AU where danny did not suddenly get internet savvy somewhere between seasons 1 and 8, so:
1) he does that adorable grandpa thing where he totally misinterprets texting acronyms, and he ends most of his texts to grace with “LOL”, thinking it means “lots of love”
2) he 100% definitely ends nine out of ten texts with “…”, which drives kono crazy. she thinks it’s bad, until she commiserates about it with grace one day and gets shown a dozen texts from one week that all look something like “good luck on your math test today, monkey… LOL…”
3) there are a few days after danny gets a new phone (because some five-0 shenanigans destroyed the last one) where he texts exclusively IN ALL CAPS. EVENTUALLY CHIN GROWS WEARY OF BEING VIRTUALLY YELLED AT ALL THE TIME AND SHOWS DANNY VERY PATIENTLY HOW TO turn it off.
4) danny discovers emoji and probably ends up sending poor steve very inappropriate combinations by accident, like 👅🍆 💦, and steve chokes and almost crashes his truck during the drive to danny’s place even though he’s standing still at a light when he opens the message, so he texts back “???” in a major but quietly hopeful panic. tragically, in the end he discovers that danny really just meant “hope you’re hungry because i’m making us an eggplant casserole and i washed the vegetables really well because i’m not a neanderthal who performs surgery on people without washing their hands”. which is of course totally the commonly accepted meaning for that combination of symbols. yes. steve doesn’t cry a little about this at all.
5a) when danny and rachel get closer again they start texting a lot because it’s easier to fit into their busy lives than phone calls. things take a possibly flirty turn (without emojis, other than maybe a heart here and there) and it’s all great, but then rachel suddenly seems to pull back when danny keeps referring to steve as his bf and danny doesn’t understand why in the world she seems so surprised and even hurt that he would consider steve his best friend, but really, if she doesn’t like how close he is to steve then that’s her problem and maybe rekindling their romance wasn’t such a good idea after all.
5b) of course steve eventually badgers/bribes/argues his way into reading the text conversation where things between danny and rachel went wrong with his own eyes, and danny watches steve look very engrossed in the literature and when steve finally looks up he’s slightly redder than usual (sun burn, maybe; danny makes a mental note to stock steve’s cabinets with sun cream) and he asks danny what danny thinks bf means and danny is like “best friend, obviously, duh, what else” and steve nods with an almost suspiciously serious face and goes “right, yes. you should definitely keep calling me that.”
6) in the end, tani probably ends up gifting danny a book about the ins and outs of modern texting lingo for christmas so they can all stop suffering. steve is first mad (he was enjoying danny’s cluelessness, tani, how dare you) and then deeply grateful (a turn which pretty neatly coincides with the moment danny realizes that he’s accidentally been sexting steve for years and decides that there’s no point in holding back from flirting irl anymore). ((“hey, so maybe we should try the sex part without the texting. i’m a lot better at one than the other.” “i hope you’re not going to need tani to give you an instruction manual this time.” “shut up. do you want me to touch your eggplant or not?”))
dailybridgerton
areudirty
dededos
janainaart
stormborns
gummygunk
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
