watch. “Do you want to have a look around? I took the day, but if you have to be back at work—“
“There’s nowhere I need to be,” Bond said. “We have time.”
The gallery slowly started to fill up with people, students and tourists and docents giving tours, eddying around the pair of them like boats in a harbor. Some of them may have noticed them sitting there, the agent and his quartermaster, looking for all the world like an ordinary couple on a Valentine’s Day outing. Others never noticed them at all. But they stayed for a long while, and then they were gone, and when they left, they left together.
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📓 pls! 💗
Hi!
I'm cheating because I do have a little bit of this written. It's all mostly notes though, apart from a drabble I wrote but never published because I've been hanging on to this idea forever.
The title (which magically has already come to me) is three nights, and it's 00Q. It was originally meant to be a kind of choose-your-own-adventure about the night James interrupted Q's date in NTTD. I imagined three different ways it could have gone.
Q knew James was alive the whole time, and he'd helped him get set up in Jamaica (I mean, look at the high-tech desks James had with hidden guns in that house!). They've been casually in contact (and casually you know 👀) for five years. When James turns up at Q's house, Q has to lie all night, and James gets exceptionally jealous about the date Q was about to have round. Lots of fun and complicated feelings.
A truly schmaltzy happy ending one where they were never involved before a James left, or at any point over those five years. James returns from exile and flirts his way first into Q's spare bed, then to his master one, and realises Q is it for him.
An angsty one that aligns with the canon ending (don't shoot me). Q and James slept together once after the Skyfall mission - a casual thing that Q would have liked to do again, but then James ran off with Madeleine. They sleep together again when James stays over in NTTD, and Q knows it'll be a lot harder to get over this time. But like anyone whose judgement is clouded when they get involved with James, Q goes along with it all anyway, even as he faces the reality that Madeleine Swann is once again on the horizon. James is a bit cruel in this, I think, but hopefully no more than in canon.
So, all well and good, right? WRONG. There's more!
I'm considering these 'three nights' as alternate timelines which Q gets exposure to upon ending up in hospital at the end of NTTD (I have an explanation, but it's too long to go into now). He's technically dead for a minute, and a guardian (similar to Star Trek's Guardian of Forever but a bit different) shows him some of the alternate paths his life could have taken. In a state of unconsciousness, he has no idea which one is actually real, though the Guardian tells him they all are.
When he wakes, he gets to find out which timeline he's in. And we get to find out which timeline the Q in the story is from.
There's potentially even more complexity after that (ie. Q getting sent back in time to some point in canon with the opportunity to save James), but I'm still noodling. Thank you for sending in this ask, though. It's helped me get a lot of my thoughts in order about it.
Whew, that was a lot! 😅 Let me know what you think!
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My adventure is complete!
Well okay, I reached the treasure, but I have a shipwreck to write so that’s gonna be my own sidequest home. Here is the path I took:
Mt Shinmoedake: Try a genre that is new to you
I wrote scify horror for the first time. It’s chapter 4 in a series of vignettes but you can read the lastest chapter without the others. The story is Haunted
Agent Wai Lin joins you: Create a James Bond X {fandom} crossover with a crossover that’s not currently on AO3
I recently relistened to The Adventure Zone: Amnesty and remembered what crazy characters Muffy and Winthrop are, and apparently no one has yet written a TAZ crossover with Bond. So I filled the void with Shadows at Skyfall
Goldfinger Mansion: Use a trope you’ve never used before
The ever lovely @christinefromsherwood suggested that I write for the trope ‘and they were captured together’ so I did. And it gave me an excuse to use some old OC 00 agents. Presenting, The Star System
A gift from Q: Send an (anonymous) message to someone in the fandom/on Tumblr you don’t regularly speak with wishing them nice things
Well now that would be telling, wouldn’t it.
Kananga’s Cave: Kill a character you’ve never harmed before
I’ve harmed many, but not yet Mallory. (Or at least not that I can remember.) And I was in the mood for a bit of creative poetry. So I did some shape poetry with Their Eyes Were Watching M
Desert Rosa: Make a fancreation for a rare pair you have not created for yet
To wrap it up, I’ve written a little slice of life fic. Whic, yes, is code for I didn’t have an idea for plot but I needed to write something. So here’s some fluff in Strawberries in the Evening.
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Hello! Jumping in your asks re: 00Q fics. They’re not as common as the she dies/she’s evil ones, but there are fics where she says alive and a friend to James even while he’s with Q.
Mlle_Heloise has an amazing choose-your-own-adventure type series where Madeleine’s characterisation is fantastic. Prismatic Bell wrote a great post NTTD fic with a polyamory angle. I’m also writing a NTTD fix-it (username: thestalwartheart) which is about halfway done, exploring the idea that James survived but didn’t manage to make it work with Madeleine. So yes! Those fics are out there and we’re not entirely ignoring NTTD, but the very ending of it usually does get ignored lol (All usernames are for AO3)
Omg, thank you! I love fic Rex’s, I appreciate this so much! I’ll be sure to read them for inspo on how to handle it.
The idea in my head mostly revolves around a song by Christina Perri, called Arms. I finally got to rewatch NTTD tonight with my best friend (it was his first time), and was able to bounce some ideas off him about where my little plot bunny should take off from. I wasn’t sure if I could figure out a way to save James, but also make it so he wouldn’t go back to Madeleine and Mathilde. But I think I came up with something. Now it’s just a matter of sticking with the idea long enough to finish it. I’ve never been able to finish any longer writing before.
Wish me luck!!!
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End of Year Survey Analysis
First off, thank you to everyone who gave us feedback. There were a many more responses than last year so it’s nice to see our fandom growing despite the (continued) lack of new movie.
Events you love
Occult October has been a fan fav for a while now, but we're excited to see that Choose Your Own Adventure April may be an up and coming fan favorite as well. And you all enjoy Writing Workshops, WIP Wednesdays, Saturday Cafe, Supportive Sundays, Watch Parties, Fanfic readalongs, and of course 007 Fest. We will keep doing these!
