Re: log; marina & russ
He was being primed. Same way he'd been lined up and prepped for the firing squad all the times Marina had taken it into her head to start a fight, broken glass and barbed wire laid out pretty like they had a date and dinner plans. Russ had oil worked into the pads of his fingers that when he reached for the edge of the workbench, he set a line of prints that the cops could use for a line-up. Except this time he knew exactly what she was gunning for before he could smell the powder of the blast. Maybe if Russ thought about it long enough (he wouldn't) he'd recognize the common seam to all the impossible feats she set, and the terror of her temper when he didn't achieve them or even bother to sidle up sideways to spit on them, was part annoyance, part plain satisfaction.
He stared as the little boy settled himself under the lip of the workbench, like taking a seat on the poured concrete was a normal circumstance, daily, even. Russ didn't have a childhood with warnings and a ban on sharp knives, but he watched Nathan with the mounting dismay of a man uneasily aware of just how much shit in the shop might do damage. His eyes slid sideways to Marina, who looked like setting Herculeanean tasks was in her wheelhouse, along with clawing his fucking eyes out.
"Marina," he started, in a 'be reasonable' tone. The beer bottle sat in the pool of light at the work bench, Led Zeppelin played out underneath the 'be reasonable' and drew attention to itself. "I'm working." He didn't draw attention to the fact that the boss wasn't in the shop, nor was anyone else who'd report one (1) small child sitting on the floor playing with (Russ squinted - trains?) in a blue colored bag Russ now associated with all things terrifying and disorienting. He threw out the defensive like he knew he was gonna lose and he thought momentarily with all the annoyance of an older brother without the younger present to bail him out, of Ford.