Just a reminder for everyone: At this point in the series (S02E12 "Alaheo Pau'ole"), Danny is living at the Hilton Hotel because he put his business card in some kind of "Hilton Christmas raffle" and won a free room. Also, preparations for Chin's wedding are going on. Good fanfic fodder!

- "Yeah, yeah that's fine," Danny heard himself say.

No point in being here without Steve. -

It was only when Danny walked out of his hotel room the next morning to find a sleeping Steve outside his door that the events from the night before fully hit him. It was not that he had forgotten them or tried to ignore them. As a matter of fact, Steve had been the first thing he had thought about when he had woken up an hour prior. But after laying in his bed and puzzling about the whole thing for nearly half an hour, he had come to the conclusion that Steve was a touchy drunk—and when he realized who he was touching last night, he had freaked out. It left Danny with a surprisingly disappointed feeling, but he had avoided thinking too much about why he was disappointed. Until he found himself staring at Steve, curled up and snoring like a baby on the floor outside his door.

"Uh, Steve?," he asked, kneeling down to examine his partner more closely.

"Hey, Steve."

Danny reached out and gently shook his partner's shoulder. He felt Steve tense beneath his hand. Steve's eyes snapped open and locked on Danny's face confusedly for a minute before he relaxed again.

"Oh, it's you. Hey, Danno," he said sheepishly, avoiding eye contact as he raised himself up into a sitting position.

"Surprise!" Danny said dryly. "Did you expect someone else when you decided to spend the night outside my door?"

Steve opened his mouth and then closed it without saying anything. He took a deep breath and then looked Danny in the eye. They sat there in silence for a minute, just staring at each other.

"Uh, do you mind if I come in?"

Danny nodded and stood up, heading back into his room. Steve trailed along behind him and stopped just inside the door. He turned and shut it behind him. He stood there for a few seconds, staring at the door before facing Danny. Steve looked embarrassed, but his shoulders were squared determinedly.

"Danny. I want to apologize for what I did last night. It was completely out of line," he said, looking his partner directly in the eyes. "I won't do it again, and I really hope that you can forgive me."

Danny's eyebrows quirked up in surprise, but then settled back down into a frown.

"What specifically am I supposed to forgive?," Danny asked.

Steve stared at him for a moment before replying.

"Well, I groped you in the middle of a dance club. Friends don't usually do that to their friends—"

He trailed off as Danny's face moved much closer, just inches away from his own. His hand scrabbled against the door, searching for the doorknob so that he could put some space between himself and his partner. Then Danny's hand settled on top of his own, stilling its search.

"You know," Danny whispered, eyes fixed on Steve's lips. "I don't mind anything you did to me last night."

Then Danny looked up into Steve's eyes and said, "You want to be the kind of friends that grope each other?"

Steve stopped breathing. He wanted to nod, but he was not sure his head was working properly. Instead he licked his lips and mumbled something that might have been "hell yes" before pulling Danny into him. One hand rose to cup his partner's nape, guiding Danny's mouth to his own. The other hand circled across Danny's lower back to pull his partner's pelvis tight against him. When Danny's tongue tickled across his lips, he moaned. His moan was answered by a growl from Danny, and then Steve felt his back slam against the door as Danny's arms locked around his biceps and shoved him backward into it. Steve did not know how long they remained plastered together, kissing passionately. He desperately wanted to move his hands over Danny's body and learn his partner, but he was afraid the slightest movement would break the moment. Danny's lips formed a grin beneath his own. Opening his eyes, Steve found his partner staring at him with eyes crinkled in a smile.

Between kisses, Danny said, "I bet this was not how you imagined your apology ending, Steven."

"Mmmm," Steve replied.

And despite his best efforts not to, Steve snuck his hand under Danny's shirt and began to move up and down his partner's back, lightly caressing. Danny shivered under Steve's touch and gave a slow, gentle thrust against Steve. Reaching his hand and threading it into Steve's hair, Danny pulled Steve away from where he had been licking his neck and touched his forehead to Steve's. He watched Steve's face as he thrust against him with long, slow movements. When Steve's eyes began to flutter shut, he twisted his fingers slightly in Steve's hair and tilted his partner's head forward, whispering in his ear, "I want you to be looking at me when you come."

Steve leaned his head back against the door, staring down at Danny with half-lidded eyes. He began to move in time with Danny, but he could not maintain his partner's sedate pace. His breathing grew more erratic, as did his movements against Danny. When Danny leaned forward and nipped the side of his neck, Steve lost it. With Danny's eyes firmly locked on his, he felt himself let go. Danny followed him over the edge a few seconds later.