Events we will retire
Monthly themes all about relaxation are easy themes but they are not the popular ones. August still may be a relaxing month but we'll try our best to keep inspiring creativity every other month. We are also putting Mini Bang on hold for at least a year. Many of you agreed it wasn't as successful as we had hoped for, though we did love all the creations that came out of it. Hallmark January will also not be reprised, as you no doubt already noticed.
Suggestions you had
It's been a common topic of discussion but you all want more things with rare pairs. We hear you loud and clear and are working on developing something specifically to celebrate the non-00Q ships. (Though of course all of our prompts are non-ship specific.)
The artists among you also have given feedback to say that while the art prompts are lovely, they are a little too frequent. We'll resume these with a monthly frequency and also attach these to the monthly prompt emails so you get reminders about them.
Fanfic Readalongs
To clear up some possible confusion: Eastern Hemisphere readalongs are remaining unchanged. These will still be limited to short fics (<2.5k) and will be hosted roughly twice a month.
But based on your feedback we will be starting a new readalong event! This new event will be focused on long fics, reading a chapter or two every week. We aim for this to be at a time more accessible for the Western Hemisphere.
There are still some details to work out on our end, but stay tuned for an announcement about this coming in February.
Miscellaneous
We still need people to step up to host writing workshops. This is always a popular activity but we need you to keep it going. You can reach out to Lin with questions or sign up here.
We also strongly encourage you to organise your own events! Whether it's a game you want to try out, a discord brainstorming session you want help with, an art stream, or whatever. Let us know and we'll help spread the word.
Once again thanks for your feedback. We’ll keep trying new things and as always, let us know anytime if you have feedback or suggestions.
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Love Letters - Day 5
Welcome to Day 5 (!!!) of Love Letters, a 00q choose your own adventure! We're in the home stretch, friends--as a reminder, we'll wrap up on the evening of 2/14, around 9ish EST. If you're joining for the first time, you can catch up here:
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
And for those who have been here for the long haul, come see how your voting turned out! Day 5 starts below the cut. 😁
He just had to make one more stop.
Bond arrived in Q Branch to find Q underneath the hood of one of his cars.
“James,” Q said, straightening up at his approach. He rubbed ineffectually at the engine grease on his cheek, only succeeding in smearing it further. “I didn’t know you were stopping by.”
“Why in god’s name do we have a Ford Fiesta?” Bond asked, leaning against one of the work benches.
“Believe it or not, some of the agents actually appreciate being inconspicuous on their missions. You should try it some time.” Q reached for a rag to clean off his hands. “Are you here just to see me, or...?”
“Just to see you,” Bond confirmed. He held up a bag from the Thai place down the block. “I’ve brought lunch.”
It had been meals like this one that brought them together in the first place. Bond had learned early on that Q, in many respects, was not dissimilar to a giant panda: both of them had to eat almost constantly in order to survive, and like the panda, if left to his own devices, Q’s natural diet was almost entirely devoid of nutritional value, consisting of sour gummy worms, liters of tea, and whatever biscuits he could scrounge from the break room.
He and Bond had barely been friends, in those early weeks after Skyfall—there was a newly-forged trust, and a certain grudging respect, but that had been it. But one afternoon, Q had nearly fainted while fitting Bond for a holster. Bond had stormed down the street to the nearest Tesco, returned to throw a sandwich, an apple, and a packet of digestives at Q’s head, and had stayed in his office until he’d finished them. Before he knew it, he’d fallen into a pattern of bringing Q meals whenever he was in London.
Bond couldn’t pinpoint exactly when these lunches with Q had become the thing that felt most like home to him—more than his empty flat, more than the ruins of Skyfall, more, even, than the halls of MI6 itself. It had happened gradually, a slow thawing of the frozen earth under the relentless advance of spring. And then one day, a few months back, he’d leaned in to wipe a bit of curry from Q’s face, and Q, misreading Bond’s intention, had kissed him.
Bond had never been a selfless man. Self-sacrificing, maybe; reckless with his life and well-being, certainly. But he was selfish at his core, incapable of denying himself the things he wanted most—first MI6; then Vesper; and now Q—curling around them instead like a dragon with his secret hoard. And so he’d kissed Q back, that night, instead of letting him go; kissed him, and gone home with him, and stayed.
Bond lingered over the takeaway containers after lunch, gathering them up to take them to the bins.
“Is everything all right?” Q asked.
“Yes. Everything’s fine. Why do you ask?”
Q smiled, but didn’t answer, reaching out to smooth at the furrow between Bond’s eyebrows with his thumb.
“I’m all right. I just wanted to say…” Bond scrubbed a hand over his face, the words he’d planned suddenly out of reach.
Q sat down on the edge of his desk, his grey-green eyes on Bond as he continued.
“It’s about what you said, the other night, after the movie. I know you didn’t want to talk about it, then—maybe you still don’t. But I wanted you to know—it isn’t just you. I’ve never had a love letter, either, as it happens. I should have told you that night, but I’m telling you now, because I need you to know that any—any lack that you’ve experienced has nothing to do with you. It’s certainly nothing to do with who you are. It’s not a fair world, nor a particularly kind one, in my experience. And if it comes down to whether there’s something wrong with you or something wrong with the world, then the answer is the world. Unquestionably.”
He’d had more to say—at least, he thought he did. But Q was on him, then, knocking the empty takeaway containers out of his hands and kissing him within an inch of his life, and anything else was forgotten.
He wrote the letter in Q’s flat that night, sneaking out of bed while Q slept, the cats curled around his feet. He sat at the kitchen table, the light from the moon coming in the window, and wrote until he’d said all he had to say. He had one last surprise up his sleeve, however, and for that, he needed to go to Bath.
