Work Text:
Connor was ready to go to the Foligno’s for a Christmas lunch, he had his best clothes on, the ones that he knew fitted him well, so he knew he looked good, but that didn’t stop his heart from feeling too big on his chest when he thought of seeing Frank again.
He was slightly drugged on the plane going back home. Too many meds to keep his shoulder from hurting too much, still, he couldn’t sleep, and Frank was sitting nervously next to him on the plane, checking every five minutes if he was okay or if he needed anything. It was cute, and everyone else was sleeping.
Connor’s mind wasn’t working properly because of the dumb meds, and he has had the biggest crush on Frank since they met basically.
“You’re acting like you’re my boyfriend” Connor said when Frank fixed his blanket for him, making sure he was comfortable, being thoughtful as he always was. But of course Connor’s mind thought that was a good thing to say to his teammate and roommate before driving into a deep sleep.
He didn’t remember that he had said that until he was back at home, wondering why after he woke up Frank was acting weird, still making sure Connor was okay, but distant, too much on his mind.
Connor was kind of glad he had an injury and couldn’t play (aka wouldn’t see Frank), because he doesn’t know what he would say or how he would even look at Frank’s face without fully blushing or freaking out.
But now he’ll have to face his fears, or run from Frank the whole day.
Fliggy opened the door of his house and joked about how late Connor was, he wasn’t that late, but he was the last one to arrive. He had barely entered the captain’s house and his eyes found Frank’s, he froze for maybe a full minute when Burky saved his life.
“Damn Connor who’s heart you wanna steal today?!” And the rest of the team continued to make jokes about that, at least he had a real reason to get red and not the fact that he saw Frank after almost two weeks thinking about him.
And holy shit he looked good, he always did, obviously, and maybe it was the fact that Connor missed him, but he looked great, he had his beard a little long, but it was clean, and god, Connor had always preferred it long, the way it fits perfectly with Frank’s face should be a crime.
He had a navy blue button shirt on and some light pants, impossible for Connor to not find him in the crowd. But that turned out to be a good thing, because he could see Frank coming from far, and run to another direction.
During dinner they sat across from each other, and Frank asked him to pass the pasta salad, and apparently Connor can’t be trusted with passing anything without being weird about it, because he almost dropped everything when he dumbly looked at Frank for a moment.
After that Connor kept a conversation with Moorsey, who was sitting next to him, and tried his best to avoid Frank’s brown eyes. He knew that running away from him was a very weak plan that wouldn’t last long, but for now he didn’t want to ruin Christmas.
They were all crowded in Fliggy’s living room, some talking, some watching the highlights of the season that was on the tv, but Connor was outside with the kids and Dacher, playing hockey, obviously.
He decided it was okay for him to leave when Greener appeared, stealing his mini stick and saying that ‘dad Fliggy’ ordered him to get Connor out of the game. He laughed but accepted, his shoulder was still a little weird and he didn’t want to force it anyway. So he goes back inside.
He gets to the kitchen and is filling a cup with water for himself, when he hears the kitchen door close, and he immediately knows who is there, his stomach drops to the floor and he swallows hard, waiting for whatever is coming.
“Con.” Frank said carefully.
“Hey.” Connor murmured, refusing to turn around.
“Con, please.” Frank is behind him now, he can imagine him leaning on the counter, he knows what he’s asking. “Look at me, please.” His voice is low, almost begging.
Connor can’t not turn around after that, so he forces himself to do it. It’s worse than he thought.
They keep staring at each other for what could be a minute or an hour, everything inside Connor breaks for how dumb he was, how he could lose a good friend for saying some idiocy like that.
But then Frank hugs him, arms around his body, face on the crook of his neck, and Connor immediately melts to it, wrapping his arms around Frank’s shoulders, he wants to cry.
They stay like that for a while, it’s a miracle that no one decided to enter the kitchen, but then he hears Frank’s voice, low and breaking at the end of the words.
“Don’t do that ever again, please.” Obviously he won’t let himself say something that dumb again, so he agrees.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut, I’m sorry.” But Frank looks at him confused.
“Not what I meant.” Frank laughs a bit, but Connor can see now that he was on the verge of tears, they had never been this close before. “I meant this whole ignoring me thing, never do that again.”
