Hey, I'm back again. Well, duh, but…you know what? Whatever. Screw awkward introductions.

There have been a lot of pleading and suggestions so here's what I came up with:

So far, there's a big majority of reviewers who want for Jesus/Callie sibling-shots for this. But I did promise this would be all of Callie's foster siblings, and it will stay that way. But, I am willing to do two Jesus/Callie ones with a Brandon/Callie and Mariana/Callie one in between. That will be the pattern.

To put it in a less confusing way, here's an example—D and E would both be J/C but F would B/C and G would be M/C.

And someone asked for Lena and Stef to have a few, but I'm not sure. If I get five more reviews saying they want the moms to be in this too, then I'll do it. As long as you're also willing to give them ideas as well.

This idea came from a guest reviewer, I believe it did, so if you're reading this, and you know who you are, thank you for the idea and I love your support for this story. Shout-out to you!

Whew, super long A/N over.

Cupcakes

mariana&callie

The two girls never had gotten along that well before, but they had both made it clear a while ago that they didn't hate each other. Callie found it more of a tolerance type of system, and she wasn't about to step beyond the line of homework questions and asking if she needed anything from the kitchen to ruin it.

And Mariana never seemed to break this unspoken truce either. They stuck to their sides of the room and kept it that way. That was perfectly fine.

So imagine Callie's surprise when Mariana is standing at the foot of her bed, holding out a normal-sized packet of Skittles to her.

"You have a sweet tooth, right?" she asked when Callie just stared, frozen in her position on her bed.

Reluctantly, Callie nodded in response. "Thanks," she said slowly, reaching out and tenderly taking the small red packets of sweets from the girl's hand, looking at it.

"Skittles," she said dubiously, "I haven't had those in a while."

Mariana shrugged, passing off her unusually kind gesture as nothing. "Lexi and I stocked up too much at the gas station after school," she dismissed blandly, adding in, "Lexi's brother has a car and was dropping us off," when seeing Callie's look.

Callie placed the bag of candy on her bedside table, saving it for later.

"I'm going to get something to drink," she announced a few moments later, rolling off her bed and heading toward the door. "Want anything?"

Mariana shook her head, attention now on her latest magazine. "Nah, I'm good."

Callie shrugged and continued her way to the kitchen, humming a song Jesus made her listen to not too long ago.

She opened the fridge, grabbing a Vitamin Water and an apple, intent on grabbing back to her room to finally get a start on the unnecessarily large pile of homework she had to do before next week. But Callie was quickly stopped, startled as Jesus launched to a skidding stop in front of her, on his skateboard like always.

Warily, she blinked at him, taking a sip of her drink. "Yes?"

He smiled sheepishly at her. "I need a favor," he said, grabbing her shoulders. (Callie was used to this, Jesus always grabbing on to the nearest thing or person to steady himself.) "It won't take long, I promise."

Callie raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, you have my attention."

Jesus smiled at her, relief crawling into his eyes with obvious excitement at her answer. "Okay, so basically the story begins on how Lexi really has me whipped." Callie snorted at this, already knowing this fact but took another sip of her water, prompting him to keep going. "And she and the rest of the volleyball team wanted to raise money for new volleyballs because honestly, the school ones suck ass. So, she begged me to make the cupcakes so they could have a bake sale."

"Why couldn't she make her own cupcakes?" Callie asked blandly. She already didn't like how this story was going.

"Because she and Shelby are on cookie and poster duty," he said, like this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why do I have to do it?" Callie whined, finally getting to where she didn't want to. Where she also didn't want to do her homework, it seemed a more fun than being up to her elbows in cake mix.

Jesus grinned at her. "Because you love me."

"And when was this notion passed? And why did I miss the meeting?"

He sighed, widening his eyes and pouting at her. "Please."

Callie tried to look away, cringing. "Oh God, please don't pull that with me."

He continued pouting, sticking out his bottom lip a bit more. "Please, I promise I won't ask you for anything else."

She snorted again. "We both know that's a lie."

Jesus sighed, pouting a little bit more, knowing Callie was this close to cracking. "Pretty please? Don't you want me to have a full, healthy relationship with the girl I love?"

"Then why do I have to spoil her?" Callie sputtered, now deeply annoyed as she looked to her foster brother. But finally, her resolve cracked and fell like weak debris. "Fine," she muttered crossly. "I'll spend my Friday working to please your spoiled girlfriend."