You've probably noticed that Bond did, in fact, write the letter at the end of this segment! If you're wondering how this outcome differs from if you'd picked "sit down and write the letter," the spoiler-free answer is that you would have gotten to read the text of Bond's letter to Q a little bit earlier. You'll just have to wait a little bit longer... 👀
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Love Letters - Day 2
Welcome to Day 2 of Love Letters, a 00q Choose Your Own Adventure! If you missed the first day and would like to catch up, you can read Day 1 here. As a reminder, there will be a post around this time (9pmish EST) every night through 2/14.
From this point on, the consequences of how you choose will be more pronounced--some options may pop up again down the road, but some will be foreclosed for the rest of the story! Choose wisely, and thank you so much for joining in! 😁 Day 2 begins below.
After a moment, he typed, “The one with Mr. Darcy and the governess and the wife in the attic?”
The truth was that while he’d never seen the film, he’d read the book, after finding an abandoned copy in the seat pocket on a flight to Tokyo. It might not have been his usual choice of reading material, but once he’d read the summary on the back and seen that the hero was a navy man, he gave it a go, and ended up finishing it in one sitting.
Not that Q needed to know that, of course.
Q responded with a series of keyboard smashes, an incomprehensible set of gifs, and, finally, “I’m sorry, but I cannot have a boyfriend that confuses Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre.”
This was, admittedly, an even better reaction than Bond had hoped to provoke. They had yet to define their relationship, and Bond had assumed it was better to let it slip quietly into monogamous very-nearly-cohabitation without comment, rather than raise it and risk scaring Q away. But now that Q had opened the door….
“Boyfriend, eh?”
“It was autocorrect. Obviously I was trying to type ‘bastard,’ but my fingers slipped.”
“Naturally. Still, would my boyfriend like to propose a time to watch the film?”
“You’re insufferable,” Q sent back. Followed by, “And we’re watching it on Saturday.”
*💕*💕*💕**💕*💕*💕*
Q sighed, turning down the volume as the end credits for Persuasion played on the screen. “Nothing will ever hold a candle to Wentworth’s letter, for me. It’s the pinnacle of romance. ‘You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.’ Imagine getting a letter like that. It would do me in.”
“You must have gotten a slew of them over the years, surely,” Bond said, resting his head on Q’s stomach.
“A slew of what?” Q asked, carding his fingers through Bond’s hair.
“Love letters.”
Q’s hands stilled. “You’re joking.”
“Why would I be joking?”
Q sat up, peering down at James. “Have you met me?”
James rolled over, bemused. “I have. Which is in no small part why I assume you’ve received a lot of love letters.”
“Flatterer,” Q looked away, flustered, and tried to cover it up by hitting Bond with a pillow. “Look, it’s just—it’s not a self-esteem issue, or anything. I’m exceedingly good at any number of things. But I also know that I’m—a bit cerebral, I suppose, and I work too many hours, and I’m very particular about some things—“
“You don’t say.”
“—and I don’t think I really tend to inspire that sort of passion in people.”
Bond opened his mouth to protest, but Q clamped a hand over it. “Let’s not, please. I’m just woolgathering. I’d much rather talk about how it’s a national tragedy that men don’t wear silk stockings like that anymore.”
“You’d have to have the calves for it,” Bond mused.
“Ciarán Hinds does, certainly.”
“Noticed that, did you?”
“Well, let’s put it this way, I’d let him—“
“You’d let him what? Put the wind in your sails? Climb your rigging?” Bond rolled on top of Q, tickling his ribs. “What does he have that I haven’t got?”
“I think the question is, what do you have that he doesn’t?” Q said breathlessly. “Maybe you should remind me.”
“With pleasure,” Bond said. But as he leaned down for a kiss, an idea began to take shape. He’d let Q change the subject, before. He’d learned that it paid to let their harder conversations breathe a bit, to give Q space to sort things out in his wickedly clever, eminently generous mind. But Q deserved the world, and Bond would give him whatever pieces of it were within his power. And he could give him this, at least. He could give him a love letter.
Although it was possible he might need a bit of help.
You chose chaos the last time, mis amores! But your votes unlocked the 'boyfriend' text exchange that opens this part, so it appears I've rewarded your behavior. 😂
What will you do this time? I can't wait to see!
#Love Letters#Love Letters Day 2#00q#choose your own adventure#00q choose your own adventure#persuasion
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Ani's Fic Master List
As 2022 draws to a close, I'm realizing that I wrote...kind of a lot of words this year, and that it might be time for a pinned post to try to keep track of all the things! So without further ado, may I present the inner workings of my brain 😁:
If you're looking for Love Letters, the recent 00q Choose Your Own Adventure I did in the run-up to Valentine's Day 2023, you can either click through the posts/polls by reading the links on Tumblr, or you can read it all in one place on ao3. Thanks so much to everyone who participated in this wild ride with me, I absolutely loved it !
And for the rest of it:
For the Fluff Lovers:
A Fine Kettle of Phish, Teen and Up, 7200 words. James Bond/Q.
James Bond falls for a spearphishing email, and it falls to Q to give him his mandatory cybersecurity training. This is not going to go well for at least one of them.
Read if you like: epistolary fics; IT shenanigans; humor with heart.
Avoid if: you prefer fics that adhere closely to canon; you have a fluff allergy.
Trick, Teen and Up, 6600 words. James Bond/Q (Background Nomi/Eve Moneypenny). Series: Trick/Treat
James Bond wants nothing more than to convince Q that he's ready for a serious relationship--but in order to do that, he's going to need to figure out what Q's wearing to Moneypenny's Halloween party.
Read if you like: Halloween costume parties; Bond proving he's boyfriend material; Bond and Nomi being just deeply extra.
Avoid if: you prefer fics that adhere closely to canon; you have a fluff allergy.
