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It happens kind of by accident.
Danny’s in the toy store with Charlie, doing that last minute, on the way to a birthday party, gift shopping thing, and thinking this place knows what it’s doing, offering free gift wrap. He’s suggested no fewer than five items to his son, hoping to just get a gift and not be so embarrassingly late that Rachel hears about it. The stuffed seal is just something he picks up in his desperate attempt to get Charlie to pick something. The fact that he doesn’t set it back down after Charlie refuses it, maybe that’s telling, maybe it’s just comforting to him in his moment of stress.
Whatever the reason, it ends up on the counter with Charlie’s eventual selection, gets paid for but not wrapped, tucked lovingly in the bag when they leave the store, and after he drops Charlie off at the party, removing the seal to get to the gift in the bag, it sits on the front seat next to Danny on the drive home.
Well obviously after that it ends up getting carried inside, dumped on the sofa when he kicks his shoes off inside the door, and looking around at his messy (but filled with signs of the busy lives of his children) home, he figures there’s enough other toys adorning his living room that it’ll get lost in with the rest and that’ll be the last he thinks of it.
Except that’s not what happens.
He reheats some Chinese leftovers, putting them on a plate to eat them, because that way he’s being civilized and not a Neanderthal like some people he knows. And since no one is home to object to his viewing choices, he finishes that holiday romance he’d started several months ago and actually found surprisingly comforting, thank you. And it’s probably because of that he ends up cuddling the seal. Not for some other more meaningful reason, like missing his best friend, or wishing he had a warm body pressed entirely inappropriately close to him, or anything.
After the movie (those aren’t tears, that’s just from yawning, it’s been a long week and he’s exhausted, after all) he clears his dishes, and if he grabs the seal on his way to bed, it’s just at this point he’s got used to holding it.
At any rate, that’s how it ends up on his bed.
The fact that that’s where it stays, well that’s probably just because in all honesty, it seems to help him sleep better. And Danny’s not really one to dismiss things that help his sleep. He does try not to think too deeply about it though.
The first time Steve sees the seal, he probably doesn’t even register it, because he’s likely concussed, he’s certainly bruised, and it’s taken all of Danny’s strength to get him washed and in bed before he also passes out, using the excuse of making sure Steve’s still breathing to sleep entirely too close to his partner.
They’re woken far too early with another case, and if it were up to Danny, he’d send the kids on this one and keep Steve in bed all day. To be sure he’s okay, mind you, not for some less wholesome reason. But it’s a friend of the governor, and that means Steve’s hands are gonna be all over this one. Danny deeply regrets the descriptive phrase as soon as he’s thought it, and spends the rest of the day not thinking about Steve’s hands.
The next time Steve sees the seal, he probably does register it, but as Danny’s the one injured this time, he declines to comment, or if he does, Danny’s in no state to notice or reply. He does notice that Steve seems to keep as close to him as he’d done to Steve, but probably that’s just how they do it, manage to sleep yet also be sure the injury isn’t as bad as it looked.
That next morning however, there’s no call, no new case. In fact, Steve makes a call. And then he makes coffee, and eggs, and he makes Danny stay in bed extra long. So he definitely notices the seal, when he picks it up so he can sit inappropriately close to Danny to drink his coffee. The fact he holds onto it while he does really just proves the stuffed animal has some kind of magical power of attraction that oddly makes grown men unable to set it aside.
Well. He sets it aside eventually. When he takes Danny’s tray (mug empty and plate clean) and sets it on the floor next to the bed, then leans forward, presumably to make sure Danny’s not still concussed, and ends up kissing him instead.
After that, the seal stays on the bed, carefully set to the side when they need the extra room, but lovingly snuggled between them otherwise, and cuddled especially on nights Danny’s the only one there.
And that’s how it remains.
Until one day, not too long after that first fine morning, when Steve comes home with another cuddly seal, and that’s how they end up a perfect pair.