“Oh.” That makes sense, Connor guesses, they’re friends after all. “Hum okay, sorry.”
“Yeah.” Frank says and they keep watching each other for a while, Connor is enchanted by Frank’s everything, so it’s easy to get distracted and stare him down.
“So like, just confirming, we’re friends again, right?” Connor asks, wanting to make sure they were okay.
“I hope not.” Frank says smiling, great, now Connor is on the verge of tears.
“Wh- What? Why?” Connor is very confused at this point, what the fuck is happening?! Why doesn't Frank want to be his friend? What-
Frank kisses Connor.
Frank what Connor?
“Wait- What?!” Connor pushes Frank away by his shoulders.
“Fuck. Sorry. That’s not?” Now Frank is confused too.
Connor takes a deep breath, letting everything sink into his mind. Frank kissed him, okay, he likes that. But Frank also said he didn’t want to be his friend.
“I’m so sorry dude, I thought- Fuck, sorry, forget it.” Frank is the one running away now, but Connor’s body worked faster than his mind, and he pressed Frank against the kitchen counter, kissing him again.
He doesn’t know why Frank doesn’t want to be with him, but he does want to kiss him again, so he does it.
They make out, it’s sloppy and weird, like they have waited for so long that they can’t think about making it right, Connor’s hands are cupping Frank’s face, and Frank’s hands are on Connor’s hips, everything fitting perfectly despite the rush. Between all that Connor decides to finally say something.
“Why don't you want to be my friend?!” He pushes Frank away again, and Frank is smiling after he hears the question.
“Because I want you to be my boyfriend.”
Oh.
Oh. Okay.
That makes sense.
“Oh.” Connor’s mind is working slowly, putting all the pieces together.
“Only if you want, obviously.” Frank says, too confident to be asking that, but Connor is okay with reassuring him.
“Of course I fucking want.” And they kiss again, and again, and again.
“Well I’m fucking glad, did not put all this work on clothes for you to not look at me the whole day.” Frank says and they go back to eating each other’s mouths.
“For the record, you look hot with anything.” Connor manages to respond during the kiss. “It was fucking hard to not look at you.”
“Yeah but you clearly could not look at me!” Frank pushes him away. “I’m still mad about that.”
“I can make up for that.” Connor says, hands sliding through Frank’s body.
“Dirty!” Frank laughed and pushed him, but stayed close.
Connor doesn’t remember why he was nervous, why he was anxious, why he couldn’t look at Frank. He doesn’t remember, everything vanished from the moment Frank asked him to be his boyfriend.
But like, did he?
“Just to make things clear, you asked me to be your boyfriend right?” Frank laughs loudly.
“Dude.” He buries his face into Connor’s shoulder. “Yeeeesss! We are boyfriends now and you can’t run away from me anymore!” Connor laughs too.
“Just checking.” And he seals his lips with Frank’s again, pulling him close, a calm kiss, very quickly, like he’s sealing their relationship.
“Can we enter now?! It’s cold but we don’t want to expose the kids to whatever you guys got there.” They hear Greener screaming from outside, Connor blushes and looks at Frank scared.
“Hum yeah!” Frank screams while he softly pushes Connor away.
They rapidly pull the kids inside, and when Dach is passing through the kitchen door to get to the living room he screams loudly enough for Frank and Connor to listen. “Moorsey it’s worse than we thought! They are in loooove!”
He gladly closed the door behind him, because their nosy teammates would totally come to check on them and Connor was sure he looked completely red and a mess.
“I hate how I blush easily.” He said, hiding his face in his hands, and Frank takes his hands out of his face and gently pulls him for another kiss.
“Precious.” He looks at him, and presses another kiss on his mouth. “I need many more of those, but we need to face our little problem outside first.”
“Ugh okay.” Connor says, rolling his eyes, but smiling.
“Sassy.” Frank laughs.
It takes them a while to really get outside and face their teammates and all their questions, they had to promise to them that they wouldn’t make out in the locker room too, Connor is sure he was pretty flushed the whole time.
On the way to Connor’s house they were smiling dumbly, Connor with his hand on Frank’s thigh while he drove, and Frank resting his hand on top of Connor’s.
Perhaps Connor’s meds weren’t that dumb.
Or it was the Christmas magic, Connor is not sure, but he’s happy with whatever.