Treat, Teen and Up, 9500 words. Nomi/Eve Moneypenny (Background James Bond/Q). Series: Trick/Treat
Nomi has two things she absolutely must accomplish by Moneypenny's Halloween party: 1) convince Moneypenny that she's not actually a complete idiot, and 2) help James Bond figure out Q's Halloween costume.
One of these things may be easier than the other.
Read if you like: Halloween costume parties; queer women talking about their feelings; Moneypenny being perfect as always; Bond and Nomi being just deeply extra.
Avoid if: you prefer fics that adhere closely to canon; you have a fluff allergy.
open line, Teen and Up, 2000 words. James Bond/Q.
There was no conceivable excuse for it. Bond had prepared to sign off comms the way he always did—
“I’ll see you in London, Q.”
—and Q, only half paying attention, closing camera feeds, verifying flight paths, had responded—
(Or, Q gets distracted on comms, and says the unthinkable.)
Read if you like: fluffy oneshots; Q and Bond growing closer over comms; public displays of affection in a Tesco.
Avoid if: you have a fluff allergy; you just want to buy some cabbages and don't see why all the kissing is really necessary.
Hoodie, Teen and Up, 400 words. James Bond/Q.
A short 00q prompt fill for the Tumblr prompt "Hoodie."
Read if you like: characters wearing each other's clothes; very short ficlets; Bond getting drinks thrown in his face; Q being oblivious.
Avoid if: you have a fluff allergy; you prefer longer works with more character development.
Home, Teen and Up, 1600 words. James Bond/Q.
A 00q prompt fill for the Tumblr prompt "Home."
Bond didn’t hate his flat, not exactly. It was just that it was always meant to be a stopgap, a temporary landing place after he’d moved back to London eight months before. The rent was extortionate, to be sure; the views dismal; the heating insufficiently calibrated to the wet London weather. The lift was out of service more often than not; the kitchen was cramped; and his upstairs neighbor seemed to listen exclusively to music by James Blunt, but setting that aside—
Bond hated his flat.
Read if you like: domestic fluff; slice of life fics; established relationships.
Avoid if: you have a fluff allergy; you prefer fics where more things explode.
Must Love Cats, Teen and Up, 5400 words. James Bond/Q.
Prompt fill for 2022 Festive Fanwork Fiesta.
Q needs a date to his ex-boyfriend's wedding.
Bond wants to be Q's wedding date.
There are just ten little things he's got to do first.
Read if you like: strong rom com vibes; getting together fics; humor with heart; Q being oblivious.
Avoid if: you have a fluff allergy; you prefer fics that adhere closely to canon.
come y bebe que la vida es breve, Teen and Up, 1300 words. James Bond/Q.
Prompt fill for 2022 Festive Fanwork Fiesta.
“Q,” Bond leaned over to kiss the nape of his neck. “You don’t need to fuss over me.”
“I’m not fussing,”Q said, without turning around. “I’m cooking.
Written for the prompt, "mundane activity done together-shopping, gardening, cooking, etc."
Read if you like: domestic fluff; slice of life fics; established relationships.
Avoid if: you prefer fics where more things explode.
A Good Man, Teen and Up, 2600 words. Benoit Blanc/Phillip. Series: A Good Man 'verse
Blanc set down his glass. “Professor, I’m beginning to suspect that you might be the most interesting person here. Maybe even one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.”
Phillip stared. “Are you taking the piss?”
(Or, Benoit Blanc returns from his trip to Greece, and Phillip reflects on the night they first met.)
Read if you like: domestic fluff; established relationships; memories of getting together.
Avoid if: you prefer fics with more on-page mystery solving.
An Ever-Fixed Mark, Teen and Up, 7100 words. Benoit Blanc/Phillip. Series: A Good Man 'verse
"It’s extraordinarily presumptuous of me, I know, but how would you feel about killing two of the proverbial birds with one stone?”
Phillip shifted in his office chair, his errant heart beating fast again. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, Phillip,” Blanc said, his voice low and pleased, “if you’re amenable, I’d very much like it if you’d come with me to take a look at a painting.”
Or, Blanc and Phillip won't let a little thing like an intractable case get in the way of their first date.
Read if you like: the first work in this series; fluff; first dates; soft mystery boyfriends; a little light mystery solving.
Avoid if: you prefer more emphasis on the mystery and less on the fluff.
Angst with a Happy Ending:
The More Loving One, Teen and Up, 9100 words. James Bond/Q.
On this particular Wednesday, he’s so engrossed in his blueprints and his midday cup of tea that he barely acknowledges Bond when he sidles in and leans on Q’s worktable, hands braced on either side of the trace paper.
“Can you take me to a gay bar?” Bond asks.
Q spits his tea all over the blueprints.
Read if you like: poetry; not actually unrequited love; Bond and Q at a gay bar.
Avoid if: W.H. Auden is your literary nemesis; the initial appearance of unrequited love makes you too sad.
Bad Thing Twice, Mature, 3100 words. James Bond/Q. Series: Cut to the Feeling
It would never have happened the first time, if it weren't for the cardigan.
Read if you like: Carly Rae Jepsen; a hint of smut; Q standing up for Bond; characters being surprised by feelings.
Avoid if: you prefer not to read on-page sex; you think the budget office has a point, actually.
'tis the damn season, Mature, 5400 words. James Bond/Q.
A love story in four Christmases.
Read if you like: stories centered around MI6 holiday parties; James Bond working through some things; hurt/comfort.
Avoid if: discussion of depressive episodes is triggering; you prefer not to read on-page sex.
Hug, Teen and Up, 900 words. James Bond/Q.
Prompt fill.
Q has managed to keep it together, over the last two days, and somehow this is what sends him over: James Bond cradling his hand as if it’s something precious, and the simple promise of care.
Read if you like: tenderness; hugging; established relationships (sort of); comfort; Bond smelling good.
Avoid if: you prefer longer works; you prefer not to read (brief) discussions about Bond sleeping with other people on missions.
