Martin was asleep when they got back, or at least resting his eyes, since Carolyn was still reading out loud to him. Although the woman did love the sound of her own voice, so perhaps she was just reading it for herself.
But when Carolyn stopped as Douglas and Arthur entered, one of Martin's eyes cracked open as if to protest at this interruption.
He seemed alright with it, since it was Douglas and Arthur rather than some nurse to draw blood or do something equally unpleasant.
"Of course you'd come back at the exciting part," Carolyn huffed.
"Hey," Douglas said, holding his hands out, palms up, "We're not forcing you to stop reading."
"Of course you're not," she snapped. "Like you could get me to do anything I didn't want to. No, but now that you're here I have to take Arthur with me to go see our client."
Douglas raised an eyebrow. "Why do you need Arthur?"
"I don't need Arthur, but I'm not going alone, and since none of us want to leave Martin and Arthur alone together, you can't come."
"Hey!" Arthur protested.
Carolyn shot him a look, and Arthur quieted.
"Afraid the old man is going to beat you up Carolyn? In that case, Martin would be about as much help as Arthur."
It was Martin's turn to protest, and he did so by throwing a pencil in their general direction, which clattered across the floor loudly.
Carolyn tutted at them, and dragged Arthur out by his shirt sleeve.
"Bye Skip!" he called, to which Martin weakly waved a hand.
"Interesting book is it?" he asked, to which Martin half shrugged, half nodded.
Douglas skimmed the back book cover and flipped through the pages. It seemed to be about angels and underground tunnels, like the tube. One character could his eye, and Douglas could easily imagine Herc as this man. He smirked and tossed the book onto the table.
"Well, I'm not reading that to you. You'll have to come up with something else to do."
Something dawned on Douglas. "Martin, what were you doing with the pencil earlier?"
Martin grinned lopsidedly, and something in it reminded Douglas of a small child around eight, with auburn curls hanging in his eyes and legs with knees that knocked together.
He shook the image away and watched as Martin mimed scribing onto his hand.
"Ah, writing were you." He nodded knowingly.
Martin rolled his eyes and pointed to the pencil he'd thrown at Douglas earlier.
He smirked. "I don't think so. How about a pen instead?" he offered, pulling one out from a spot on the bedside table Martin couldn't see for the breathing machine.
Martin rolled his eyes and motioned to Douglas to hold down the paper, which he did.
Douglas waited patiently while Martin grappled with the pen to write out a message.
When he finished, obviously frustrated with himself and his lack of muscle control, Douglas examined it. The note was legible enough, but nothing near Martin's usual standards of writing, which was tiny and precise.
Throat hurts. Mouth dry.
Douglas nodded. "I'm not sure if there's anything we can do about that, but I'll go check, alright?"
Martin nodded, and mostly looked fed up.