and somehow we told him what to do, but he won't ever listen to you

[priorcommitment]

Ishiah was in the middle of quite the quandary.

He'd taken up a seat on the rec room couch some time ago, with the intention of finding himself some text to read, something to pass the time between then and his shift at the Hub. While for weeks, Ishiah's priority had been trying to find a way off the island, in those days he found himself pressed with the more immediate concern of looking after one Caliban Leandros. Filling, some might have accused him of, the void left behind in Niko Leandros' wake, and trying to provide as much normalcy to the young man's life without deliberately calling attention to the way that their group was broken. Only half of the membership it once had— or not even. Caliban was, however, singularly the most frustrating person Ishiah had ever met, even more so than Robin Goodfellow in recent days, and so sometimes the peri needed a good break from all of his worries, finding some textbooks on birds, or a birdwatching manual, anything that could provide him with a reprieve. That day, however, the bookshelf had decided not to comply.

Instead, all of its shelves were filled with a series on parenting, the modern couple's guide to helping their child through his formative years, step by step. Upon seeing the spread, Ishiah's expression had immediately turned into a frown, one laced with confusion.

"I don't understand," he said, moments before he heard someone else enter the room. "Is this trying to suggest that Caliban is a child?"

Comments

[chose.livejournal.com]

Although the joke was not so lost on her as it seemed to be on Ishiah, Buffy found herself infinitely more amused by his reaction, one of pure confusion as opposed to the undiluted disdain employed by most, herself not excluded. Traipsing into the room, a smile readily spreading across her face, Buffy cleared her throat as she neared, lifting a hand to wave gently when he turned. Even with his back to her, she could tell he looked worn. Brushing away a tinge of guilt, Buffy remembered how she had counted herself among the lucky last year, Angel having arrived only shortly before Robin disappeared. A fatal error, apparently, the island having wasted no time in teaching her lesson after lesson, first with Giles, then Angel, then really Angel, again and this time for good. So much for luck.

Relying, as she usually did, on her sparkling wit, Buffy wasted no time in attempting to cheer Ishiah up, wasted effort though it might be. Why she graviated toward the stoic ones, she would never truly understand. “Maybe it’s trying for a not-so-subtle hint at something,” she suggested, nudging down at the shelf. Eyes soon widening, she gasped, “You don’t think... Ish, could you be pregnant?”