The throat hole on the Bunsen burner had only been opened halfway, creating a rather hypnotic purplish flame. Connor stared into it, forgetting for the moment about work, the anomalies, the creatures, and everything else unrelated to Abby and the way she had been letting him hold hands with her all week.
Hand holding was one of the things on The List. It was quite high up on the list even. The list was a mental compilation of things that Connor was never to do with Abby if he wanted to remain living with her. The longer he'd known her, the longer The List had grown, and hand holding was most definitely on it, along with flirting, staring at her, kissing her, hugging her, asking her out, and cuddling. And so it was thoroughly puzzling to Connor that she hadn't yelled at him yet, hadn't even pulled away from him yet. She hadn't even mentioned that he'd been holding her hand. And surely she'd do at least one of those things, probably all three, if she'd noticed.
But how could she not have noticed? That didn't make sense either. She'd even squeezed his hand a few times. And yet, not noticing was the only thing his mind could come up with for her behaviour. His thoughts trailed off as he gave a frustrated sigh. He didn't think he'd ever understand her, so for the moment he'd just enjoy holding her hand for as long as it lasted.
The door banged open then, and Abby herself entered the hub, talking to Nick about something or other. Connor quickly turned off the flame in front of him and his attention switched from the burner to Abby. She sure was pretty, he thought to himself. She could have any man she wanted, really. No wonder there were so many rules about what he was and wasn't allowed to do with her. He didn't even come close to being good enough for her. Abby might not have noticed, but Connor had seen a couple jealous glances from other guys they'd passed on their walk to work when he'd held her hand. He'd glared them down defiantly and smugly.
She seemed to sense his gaze now, because she suddenly turned around and their eyes met. To Connor's surprise, her face lit up and she gave him a smile and wave before turning back to her conversation. And that's when Connor almost collapsed with excitement as a sudden realisation hit him full force. His knees buckled and he grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself.
The rules had changed! Staring at Abby had always been on that list with the handholding and now he was allowed to do both! So if those two things had been removed from the list… A grin spread itself wide across Connor's face as he asked himself the question, what else had? He was definitely going to have to investigate this further.
And so that night Connor decided to surprise Abby by choosing a sappy romantic movie she'd been wanting to see for a long time, even though it was his turn to choose the film. He did it because he knew that if was planning on testing the boundaries of their relationship, he'd best have her in a really good mood first. He expected her to be more surprised actually, and he'd also expected a bit of an interrogation as to why he'd chosen the movie (he hadn't come up with an answer yet, so he was rather nervous about showing her what he'd picked), but when he'd held out the dvd case to her, she'd gotten this little knowing smirk on her face and her eyes showed only signs of laughter. Connor wondered what on earth that could mean. He tried not to focus and worry about her reaction too much, since he knew he'd never figure it out, but it did set his nerves on fire just a little bit.
His original plan had been to cuddle with her during the movie, to just casually slip his arm around her and draw her close and see if she'd let him. Now though, he was sat beside her trembling with fear and anticipation and fiddling with his hands nervously while Abby cuddled with a pillow instead of him, and that was just not right. Connor wondered how much of a dork it made you if you were jealous of a pillow.
It took him half the movie to notice the expectant side-long glances she kept giving him. What was she waiting for? He wondered. Surely she didn't know his intentions of testing the boundaries a bit tonight, did she? How could she? He hadn't told anyone. But thinking of testing the boundaries, he suddenly realised, he was really failing miserably here. If he was going to do it, he might as well get it over with, right? Then he had an idea and grinned to himself.
Reaching out with the hand next to her, he grabbed her hand where it lay clutching the pillow and loosened her grip on the offending cushion, instead entwining his fingers with hers. This was safe because he's already established that handholding was allowed. It was an easy baby step transition. He was still a bit nervous about it since it was different holding her hand through a movie than out walking, but at least it was more familiar now and he wasn't sure yet if cuddling was off the list.
Abby made no sign of protesting, allowing her hand to be captured and even giving him a small smile before returning her attention to the movie. And that was all the boost of confidence that Connor had needed. He shuffled closer to her, until he was pressed against her side and then untangled his hand from hers, replacing it with his far hand quickly and wrapping his close arm around her shoulders, even putting slight pressure on them to draw her close to him.
Again, she responded favourably. Her eyes stayed on the television screen, but she leaned against him, her head coming to rest against his body and a smile appearing again on her face. And that meant that a third item was crossed off The List, possibly a fourth, because if he was allowed to cuddle with her, he was more than likely allowed to hug her, which was really just the shorter version of cuddling. And if four items had come off the list so quickly then maybe, just maybe, the entire list had disappeared?
For the first time in years, he let himself wonder what it would be like to actually kiss Abby. He wondered what she'd taste like, and if she'd even kiss him back. He tried working up the courage to further his experiment and give it a go, but he changed his mind when he felt Abby suddenly tighten her grip on his hand and burrow herself further into his chest at a particularly emotional scene in the movie. His arm tightened around her and he smiled. It wasn't a risk he wanted to take just yet, because he could still ruin it all and, for now, this was enough. For now, it was perfect.