After dannyandrusty, Livingston is my favorite.

And ok...how horrible am I that I am wishing for an AU Falling Like Dominoes where Livingston set up the prison records surveillance for Danny, so Danny KNEW what was happening to Rusty?!

*smile*

Somehow, I was expecting to really not like the idea of Rusty/Livingston (partly because I don't really like the idea of Rusty with anyone other than Danny, unless it's with Isabel, and she understands DannyandRusty, and partly because I didn't think they'd work together), but I ended up really liking it. And I love the end. And I think you make Rusty/Livingston work.

I love the emotion of this chapter. You made the characters so real. Thank you for sharing.

I loved it.

Even though Rusty was without Danny, which is always a little sad :)

oh my gosh. this is just so sweet! It's always sad when Rusty is without Danny, but it was so fun seeing Livingston and Rusty have a good time. thanks!

*takes bow* Glad you liked it. :)

Love the opening and the description of Rusty rolling up in people's lives and people just accepting that as a condition of knowing Rusty.

Also, quite liking the image of candy apple being eaten Rustystyle. Nobody taught him the trick either and really, why would they? Livingston, who certainly wouldn't, just standing and blinking for a moment in the face of recalcitrant candy being removed. And wondering whether the enquiry after another candy apple was because he was hungry, wanting to be warned or just wanting to recreate the moment.

Giggling for the dentist and the subterfuge and sigh for the correction "We...I...". And love that Livingston is sensitive enough not to mention Danny and that he understands some of what Rusty is feeling.

Smiling for the Livingston legal work and loving the picture of plans being made. Just that little brain wandery moment. And then the Dannylack is brought up. Indirectly and accidentally and unavoidably.

Love that Livingston asks him. Impressed that Livingston has the presence of mind to ask him. But right and the honourable thing and one of the reasons Livingston is Livingston.

Sigh for Livingston thinking around the ache of missing Danny. Not just being unable to communicate in any way, not just the lack of joint plans, not just the lack of downtime but the lack of the tactile. And even though Danny is so much more the tactile one, Rusty would miss that so much. That closeness. The physical that doesn't have to be *physical*. Livingstonawareness spot on.

Giggling a little for the aftermath and the "I guess that's okay then?" and the "I thought we said we weren't going to do this again?". Yeah. There's going to be an eleventh time. ;)

The other times of comfort and joy and this:

"Rusty had explained the third camera to Danny using bread rolls to represent them, glasses of orange juice to represent the cameras, and the cruet to represent nothing that Livingston understood"

just keeps making me laugh loudly. And Danny's reaction to the awkward blurting out was *perfect*.

Rusty's birthday and sigh for the ones before Danny not mattering. And of course they would matter to Danny. Very much so. And like that they have started mattering to Rusty now. And the cake of impossibility and the wonderful present that only Danny can provide.

And Livingston understanding so much. And knowing exactly what Rusty needs alongside the comfort and the company. The best birthday present he could give him.

Still love the 12 days of Augustus Fairbrook. Even more, I love the story. I think you are the only writer who could make this pairing as believable and wonderful as this. Thanks for sharing.

poor Danny-less Rusty :/

This was sweet and lovely, I love your Livingston perspective.

Oh I ADORE when you write Rusty/Livingston! That was...it was...I'm finding it hard to put into words just how adorable and cathartic that was because I've just read it after a marathon session of essay writing, but it was just what I needed. Thank you! You never let me down!

Loving the use of 'recalcitrant', by the way.

I like them too. Beautiful. A wonderful, well balanced, deeply nuanced story, like a great wine. The vulnerability, the passion, the friendship. The understanding what's not said and the getting that you're not getting it. The wanting to help and the acceptance that you can't and then accidentally offering something precious. I like the way you write DannyandRusty, it's a joyful, bright spectacle out of this world. But I like how you write Rusty/Livingston because it is like touching that bright spectacle with Livingston's hands. It's like an homage to the geeks and the underestimated and it makes Rusty so loveable that he doesn't.

Good to see you back! And thank you for this little gem. :)