sometimes i love to imagine an au where danny has a restaurant when he and steve meet, and since steve doesn't have the excuse of danny being his partner to always have him around he's always coming up with stupid reasons to just hang around the restaurant(even if he's in the middle of a case) or to invite danny(and grace once he meets her) to his house to hang out, and is just unintentionally making it very obvious that he's feelings things beyond friendship for danny and danny realizes "oh this guys repressed as hell if this is gonna move forward at all i gotta make the first move" so he does and they do get together..
and once they're together steves somehow spending even more time at the restaurant(if danny hadn't actually seen five o in action he'd be second guessing if steve even really had a job) and, because he spends so much time just watching and listening to danny be great at his job running a restaurant, he's unconsciously picked up a lot knowledge on what goes into it...and before he or danny even realizes it steve is damn near helping run the restaurant...
danny says he has to call the repair guy for one of the ovens but turns out steve already emailed them while he was at work...one of dannys cooks is sick so now he's short staffed?no problem steve knows the recipes so he can step in for the night...tourists that come in and even new regulars all just assume danny and steve have been together way longer than they actually have and opened the restaurant together.
once grace is older she wants to work there to make extra money, and danny is so happy to have his baby working with him but freaking out because jfc she's old enough to have a job when tf did that happen??? and then nahele comes into the picture and steve knows the best place for this kid is gonna be where his partner is with their own kid(because steve is graces second dad obvi)...and then its all going so smooth then ofc steve has to almost die and danny gives him half his liver and danny knows he can't ask steve to quit his job(he knew what he was signing up for when they met), but sometimes little comments slip out while they're recovering and they're both frustrated so when danny recovers and goes back to work he thinks maybe the breathing room will be good for both of them but steve ofc wants to go with him so he does obviously...then once its after hours and its just steve, danny, grace, and nahele finishing up cleaning and then eating a late dinner there, steve realizes that this restaurant has been like a second job for him since he met danny, and he almost lost it and everything that came with it when he got shot and maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if running a restaurant with his family was his only job...maybe that way he can finally get danny to change the name to Steves...
