#< someone at the network in an increasingly desperate tone of voice. presumably

[five-wow]

when i think about steve's first date with brooke in 10x01 i always think about "that was danny, who i love, very much" and "it's kind of like we're married, me and him" and, of course, the basic premise of steve actively being on a date that was very clearly set up for him by danny only to be constantly interrupted by danny's texts and calls, which danny demands he answers, seemingly not with the intention to be a little affectionately annoying to a friend (that's not the vibe) but instead, well, for literally no justifiable reason whatsoever. however. there's also SO much to be said about when brooke goes "you know what they say about marriage, right? just a friendship recognized by the police", and particularly about the fact that it happens in this context, and that someone wrote this line in a script for this show, because, c'mon. obviously those words further validate the "joke" (in quotation marks. we're on the shipping side of tumblr, you get why) that what steve and danny have is (like) a marriage - they ARE police, they recognize their friendship, that's all the requirements met - but then there's also the layers of, like. steve is on a date with this woman, who he is meeting to see if there's a potential romantic future for them. the kind that leads to love and sex and even marriage, and then he goes oh i love danny so much, and then she goes well marriage is just like friendship! same thing essentially! which is lovely (you should be good friends with the people you choose to spend your life with, that's a healthy basis for any type of relationship) but i do think that maybe, crucially, there are a few generally expected elements to our social concept of marriage that don't pop up in most people's basic definition of friendship, like. romance. or sex. and so here we are, once again, equating steve and danny's friendship (which is the same thing as marriage) to a marriage (in steve's words), now with the added spice of the explicitly romantic context of a date between steve and a woman (heterosexual, so that's allowed to be romance) which danny keeps interrupting, like he's a part of that somehow (?? uh oh, what does it all mean?). and steve picks up the phone. he could have turned it off, but he picks up the phone, and then he goes back to the table, and he doesn't make up some excuse but he says "that was danny, who i love, very much. but sometimes he's a little intense" and then brooke nods and goes "sounds like my ex", which i hadn't even touched on yet because there's just so much going on that somehow "sounds like my ex (who i was married to, because we were in a romantic relationship, and we have kids together)" completely gets drowned out.

and then a few episodes later danny moves into steve's home, which does not have enough beds to accomodate three grown men (junior was there first) unless someone is sharing, and he never moves back out again. "he's a little intense". well yeah, that's one way of saying "sorry brooke, you showed up right in the middle of the last season of one of the wildest tv queerbaits of the current century".