Work Text:
The first time is when he's angry, Steve's so angry, at HPD, at the Governor, at everybody, and Danny just pulls him away. Just a little pinch to the skin and pulling on his t-shirt and leads him away like a child to talk him down.
Steve doesn't even notice him doing it. But then it happens again.
Friday night, the case is wrapped up but Steve thinks there's something in the evidence, something that doesn't sit right, maybe something to do with Wo Fat, so he's sat in the darkened office poring over document after document, his eyes beginning to lose focus. Danny stands in the doorway and just watches him for a moment.
"Babe?" he asks quietly. Steve just murmurs in response, his nose almost touching the screen now.
"Babe, I think it's time to go." Danny folds his arms, hip resting against the door frame as Steve blinks repeatedly, trying to get the text to focus so he can read the witness statement again for the sixth time. Danny sighs. "Alright Steve." he groans as he pushes himself up right and walks towards his exhausted partner. Steve pushes his hand away at first, irritably, sure he's just seen something to do with one of Wo Fat's minions, but Danny keeps plucking at him, pinching the shoulder of his shirt until he turns to face him.
"What, Danny? I'm in the middle of important business you can't just-" but Danny's ignoring Steve's tired objection and pulling Steve up out of the chair by his shirt, fist clenched around the material in a way Steve knows will stretch it horrendously.
"Danny," he whines, hands flapping pointlessly at Danny's strong grip as he's pulled, stumbling slightly, out of the office and towards the car. "Danny c'mon, you'll ruin m'shirt." Danny snorts but loosens his grip slightly, keying in the code to lock the building.
"Steve, you buy your shirts in bulk to withstand jungle hiking and gun fights. I don't think a little stretch is gonna do them any harm." Danny sounds tired now too as they reach the car, and Steve notices the dashboard clock is reading past midnight.
"Oh, woah, woah! Where do you think you're going?" Steve had moved to take the driver's side only to be stopped by Danny's palm resting against his chest. Steve groaned, too tired for an argument.
"I was going to get in the car so I could drive us home, since you seem so adamant about us leaving." Danny's eyebrows do that weird, disbelieving dance that Steve finds so peculiar and oddly endearing.
"Drive? You?" He snorted. "You're about two steps from falling, babe. There's no way I'm letting you drive anywhere." He gave Steve a little push, hand still resting just above his heart. "Go and get in the passenger side, I'll be driving my car for once."
Steve just rolled his eyes, limbs feeling heavy, and stumbled round to the other side. Danny got in the car muttering about 'idiot super SEALs who think they can drive in their sleep' and pulled at Steve's shirt again.
"Wh't" Steve murmured, head resting against the window, eyes closed.
"Seat belt." Danny said.
That was the second time.
*
The third time was when Kono had sent them out shopping for a case, a bizarre one, but one that apparently required six pounds of sugar from a very precise store.
"Danny, she said normal sugar, that's baking sugar." Danny scoffed, turning from the display of brightly packaged dry goods to face Steve who was squinting at the blue packets, trying to work out if cane sugar was regular sugar, or if brown sugar was.
"Baking sugar? Baking sugar, really?" Steve just shrugs and points at the label. Caster Sugar, Perfect For All Your Baking Needs. Danny growls at it and shoves it back onto the shelf rather forcefully.
"Stupid case and stupid too much sugar- why do they even have thirty-five brands of sugar anyway, who needs that?" Danny's beginning to get that look about him that makes Steve expect to see steam pouring out of his ears anytime soon, so he plays for distraction.
"Look at it this way, if Grace ever decides to get into cooking, you'll be the expert on all things sugar." He reaches for the cane sugar, thinking he can just ask the lady at the checkout if this is the right one or not.
"Expert on all things sugar, he says. Expert on all things sugar," Danny's levels of exasperation are beginning to hit new and unexplored heights. "Do I look like a guy who needs to be an expert on all things sugar, Steve, really? They have this thing called google now you know."
"Danny you can barely send an e-mail without help from Kono, you expect me to believe you can use google now?" Steve quips back, walking towards the checkout point. Danny's face flushes slightly but he raises his chin in mock pride.
"I can so use google. How do you think I managed to find out about that football team you were raging on about last week, huh?" Steve paused then, joining the back of the queue and staring at Danny.
"You told me you loved that team!" he actually felt a little bit hurt now, Danny had seemed so enthusiastic about the minor league team Steve had been keeping an eye on that had just made semi-final.
"Well I did once I'd researched them to find out what the heck you were on about." Danny pulled at the front of Steve's shirt, dragging him forward as the queue moved down. "You seemed so happy about it I thought it would be a shame to ruin the moment. But hey, I like them now okay." Steve still felt a little like someone had told him Santa wasn't real but tried to console him by still promising to dress up in a suit every year.