This Little Light of Mine, Teen and Up, 3700 words. James Bond and Q (note that this one is pre-relationship).
Prompt fill for 2022 Festive Fanwork Fiesta.
After the events of Skyfall, Bond spends his nights alone and sleepless in his empty new flat.
There's simply no way Q can let that stand.
Read if you like: hints of domesticity with a dash of hurt/comfort; Q being exceedingly clever and a little bit socially awkward.
Avoid if: mention of grief or insomnia are triggering; you only want to read fics where the characters are in a relationship.
rain, Explicit, 5600 words. James Bond/Q.
Prompt fill.
Q opened his mouth to say it, only to close it again, the words stagnating on the tip of his tongue:
Sometimes, I worry that if no one touches me, I might fade away at the edges, until I disappear. Sometimes I think I might have disappeared already.
Or, Q is caught in the rain, and then a silver Aston Martin pulls up beside him.
Read if you like: explicit sex (uhhh lots of it); pining (so much pining); characters being lovingly dried off after being caught in the rain.
Avoid if: you prefer not to read explicit sex; you prefer fics where more things explode.
for the age of the earth, and after, Mature, 800 words. James Bond/Q.
It starts when Bond says, “Tell me how you like it,” and Q says, “Slow.”
Read if you like: smut with feelings; the barest sprinkle of angst; the Kantian idea of the sublime.
Avoid if: you prefer longer fics; you prefer fics with more plot than smut; you simply Kant (see what I did there).
Now With Even More Angst:
and the wind at their backs, Teen and Up, 500 words. James Bond/Q. Archive Warning: Major Character Death.
What he remembers of Q, in the end, is this.
Read if you like: wondering what happened the night Bond spent at Q's in NTTD; gentle explorations of grief.
Avoid if: you need a happy ending; major character death is too upsetting at the moment.
offering, Teen and Up, 700 words. James Bond/Q. Archive Warning: Major Character Death.
“It’s terribly inconvenient, grieving you,” Q says to no one. “Somehow I think you’d like that.”
Q builds an ofrenda for Bond on the Day of the Dead.
Read if you like: día de muertos; gentle explorations of grief.
Avoid if: you need a happy ending; major character death is too upsetting at the moment.
all the flags we've hung, Teen and Up, 2400 words. James Bond/Felix Leiter.
Prompt fill for 2022 Festive Fanwork Fiesta.
“It’s a bitch of a thing,” Felix said, taking a swig of his beer, “loving a country that doesn’t love you back.”
Written for the prompt, "Bond has a habit of breaking into the houses of the people he loves. Felix nearly shoots him."
Read if you like: in-depth explorations of Felix Leiter's character; love in its many forms; complicated relationships to patriotism.
Avoid if: you prefer unequivocally hopeful endings; discussion of racism may be triggering.
For Some Additional Silliness:
A Brief Excerpt from an MI6 Budget Meeting
Some thoughts on Bond's abiding love for Celine Dion
And last but not least, for the Stardew Valley fans:
the very first piece of fan fiction I ever wrote. Be gentle. 😁
#my fic#pinned post#james bond#quartermaster#00q#nomi#eve moneypenny#NomiPenny#felix leiter#00leiter#glass onion#benoit blanc#phillip#benoit blanc and phillip#love letters#00q choose your own adventure
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Love Letters - Day 3
Omg, that last VOTE, you guys. ::Takes a drag of an imaginary cigarette:: You have no idea how frantically I was drafting a contingency conference call scene to try to cover a potential tie. But not today, chaos muppets. Not today.
Anyway, welcome to Day 3 of Love Letters, a 00q choose your own adventure! If you're joining for the first time, you can catch up here:
Day 1 Day 2
As a reminder, there will be a post around this time (9pmish EST) every night through 2/14. Day 3 starts below the cut!
In fact, he might need to talk to Felix.
“James,” Felix said, answering the phone the following morning. “To what do I owe the singular pleasure of you waking me up an hour before my alarm goes off?”
Bond looked at his watch. “It’s 6:00 there.”
“Exactly.” There was a rustling sound as Felix got out of bed. “Espera un momento, mi cielo, ya regreso.”
“If you have company, Felix, I can phone you again later.”
“No, no, I’m up. I can give you five minutes.”
“Is that what she—“
“James, I will hang up on your ass.”
“Fine, all right, hang on. Look, it’s ah—it’s a bit personal.”
“Personal, huh? Don’t you have an entire medical unit for that sort of thing?”
“Christ, Felix, thank you for the vote of confidence. No, it’s nothing like that. I wanted to ask—let’s say, hypothetically, that you wanted to send a love letter to someone who had never received one before. Someone who didn’t seem to think they deserved one, despite the fact that they deserve one more than anyone you know. And suppose you wanted to remedy that. Romantically. What would you say to them?”
“Hypothetically.”
“Yes, obviously. Hypothetically.”
“Love letters,” Felix mused. “Brings back some memories. Look, if you really want my opinion, I think it comes down to honesty. You and me—we’re professional bullshitters, my friend. And anyone who loves us enough to stick around is going to know we’re bullshitters. ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ and that sort of flowery shit is for people who make an honest living. But giving the person you care about something true—something real—that’s the good stuff. Be honest about why you love him and why it’s important to you that he know. It is a ‘him,’ right? Because if it’s not Q, I’ll shoot you and throw your body in an Amsterdam canal with all the goddamn stolen bikes.”
“That’s oddly specific, Felix.”
“Yeah, well, two guesses where I just went on vacation. And another two guesses what happened to my fucking bike.”
“Noted. But for the record, yes, it’s Q.”
“Good. You two deserve each other. Be good to him. I like that snarky little shit.”
He could do honesty easily enough, Bond thought as he hung up the phone. Q already knew more true things about Bond than anyone else living, which, admittedly, was not something Bond had ever let himself examine too closely. But he needed more than honesty to work with, if he was going to write Q a love letter that rivaled Captain Wentworth’s. Significantly more.