Jesus beamed, his wide grin nearly breaking his face as he squeezed her tightly before skating off.

Callie sighed obnoxiously, hearing the distance thud and a swear as Jesus undoubtedly tripped and fell on his ass.

God, he'll never change.

With a mournful bite of her apple, Callie went to work on finding her ingredients, or otherwise seeing if they even had cupcake mix. She felt kind of guilty as she snooped through the cabinets, slamming one after another. The rules she was used to was not to not touch anything or use anything without specific permission of doing so. It just seemed like an unhealthy instinct to run it past Stef and Lena the very idea of making cupcakes.

Suffice to say, when she finally found the two boxes of cake mix standing side by side in a drawer near the fridge, Callie felt pretty badass when she set them on the counter.

Everyone around school had been talking about the charity week event the girls' volleyball team was throwing. Even though Jesus would be taking most of the credit, Callie still wanted them to somewhat edible—something the treats will not if she made them herself alone. Because besides cereal, toast, and being able to stick pasta in boiled water, her kitchen skills were horribly weak.

She was going to need to call in back-up.

"Mariana?" Callie called, jogging to the start of the stairs.

"What?" came her foster sister's faint yell of response.

Callie looked back in the direction of the kitchen, where the vanilla and chocolate mixes stood on the counter. "How do you feel about some cupcakes?"

Six minutes later, each of the girls were standing in separate parts of the kitchen, wearing aprons and up to their elbows in cake mix, vegetable oil, and egg.

"I can't believe you fell for the Puppy Eyes trick," Mariana muttered, her arm moving in fast and smooth circular motions as she whipped the batter easily with her whisk. She had tied her hair shortly after (reluctantly) giving in to Callie's pleas of helping her. While her kitchen skills weren't as vast as her mothers', she did have experience of making birthday cakes and cookies with her mothers' for the birthdays celebrated in the house.

"It's the oldest trick in the book," she continues wryly, glancing at the box as the oven let out its alert beep. It was finally done preheating, signaling her that she could pop her batch into the oven after pouring it into the pan.

Carefully, Mariana grabbed a pack of pretty purpled-hearted cupcake papers and gently pressed them into the holes.

While she did this, Callie watched, slowly whisking her chocolate batter in her bowl. This kind of atmosphere seemed so odd to her; calm and serene, like everything was just right. It made her feel a bit uneasy and out of balance with herself, but just…good at the same time.

"I've never done this before," Callie admitted suddenly, staring into the swirls of her batter. "I never had many foster sisters—not any that were good like this. The last time I ever even looked at a thing of cake mix…was with my mom when I was eight."

Mariana tensed, her movements becoming slower and less eased as she listened.

She always kept her distance with Callie. She seemed nice enough—not threatening to kill or hurt anybody like movies would suggest with her situation. But she always was so in herself, very locked up and quiet. Mariana didn't let herself pry, knowing that she was already in deep shit with her own personal problem to bare the weight of somebody else's.

But this was different. She wasn't prying or bugging or anything of the sort. Callie found her trustworthy, someone that she could share this with. Knowing her foster sister found this in her, Mariana felt proud.

It was only fair for her to return the favor.

Mariana gently set the pan in the oven, setting the oven's timer and closed the door. "I know what it's like," she said quietly. Her hands twisted the rag she was using to clean up in her hold, the fingers clenching on it tightly. "My father wasn't that good to us. I can't remember much about him, except that Jesus hated him and I didn't know why. When the CPS lady told us he died in a fire at his work…I didn't know what to feel."

Callie froze her whisk limp in her slacked hold. This was new, unexplored territory. Never once had she exchanged sad, pitiful past stories with a foster sibling. She never had to, because the only burdened sibling she had was Jude, and they bared the same scars, except in different ways.

It never occurred to her that such a sweet interaction could happen to her. While it was indeed awkward, it was kind of…comforting in the same way.

Mariana looked down thoughtfully at the rest of her batter, before sliding her gaze to Callie's bowl, yet to have been put in the pan.

"We better stop with this confessing," she muttered, grabbing two other cupcake pans. "The last thing we need is Lexi on our ass for tears ruining the cupcakes."

I know the ending sucks, but I'm not yet used to writing for these two. Not yet, anyway.

Plus I've been working on this on and off for a week or so, so the mood wasn't right on me.

Please leave a review saying your thoughts about the chapter and what I said in the above A/N.

PS: The next chapter won't be as humorous as the first J/C fic, just saying.