Re: log; marina & russ
She took his beer and she patted his cheek like Marina knew (along with Sam, along with Ford) that he wouldn't do a fucking thing. He stood and watched her finish it, his throat working like the words wouldn't crawl up his throat, too gritty to say, and the pulse working at his temple, tick-tick-ticking along with his heart-rate. Russ counted himself lucky when her temper was poisonous that it didn't take out a car. She wasn't Ford; Marina's fingers picked through cards to find the ones she wanted to play most.
His hand rose surprisingly quickly, a warning of four fingerpads setting black marks around her wrist. The grease was slick, the parts on the table looked open and raw. If he'd been drinking, it clearly wasn't enough to lull reflexes. His fingers weren't rough but they were hard, and he held her hand away from his cheek with an alacrity that set up boundaries clear as building blocks building walls for little kids to knock over.
"I can't fucking understand that," he said, terse. Once he'd understood every other word in a melodic river of language, he'd put hands around her hips and laughed at her, all the talking she did when she thought he couldn't translate but Marina's face was a dictionary. It said whatever that crap was, the kid understood fine and the kid wasn't fucking moving from underneath the workbench.
"Where the hell you gotta go at nine at night?" And he wondered when it was he'd gotten so fucking predictable even Marina could waltz in, calling in favors he didn't owe like a handful of chits she'd bought off someone else. She wasn't plosive colors and short skirts, so she wasn't going near the bars; Marina was as predictable about picking people up as she had been to rile.