**Partial authorial credit for this section goes to the entire sleeve of Girl Scout cookies I stress-ate while waiting for the poll to close! 😘
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Love Letters - Day 1
Happy February, friends. After the January I’ve had, I wanted to do something lighthearted and fun this month, and I happened to get polls this week, so I decided a 00Q “choose your own adventure” might fit the bill! This one will start tonight, and there will be a story update with a CYOA plot-determining poll every night around this time for a little over a week. If I time it right and you chaos muppets don’t take the plot in a completely wild direction, the last poll will be the night of 2/13 in my time zone (EST), and on 2/14 (I know I know Valentine’s Day yes) will be the epilogue/wrap up.
The CYOA poll will be open for 24 hours, starting now! I’ll make sure to link to the previous day’s post in each new post, so you can follow along. Have fun! I can’t wait to see what you do!
By the time the fifth text from Q arrived, Bond could see the writing on the wall well enough.
He’d purchased the dodgy in-flight wifi on the trip from Bogotá to London in no small part so he could receive Q’s updates from his biweekly wine-and-film nights with Moneypenny. In Bond’s experience, Q had a tendency to get increasingly tipsy as the night wore on, and in the three months they’d been dating, Bond had quickly learned that it brought him no end of amusement to save screenshots of the texts to tease Q about when the opportunity presented itself. He was particularly fond of the shade of pink, a shade not otherwise occurring in nature, that Q’s cheeks turned when Bond confronted him with a particularly lascivious text, like the one from the Roman Holiday film night a month ago that read simply, “Gregory Peck cld ride me like that Vespa.” Q had threatened to steal Bond’s phone and blow it up. Bond had threatened to have the text embroidered on a pillow.
But tonight, it appeared something had gone terribly wrong, because Q’s texts were becoming more, rather than less, clear as the night wore on, with increasingly pristine grammar and punctuation.
“I don’t know what made the studio think they ought to do a remake of Persuasion when the BBC version from the 90s was perfect” was the first sign that the evening had gone downhill. By the time Bond got the text decrying the remake as an “offense against nature and Jane Austen,” it appeared some sympathy was in order.
“I’m appalled to hear it,” Bond typed. “What a shame.”
Three dots appeared, stopped, and reappeared as Q typed out a message.
“You’ve never seen the BBC version at all, have you???”
Bond rubbed absently at the scruff on his cheeks—he’d had no time to shave before catching his flight—and considered his response.
#Love Letters#Love Letters Day 1#00q#choose your own adventure#00q choose your own adventure#persuasion
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Love Letters - Day 6
I have to say, in this entire week of CYOA, I have never been so grateful that a vote didn't tie--I had no idea how I would have managed to write Bond simultaneously taking the train AND the Aston Martin to Bath, absent some sort of weird train auto-transport sort of situation.
Anyway, welcome to Day 6 of Love Letters, a 00q Choose Your Own Adventure! There will be three more installments after tonight--polls on Sunday and Monday, and a final wrap up on Tuesday, 2/14. I'll post each night around 9:15ish EST.
If you need to catch up on a day or 5, you can do so here:
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
And for everyone else, Day 6 begins below the cut! 🎉
He’d go in the morning, and he would take the Aston Martin.
On paper, at least, the train was faster. But then again, most people making the drive didn’t have the benefit of a car that was capable of going nearly 230 kilometers an hour, and a permanent flag in the system that told any law enforcement personnel looking up his license plate not to pull him over.
Bond made the trip in an hour and fifteen minutes.
His first stop was to the small bed and breakfast where he’d reserved a room for the weekend after Valentine’s Day. The proprietor showed him the room, answered his questions about nearby restaurants and bars, and confirmed the menu for breakfast. That task accomplished to his satisfaction, Bond set out for the post office.
The idea of driving 180 kilometers to mail a letter simply so it would have a Bath postmark had been whimsical at best, and ridiculous at worst. But once the idea lodged itself in his mind, he couldn’t shake it loose. The decision to visit a prospective bed and breakfast for a holiday weekend with Q had made the trip slightly easier to justify, but Bond would have made the drive without it.
When they’d first fallen into bed together, he’d been ready to pull out all the usual stops to try to impress, but it hadn’t gone precisely to plan. It wasn’t that Q was immune to his charms, exactly. It was just that everything seemed to make him equally happy—he was as delighted by a weekend in Paris as he was by a night in an airport hotel, catching a few hours with Bond in between his flights to one city or another; he was as pleased with dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant as he was with takeaway on the couch. It seemed the only luxury he craved was the one Bond could least guarantee, given his line of work: his time. And so when a rare opportunity to indulge Q’s latent romantic streak reared its head, far be it from Bond to let it pass him by.
In the post office, he read through the letter one last time before folding it carefully and tucking it into the envelope. He addressed it to Q, added a stamp, and sealed the envelope, writing across the back the lines he’d copied from Q’s copy of Persuasion one evening when Q had stayed late at work: You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. When he was done, he took a deep breath, and dropped the letter in the mail.
As he was walking back to the car park where he’d left the Aston Martin, a familiar figure ducked into a patisserie across the street. Though he’d only caught a fleeting glimpse, it was enough to recognize her. Even setting aside the fact that he saw her nearly every day at work, it was impossible to forget the face of someone who had shot you off a train.
Not to be extremely in my feelings or anything, but it has been so much fun doing this with all of you--thanks so much for playing along so far!
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Love Letters - Day 4
I don't know how it's possible, but we're already almost halfway through! You all have made this so much fun, and it's been an utter delight for me so far. 💜 If you're joining for the first time, you can catch up as follows:
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3
As a reminder, there will be a post around this time (9pmish EST) every night through 2/14.