Finished, they remained where they were, breathing heavily. Steve's back was against the door, Danny slumped heavily against him. Danny's head rested on Steve's chest, and Steve's hand gently circled in the small of Danny's back. It was a few minutes before either of them moved. The refrigerator hummed in the background. People's voices from the hallway could be heard through the door. Sounds of the traffic outside drifted in through the open windows. Birds chirped and dogs barked.

"Hey, Danno, you still alive?"

Danny nodded against Steve's chest.

"Yeah. I don't really feel like moving though. You're a good pillow."

He felt Steve snort in indignation, so he felt obligated to add, "You're good for other stuff, too."

"Like what?," Steve asked insinuatingly.

"Chasing people. Shooting things. Driving unsafely."

Steve made to move Danny off of him.

"Okay, okay. I suppose you're an average kisser, too," Danny conceded.

Steve leaned down and stopped millimeters away from Danny's mouth. Parting his lips, he breathed lightly and then swiped his tongue across Danny's lips before delving in.

"Tell me when I've convinced you I'm better than average," Steve said between kisses.

Danny pulled away.

"Oh God, he's even competitive in the bedroom," he let out exasperatedly.

"Danny, I'm not—"

"You are, without a doubt, the most competitive human being I have ever encountered, Mr. Super SEAL," Danny said, cutting Steve off. "And don't even think about giving me the aneurysm face."

Danny's cell phone going off interrupted further argument. Reaching into his pocket, he answered it without checking who the caller was.

"Hello? What? You're here right now?"

A panicked expression crossed Danny's face, and he walked over to peer out the peephole in the door.

"Oh, yeah, I see you. Er, I don't see you, but uh. Um, let me, uh, just finish showering. I'm in the shower right now. I'm showering. I'll be out in like, 5 minutes. Just, hold on," Danny said, hanging up the phone and giving Steve a panicked look.

"Rachel's here with Grace," he whispered, pointing at the door.

Steve nodded and pointed at the balcony.

"I wasn't here. I bet you're glad I'm a super SEAL right now," he said and slipped outside just as Rachel knocked on the front door.

He belatedly remembered that he ought to have told Danny to change his pants. Hopefully Danny would come up with a good excuse for that wet spot….

(cut)

Fortunately Steve did not have to use the balcony when he visited Danny the next day with Joe.

"I didn't know Danny was living at the Hilton," Joe said as they walked up to Danny's room.

"Oh, he's kind of between places right now," Steve replied.

He had a good idea where this conversation was headed, and he definitely did not want to talk with Joe about Danny right now. He had not even talked with Danny about Danny. But Joe went there anyway.

"You got space."

Steve tried to keep a cool, collected look on his face.

"Yeah, we, uh, we tried that. It didn't work out so well."

But it would work out great now that they had resolved the whole sexual tension thing. Actually, it would work out really great. Was it too soon to ask Danny to move in? Approaching Danny's door, Steve decided it might be too soon. Nerves washed over him in a rush. Forget about moving in together. He probably should have called or texted or sent a smoke signal or something instead of just climbing out Danny's balcony yesterday without a word. This was going to be the morning after—played out in front of Joe. Brilliant. Steeling himself, he knocked on the door.

"No thank you," Danny called out from inside.

Steve glanced behind him at Joe, then tried for a normal vibe when he responded.

"Come on, we're gonna be late for the tux fitting. Let's go! Chin's wedding. This Saturday. Remember?"

"No, no. Hey, we're busy, come back later please. Thanks!"

We? Who was Danny in there with? And busy? Was it the same kind of busy Danny and Steve had been yesterday morning? Steve prickled with irritation.

"Sorry, you're busy? I can't come back later, Daniel. I'm the best man. I've got to make sure the groomsmen are in their monkey suits. Let's go! Open the door, come on."

Steve was about to do it himself when the door opened in front of him and Joe. Danny and Lori stood there. Handcuffed together. Steve could not stop his eyes from bugging out of his head as he stared at the cuffed couple. Before he could say anything, they turned away and headed back into the main room. Steve was right behind them, practically breathing down their necks. And Joe was following Steve at a more appropriate distance, eyebrows raised as he studied Steve's reaction to the whole situation.

When they got into the living room, Danny began to dig in the couch cushions, studiously avoiding eye contact with Steve. Joe hovered off to the side, eyebrows so high they were threatening to fly off of his face. Lori held up a hand in Steve's direction.

"Not what it looks like," Lori said.

Considering she was handcuffed to Danny, she did look surprisingly pissed off. Steve figured that if he were in her shoes, he would be having a hard time not using his cuffed hand as an excuse to grope his partner's ass.

