Re: log; marina & russ
Marina had been expressive. When she was pissed, she wore it like a streak of paint across her face. When she laughed, she lit up like fourth of July. Russ saw fear and anguish and loss in one five-year-old face before Nathan did as any small boy left with a grown-up who was unable to provide even the simplest of explanations might do: he burst into tears.
Russ felt like murdering his mother.
"Kid. Kid." Tentative protests made no bounds. Nathan, bereft of mother, faced with a large and unprepossessing (and evidently terrified) adult, cried noisily and with abandon. Russ poked his tiny, superhero-tee-shirt clad shoulder. This did not abate the noise. Panic was thick in his throat; what was he meant to do? He thought about calling Ford. Ford would know what to do. Ford probably knew what would make it stop. He thought about calling Sam, and then figured Sam would probably laugh instead of being helpful. He thought about calling CPS for real, or the doctor, anything that would tell him how to make the kid stop crying. The sobs rose, great shuddering things that Nathan's skinny shoulders heaved to expand before another ragged breath was drawn in.
"Kid." Russ slid off the stool to sit on his heels on the floor and put the flat of his hand on the boy's shoulder now, grease-marks skidding over the back of the bright blue cotton. It was the least of Russ's problems. Nathan's shoulder-blades shivered under his fingertips, the kid lifted his head and gave him the most woebegone look Russ had ever seen. "Wh...whe...where IS she?" Nathan hiccuped plaintively, before reaching, small child confronted with woefully stupid grown-up, to be held, and put his sodden cheek against Russ's shirt.
Russ froze. The kid continued to cry, the volume lessening but somehow worse for the little, shivery sobs that he cried instead. He put a hand on Nathan's back, and Russ thought dark, expletive-laden thoughts about what he might do to Marina when she deigned to return. Gently - with as much tentative assumption that the kid might break if he touched him wrong - Russ picked him up. This was evidently the right course of action; Nathan burrowed, like holding on might prevent the world from entirely falling apart. His mother's absence was the equivalent of the sky falling in, and small tired boys were not open to choices.
"It's okay. She'll come back," Nathan's back bled warmth through the cotton against his palm. Russ toted him without a great deal of effort past the forgotten action figures and towards the back, where at least there was a fucking place to sit. The little boy went limp like a kitten and cried quietly into his shoulder. He could murder Marina later.
Russ took a seat behind the paper-laden desk, arm full of small boy, and an expression that was long-suffering, and settled in to wait.