And for those who are all caught up, welcome to day 4 of Love Letters, a 00q choose your own adventure! Congratulations, fellow nerds, you've unlocked the library. Day 4 starts below the cut.
His next stop should probably be to the library.
“Can I help you find anything?” A librarian with bright pink hair and a beard to match walked up to where Bond lingered in front of the new acquisitions shelf, trying to get his bearings.
Bond opened his mouth to decline, but he only had an hour and a half before he had to be back at MI6 for a meeting with the Budget Office, and not much idea where to start. Besides, he’d made sure nothing he borrowed could be traced to him, anyway. He’d taken out the library card in Mallory’s name.
“I don’t suppose you have any books on love letters?”
“Books about love letters? Or with examples of them?”
“Yes. Both. Either.”
“Well, you’re in luck. I pulled a few things that might be of interest for our Valentine’s Day display. It’s just over here.”
Bond followed the librarian, whose name badge read “Kai,” to a table decorated with construction paper drawings of candy hearts. They picked up a book called Indelible: Queer Love Letters through the Ages. “This just came in last month, and it’s gorgeous. Give it a look and see if it’s what you need.”
Bond took the book to one of the nearby tables and began to page through.
Before he knew it, nearly an hour had gone by. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, exactly. Perhaps that love letters from real people would be somehow less than the fictional letter Austen had written for Captain Wentworth—less profound, and more prosaic. There were mundane bits, to be sure, but somehow even they were suffused with light; enhanced, rather than diminished, by the love that brought them into focus.
“I just miss you,” Vita Sackville-West wrote to Virginia Woolf, “in a quite simple desperate human way…I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal.”
And there was profundity, too, a humanity that banked itself like the embers of a fire against the darkness that threatened to overwhelm it. Near the middle of the book, Bond found the letters of Wilfred Owen to Siegfried Sassoon.
“And you have fixed my Life—however short,” he wrote, almost a year to the day before he was killed in action, barely a week before the end of World War I. “You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me. I spun round you a satellite for a month, but I shall swing out soon, a dark star in the orbit where you will blaze.”
“What do you think?” Kai asked, returning to Bond’s table.
Bond cleared his throat. “It’s perfect,” he said. “Could I check this out?”
“Of course. I’ll meet you at the circulation desk.”
Kai took Bond’s library card and scanned it, saying as they did so, “You know, the editors of this anthology are putting together a companion version of contemporary letters. They’re asking people to send in copies of letters they’ve received, to show what love looks like now. If you’re fond of love letters, you should think about sending some in.”
Bond looked down at the circulation desk, rubbing ineffectually at a scuff mark with his finger. He thought of a flooded building in Venice, and all the hopes that had collapsed with it; of the dozens of married women and the handful of married men for whom Bond had been an excuse to pretend, for an hour, or an evening, or a week, that their lives were something more than a string of indistinguishable, empty days. He’d been happy to let them, at the time. He’d been using them for the same thing, after all. But there had been no love letters for him, either, even if he’d never felt the lack until now.
“No,” he said after a moment. “No, I don’t have anything I could send in.”
“Well, you never know,” Kai said, handing over the book. “Valentine’s Day is coming up. You might get lucky.”
“You never know,” Bond said, slipping his library card back in his wallet. “Thanks again.”
As he walked back to MI6, the book safely wrapped in his jacket, he thought, finally, that he might have everything he needed to write Q a proper love letter.
I made up the title of the book Bond looks through, but the love letters (and many more like them!) are real. You can find the letter from Vita Sackville-West here, and the one from Wilfred Owen here.
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Love Letters - Day 7
Welcome to Day 7 of Love Letters, a 00q choose your own adventure! We are in the final stretch now--there will be one more poll tomorrow night, and then we'll wrap on Tuesday, 2/14 around 9:15ish EST.
If you're joining for the first time, you can catch up here:
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6
And if you've been voting with us all along, finally--finally--you've unlocked Eve Moneypenny! Well done, chaos muppets. Day 7 starts below the cut. 💜
He didn’t know what had brought Moneypenny to Bath, but it was imperative that he follow her and find out.
Bond waited in the shadow of a newsstand, pretending to look at magazines, until Moneypenny came out of the patisserie, carrying a small pink box wrapped in twine. After a moment, he began to follow, taking care to stay out of her line of sight. This close to the river, the February air had a wet chill to it that made Bond grateful for the scarf he’d brought with him from London. He wrapped it closer around his neck, taking care to arrange it so that it would further obscure his face from view if Moneypenny turned around.
He followed her south for awhile, and then west, toward the Pulteney Bridge. As Bond dodged patrons coming out of a coffee shop, Moneypenny suddenly turned down an alley behind one of the shops.
Bond picked up his pace, trying not to lose her. When he turned the corner, he found Moneypenny aiming a gun at him. Again.
“Once wasn’t enough, Moneypenny?”
“Jesus, Bond,” Moneypenny said, lowering her weapon. “You might want to consider redoing your surveillance training. I realized I had a tail three whole blocks ago. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I might ask you the same thing.”
“I’m meeting someone.”
“Meeting whom, exactly? Did Mallory send you?”
“There you are, Eve,” said a voice from behind them. “Have you seen—“ Tanner stopped in his tracks. “Oh. Bond.”
“All right, what’s going on?”
Tanner opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Moneypenny grabbed him by the hand. “Fine. You’ve caught us. We’re having a bit of a lover’s holiday.”
Tanner looked from Moneypenny’s face to their joined hands and back again before saying, “Yes. A lover’s holiday.”
“I thought you were seeing that redhead in accounting. Brenna something.” Bond said.
“Yes, well, that’s why we’re sneaking around in Bath. Tanner hasn’t broken it off yet. Poor thing, she’s going to be devastated when she finds out.”
“Oh my god,” Tanner said faintly.
“But people bounce back. Brenda will bounce back, Tanner.”
“It’s Brenna.”
“Anyway, Bond, I don’t think you ever told us while you were here.” Moneypenny folded her arms.