"Okay," Steve said agreeably, feeling growing amusement at the equally irritated expressions on Lori and Danny's faces.

"If you want, we can come back later," Joe suggested.

Danny turned around and finally looked at his partner.

"No," Danny said, ignoring Joe and directing his words at Steve. "That's fine. Listen. Lori just came over to use the pool. That's all. Okay?"

Steve raised his eyebrows at Danny, trying hard to cover his smirk with a skeptical expression.

"Yeah, the, ah, the spa services actually," Lori clarified.

"Turns out the room comes with a complimentary spa service."

"You know, like a hot stone massage."

Lori waved her hand up and down her front.

"Yeah, I'm not a spa service kind of guy myself," Joe chimed in.

"You know, I'm not either, alright?," Danny said, grasping at the opportunity to cut back in. "But I didn't want to let it go to waste, so I called Lori, so she could use it."

Lori nodded.

"Yeah."

"And the, ah….," Steve started.

He had to raise a hand to his face, itching at his nose to cover the grin he was fighting back. It was a few seconds before he could finish his question without a tremor in his voice.

"…the handcuffs," he finished.

"Oh, ah, Danny was showing me the, ah, the 'Jersey slip'," Lori said, pointing at her fellow cuffee.

"Jersey slip," Danny said along with Lori.

"Jersey slip," Steve repeated, trying to put on his best aneurysm face even though he was seconds away from falling on the floor laughing.

Danny and Lori looked like they were about to shit bricks.

"The hoodrat cuff slip. Yeah, all the kids are doing it back East, so, I thought I'd show her," Danny said.

"And, um, we lost the key somewhere. I think in the couch."

"Couch?," Steve asked.

He knew he was just repeating everyone, but he did not know what else to say. He was torn between jealousy that Lori had apparently spent the morning in the company of Danny and amusement at Danny's discomfort.

"Yeah," Danny said, gesturing even more exaggeratedly than usual. "So I don't know, maybe you want to set up a search grid, call a canine unit…."

On the pretense of examining the opposite couch, Steve turned away and tried to regain a straight face. As he was throwing around random cushions, though, he found the Navy SEAL sweatshirt he had worn to the bar two nights ago tucked between two cushions. With a quick glance to make sure Joe had not seen his sweatshirt in Danny's couch, Steve leaned over the couch and hid the sweatshirt behind it. He turned back around to see Lori with her hand in Danny's pants. Jealousy flared back up.

"Wait. What's this? Really?," Lori said as she pulled the missing key from Danny's right pocket.

"Oh! Look at that."

Danny gave Steve a pleading look. Steve gave him an evil grin and stepped forward to take the key from Lori.

"You would think that we were making this story up," Danny said desperately as Steve uncuffed Lori.

Steve grabbed Danny's wrist and whispered, "You in cuffs is making me so hot right now," before tightening the cuff on Danny's wrist and stepping away.

Danny's eyes widened in surprise, then darted over toward Joe and Lori.

"Hey, hey, hey, that hurts. What are you doing?," he said for their benefit, but Steve had seen his eyes darken with arousal.

"I thought you were gonna show us the 'Jersey slip' from back East. Go ahead," Steve prodded.

"Do me a favor, please, would you?," Danny pled, holding out his cuffed wrist to Steve.

"That, or he could shoot 'em off you, like they do in Afghanistan," Joe added helpfully.

At this point, Joe was sitting on the couch and watching the scene in front of him with one foot propped up on his knee and his arm thrown over the back.

"Oh, that's funny Joe, I like that," Danny said. "Can I have the key please?"

Steve might have given the key back if he had not noticed the balcony out of the corner of his eye. A perfect revenge plan for yesterday's hasty balcony exit hit him.

"Look at that view."

"Oh, it's nice, right?," Danny said, obliviously following Steve to the balcony. "They give us a nice view here. They, um, they got an even better view in the master bedroom."

Steve's gaze locked on Danny at the words "master bedroom."

"Master bedroom?," he repeated, temporarily distracted from his plan. "How many rooms you got?"

He wanted to be with Danny in every one of them.

"Two," Danny and Lori said at the same time.

"And the master bathroom's ridiculous," Lori added.

Steve decided the master bathroom made it three rooms. And maybe they could count the shower as a separate room, too? Danny interrupted these thoughts, fed up with the key game.

"Can I have the key? Please?," he asked Steve.

"I mean, you told me you were staying at the Hilton, but this is—," Steve gestured around the room.

"This is the Ali'i Suite," Danny cut in.

This suite would definitely suit the plans he had for Danny later.

"How'd you swing this?," Steve asked.