"You lied to me?" he said disbelievingly. "Really Danno, you lied to me?" Danny rolled his eyes, pulling him forward again as it reached their turn in the line.
"I didn't lie to you." He smiled at the check out woman, "Yes, just that please," before turning back to Steve. "I just nodded a lot whilst you were speaking. I promise I like them now." Danny was adopting that tone he used when trying to weasel himself out of trouble with Rachel. He cleared his throat when he realised what he was doing and yanked on Steve's shirt a little harder than he meant.
"It doesn't matter anyway. Pay the lady, Steven, we don't have all day." Steve grumbled as he pulled the wallet Danny had made sure he was carrying before they left Five-O, out of his pocket. As he was waiting for the lady to count out his change Steve pulled his shirt out of Danny's fingers, smoothing it back across his chest and pulling a face at the stretched wrinkles in it.
"Could you stop trying to turn my shirts into leashes already, I'll have to open a new account to cover replacing all the shirts you've stretched out."
Danny rolled his eyes. "Like you don't do enough damage to them yourself. Come on," he said, deliberately grabbing hold of Steve's shirt hem and pulling. "Kono's waiting."
Neither of them realised they'd forgotten to check the sugar was the correct one until they got back to headquarters. Luckily, it didn't matter anyway because their suspect got himself shot by a rival drug gang and the sugar found a new purpose as an improvised hand grenade in the middle of a fire fight. Steve still complained his shirt was out of shape thanks to Danny when the paramedics cut it off to tend to his minor bullet wound. Danny just sighed.
*
The fourth time it happened Steve was wearing a sleeveless shirt, sticking to the wet patches on his body that had yet to dry from where he'd been surfing with Kono and some others. It was a bright, hot June day and they were having a barbeque at Steve's house, Five-O and friends all invited. Danny was perched on the table, looking out across the grass to where Gracie was playing with some of Kono's younger cousins.
Chin was discussing the Kukui High football season with Steve and a couple of officers from HPD when Danny reached out an tugged on Steve's shirt to try and catch his attention.
"Steve, c'mere." He tugged again, distracting Steve from his conversation. "C'mere." Steve sighed and turned to Danny, keeping one eye on the conversation as Danny tugged again. "C'mere."
"I'm here Danny, okay, I'm here." he said exasperatedly, letting Danny pull him into the v between his legs. They were maybe all a little bit tipsy. Danny blinked up at him dazedly for a second.
"Wow, you're really tall." Steve just rolled his eyes.
"How many beers have you had Danny?"
Danny snorted. "I'm not drunk okay, I just wanted to give you this." Danny pressed a thin envelope into Steve's hand. Steve raised an eyebrow, breaking eye contact momentarily to glance down between them at the envelope. He opened it carefully.
"A gift card, really Danno?" but Steve was grinning as he said it, reading over the note on the back of it. For shirts. It was a ten dollar gift card to the local clothing store.
"What, you think I don't listen when you complain at me?" Steve shook his head but they were both grinning stupidly now, suddenly finding the whole thing a lot funnier than it actually was.
"Nah, I think you're pretty good at hearing me, Danno." Steve murmured. His eyes glanced down briefly to Danny's mouth and Danny's grin faltered. He swallowed licking his lips.
"Really?" his voice came out a little higher than he intended.
Steve chewed his bottom lip a little nervously but nodded, his face hopeful and a little vulnerable. Danny swallowed again, hooking his fingers into the neck of Steve's shirt and pulling him closer hesitantly. "Oh." He took a shaky breath, "okay."
The fifth time Danny's lips tasted salty and sharp, the trace of ketchup lingering slightly. He tasted warm and solid and made Steve's stomach begin to flip strangely and burst into a thousand butterflies. The fifth time Danny felt Steve shiver as their cheeks brushed against each other roughly, stubble scratching slightly as he opened his mouth wider. He felt Steve's pulse in the roof of his mouth.
They were pulled apart when Danny felt a soft tugging on his trouser leg.
"Mom says the shrimp is done if you want some. She also said you shouldn't kiss like that in front of me, it's inappropriate. Do you want me to get you a plate?" Danny blinked down at his cheerful daughter and turned redder than he ever had before in his life. Steve dropped his forehead onto Danny's shoulder, body shaking with silent laughter as his ears turned pink as well.
"I, er, I-" Danny's voice came out slightly strangled. He yanked sharply on the bottom of Steve's shirt to try and get him to stop laughing but that only seemed to make it worse. Danny sighed morosely as he noticed Chin and the other HPD officers tactfully looking in the other direction.
"I would love some shrimp honey." Steve snorted against his collar bone.
Steve didn't complain about his shirt being stretched this time.