Bond folded his arms back at her. “I’m here to buy Q a Valentine’s Day present. He’s been on about Bath since he watched Persuasion with you.”
“So you’re here to buy him—what, exactly?”
Bond reached for the first thing that came to mind. “A snow globe, if you must know. Of the city.”
“That’s surprisingly sweet. Let’s see it.”
“I haven’t bought it yet. I’m still looking.”
“Luckily for you, there’s a souvenir shop just around the corner,” Moneypenny said breezily. “Shall we go together?”
Twenty minutes later found Bond driving back to London with an extortionately-priced snow globe featuring a replica of the Bath Circus, and Tanner and Moneypenny crammed into the passenger seat of the DB8.
“We really could have taken the train back, Bond,” Tanner said.
“Really,” Moneypenny added, turning away to tap out a message on her mobile, accidentally elbowing Tanner in the stomach as she did so.
“Nonsense,” said Bond. “I insist. This will be much quicker. I know it’s a squeeze, but you lovebirds don’t mind a bit of a cuddle, do you?”
“Not at all,” Moneypenny said, smiling in a way that suggested she’d quite like to cut his brake lines.
“Unless there’s a reason you wanted to take the train, of course. If there is, just let me know, and I can drive you back to the station.”
“Well—“ Tanner began.
“No, no reason,” Moneypenny said. “I’m sure we’ll all enjoy the drive.”
“I know I will,” said Bond. He pulled up the music app on his phone, searched for the album entitled “Scotland: Bagpipe Classics,” and hit play.
Back in London, he dropped Tanner and Moneypenny in front of her building. Before they could walk away, however, Bond rolled down the driver’s side window.
“Moneypenny,” he called after her. “Why were you and Tanner really in Bath?”
She walked back to the car and bent down to look in the window. “You first. I want the truth, Bond. Were you really there for Q?”
“Yes, I was. I can promise you that.”
She studied him for a minute, before saying, “Then let’s just say we have a mutual interest.”
She turned and walked away, lifting a hand in farewell.
Two days later, Bond received a package in the mail. It was a small, narrow box wrapped in brown paper, addressed to Bond in Q’s unmistakeable handwriting, and bearing a postmark from Bath.
Inside the box was an elegant fountain pen, the same cloudy-grey color as the Aston Martin, with the initials ‘JHB’ engraved on it in a looping monogram.
It couldn’t be.
Bond examined the pen from every angle, taking care not to drop or shake it, even though surely Q wouldn’t have sent the pen through the Royal Mail if it contained explosives.
At least, Bond didn’t think.
He ran his fingers over the pen one more time, feeling for a catch or a hidden button, but aside from its beauty, the pen appeared to be unremarkable. Unless—yes. There it was.
There's no way I'd let you accidentally blow up Bond right before the end of this choose your own adventure, right?
*OR WOULD I...???* 😁
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Love Letters - Day 8
Somehow we've done it, friends: here we are, at the very last poll in our choose your own adventure journey. Tomorrow night, around 9:15 EST, once the results are in, I'll post the conclusion of our story.
If you're joining for the first time, or if you've missed a day or two, you can catch up here:
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7
And for those of you who are all caught up, it's time to see what you have wrought! Mad respect to @amongthejumbledheap, who successfully guessed that the pen--well, you'll see. Day 8 begins below the cut!
Steeling himself, he twisted the barrel.
There was a spark of light, and a puff of smoke, and a shower of pink, red, and white confetti in the shape of tiny hearts rained down on Bond’s kitchen, littering the surface of the table and sticking to the front of his jumper. Once the air had cleared, Bond could see the piece of paper that had been rolled up tightly and placed in the open chamber of the pen.
“Well played, darling,” Bond murmured to himself as he drew out the note. He unrolled the paper, and began to read.
Dear James,
There’s something almost anachronistic about a love letter, isn’t there? There are innumerable other ways to tell someone you love them, these days, almost all of them faster and more convenient than sending a letter through the mail.
Or maybe ‘anachronistic’ isn’t the right word, after all. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that they’re timeless. Put another way, I suppose you could say that love letters are a kind of defiance of time, a written record of the love between two people that can endure long after the people who shared that love are gone.
I’ve never really believed in any kind of afterlife, myself, and I suspect I will quickly be lost to history, when I am gone—one of the consequences of a job, and a life, where one is primarily a position, instead of a name. But I think I could believe in an afterlife like that, where the part of me that loves you is the part that carries on, even after time has done its worst with the rest of me.
You, I think, will be remembered for any number of things, living on in fame and infamy alike. I have never had any doubts in that regard. But I hope when they tell your story, that at least a part of it will be this: that you were loved, fiercely and without equivocation, by someone who counted every hour with you a small miracle, in a world without many of them to come by.
All that, and I still haven’t said the actual words, have I? I love you, of course, wildly and out of all proportion and without any sense of self-preservation. But any other way would hardly be equal to you.
Come and find me at noon on Valentine’s Day. I think you can guess where.
Yours,
Q
Bond stayed at the table, reading and rereading the letter until the sun slipped below the horizon, and he was forced to get up to close the blinds and turn on the lights. He wanted, more than anything, to go to Q then, and to tell him, with words or without, what the letter had meant to him. But the instructions in the letter had been clear—Q had been clear—and Bond could wait one more night.
💜💜💜💜
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Tanner is pulling ahead in today’s 00Q choose your own adventure installment! You all continue to surprise me, I was convinced Moneypenny was going to sweep! There are still 8 hours left to vote, though, so... 👀 😁
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Q: What do Bond, Tracy Chapman, and the voters in today’s 00q choose your own adventure have in common?
A:
(You’ve apparently got a fast car. 😁)
Nine more hours to vote on planes, trains, and automobiles!
#love letters#00q choose your own adventure#impossible not to make the Tracy Chapman joke here sorry
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