"Well, like a genius, I put my card in a Christmas raffle downstairs at the Tropics Bar, and I got lucky. Do you got any more questions or can I have the key. PLEASE?"

No way was Steve letting Danny get that cuff off before he got to take advantage of it. So Steve dropped the key off the balcony. He pretended to fumble after it for a few seconds, then turned and looked at Danny.

"Oops."

"Why would you do that?," Danny asked.

Apparently he was not as into the handcuff thing as Steve was, because Steve was half-hard standing on the balcony and watching his partner. Well, he would show him the light when they got back from the tux fitting.

"Why wouldn't I?," Steve said. "Okay, we're gonna be late. Let's go get our monkey suits."

When they got out into the hallway, Steve fell behind Joe and walked next to Danny. Reaching down, he gave the cuff a tug, then moved his thumb up to gently rub over Danny's wrist before moving back up by Joe again.

"So how exactly do they shoot the cuffs off in Afghanistan again?," he asked Joe.

Danny groaned at Steve's question. But Joe's answer was not the end of it. Apparently his repertoire of de-cuffing techniques was not just limited to shooting them off. Danny shuddered when he heard Joe start talking about how to use a car to get rid of your handcuffs—that was definitely something Steve would do. And of course as Joe was elucidating on the car technique, they walked up to their ride. Even though he was behind Steve, Danny knew that his partner was examining Joe's car with a speculative look on his face.

"Do not even think about it, Steven."

Steve looked at him and wiggled his eyebrows.

"I knew you'd start to like the cuffs eventually, Danno."

It was at this point that it struck Danny why Steve had been acting so weird about the cuffs.

"Oh no no no we are not going to—," Danny started.

Steve raised his eyebrows in warning and directed a pointed look at Joe, who was unlocking the driver's door of the car. Danny glowered at Steve and hopped into the rear seat, knowing that he was doomed to be regaled with more stories of all the creative ways one could rid a fellow of unwanted handcuffs for the entire car ride. Danny had never looked forward to a tux fitting before, but as Joe prattled on about using a directed blast of TNT to get rid of handcuffs, he found the idea of trying on tuxes all afternoon less appalling. And there was the added benefit of getting to see Steve shirtless. Despite his activities yesterday with Steve, he had been denied the opportunity to appreciate a shirtless Steve. This was definitely not going to be as bad as he imagined.

Kamekona and Chin were already there when they arrived. Danny, Steve, and Joe were quickly shuffled off to dressing rooms—private, to Danny's disappointment—to change into their tuxes. When they came back out, Kamekona was suggesting wardrobe improvements to Chin.

"So what you guys think? Buttercup? Cabernet? Paisley lavender sunset for the vests?," Kamekona offered up to Chin.

"No, no, no. Malia was very specific. There are no vests, no bowties. And no paisley lavender anything."

"What does she think about the cummerbunds? Cuz you know I got to have a little flair!"

"Cummerbunds are restrictive," Joe chimed in.

"Restrictive?," Kamekona repeated.

"And unmanly," Joe said with a raised hand.

"You know, according to, ah, GQ, suspenders are trending. You have any problem with suspenders?," Danny asked.

Steve heard Joe agree with Danny.

"Functional. Dignified."

But wait. More importantly—his partner read GQ?

"Suspenders, huh?"

Kamekona did not sound convinced.

"Now hold on, hold on a second," Steve said. "Isn't this a beach wedding? What's wrong with boardies and, and slippers?"

"What's wrong with them is that they do not match the bridesmaids' dresses. And for the record, Danny, ah, neither do handcuffs."

Steve grinned wickedly. No way were those coming off yet. Not until he had gotten a turn playing with them. He glared at Chin, trying to will him to forget about the cuffs, but Kamekona interrupted his concentration.

"I was gonna ask about those."

"Show him the Jersey slip, Danno," Steve said.

Danny looked up at him, and Steve realized that his partner had definitely caught onto the game if the flirty smirk on his face was anything to go by.

"I would just shoot them off," Joe said for the hundredth time that day.

Maybe afterward, Steve thought.

"No key? No problem."

Kamekona grabbed his necklace and pulled it over his head. Steve's eyes narrowed.

"Bring it, bring it, bring it," Kamekona said, reaching for Danny's cuffed hand.

Danny pouted at Steve when Kamekona began to work on the lock with a piece of his necklace. At the sound of the cuffs snicking off, Steve's face fell into a dark scowl. But Danny's face lit up with a grin.

"Wow."

"It's an old island trick."

"Impressive," Danny said.

And Steve alone saw the burning look Danny gave him while he pocketed the handcuffs. Oh, they were definitely going to be using those handcuffs. But apparently Danny was not going to be the one they were going to be using them on.