Sister Act (Kali)

[Sam Caraway]

Whistling a merry tune (he had, after all, just saved someone’s life – and the life of an attractive woman, at that), Sam made his jaunty way down the streets of Pilot Ridge. He hadn’t been to his sister’s establishment in so long, he almost got lost trying to find it. Luckily, though, he took the right turning at the right time and found himself standing outside. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the kind of establishment he was used to by now – it didn’t have as many twinkling lights as the bars in Vegas – but it looked perfect. Kali had put a lot of herself into this place, and it showed. He could practically feel his sister’s presence in every brick, and that was enough to make him smile.

The door to Kali’s Kafe had been left a little open, so Sam was able to enter without making any noise. There, sitting at the bar, was a certain small redhead – hunched over what looked like a pile of paperwork. Sam paused for a moment, suddenly struck by just how much he had missed being here. Since he had finished school, he hadn’t lived anywhere he would think of as ‘home’. They all still had that showhome feel, never really looking like they were lived in. Looking at Kali, Sam realised that the strange warmth in his chest was the contentment of being home. Somewhere he belonged. Maybe he hadn’t been giving his family enough credit, so far.

One of Sam’s favourite things to do – something he loved even more than playing conventional practical jokes on people – was to sneak up behind someone and make them jump. There was just something about it that was guaranteed to make him chuckle, and he didn’t even have a problem when folks did the same thing back to him. It was the one thing that could reduce him into fits of helpless laughter. That, and being tickled.

So, looking at the unwary Kali, he knew what he was going to do. Stealthily he crept forward, and then jumped – putting two hands on Kali’s shoulders. He had done it hundreds of times before, and he hoped that she would realise who it was before she tried to take him out. Once, when she was eleven, Kali had succeeded in giving her brother a black eye which had lasted for weeks.

‘Hey, Kasey!’ Sam sounded jubilant, and grinned down at his sister. He had been asked repeatedly (and threatened with physical violence on more than one occasion) to stop calling her that, but what was a boy to do? Kali’s initials were K.C, and as far as Sam was concerned, Kasey suited her. That she had always professed to hate it meant little to him. Sam very rarely called people by their given names – it was all part of what he called his ‘charm’.

Maybe it explained why his brothers and sister liked to hit him so much.

He attempted to pull his smallest sibling into one of his all-enveloping hugs, and beamed at her. ‘How’s it going?’

[Kali Caraway]

Paperwork, oh how Kali loathed paperwork! Her usual chicken scratch was illegible when she had to fit it into the little boxes. So whenever she had to fill out paperwork, she had to fill them out slowly and make sure her hand writing was clear and legible. But this paperwork HAD to be filed as soon as possible, if she wanted to be able to start adding the second story on by the official beginning of the summer. The weather this week had been particularly brutal, and thanks to some sort of twist of fate, the stupid air conditioner busted and she was dying, but luckily there were ceiling fans overhead and she could open the door for at least get some current moving the air.

She exhaled deeply over the pile of papers, determined to get through the stack before the lunch rush, when....Hands grabbed her shoulders. She flailed immediately, which happened to drag the pen across the topmost page and jumped out of her chair while she spun around. She REALLY didn't like being snuck up on. It almost reminded her of... "SAMUEL CARAWAY!!!" Shock spread across her face when she realized who it was that grabbed her. She'd not expected him, out of anyone, to have come up and grabbed her, but now that she saw him there, she really should have known. Sam loved to do that to her.

She huffed when he called her Kasey. She had a friend in elementary school named Kasey, and then Kasey stole the boy she liked, and she never forgave her for that. It poured salt in the wound everytime he called her that, even if it wasn't because of the girl. She huffed again and gave him a little shove. "I told you to stop calling me that." When he started to pull her into a hug, she let him. She missed her older brother.

Gosh his big old hug reminded her of how little she was.

"It's been pretty awesome. Filling out paper work to expand to a second story." She revealed with a happy smile. "Did you have your fill of Vegas, then? What brought you to Pilot Ridge?"

[Sam Caraway]

It was that moment of panic, followed by realisation, which made everything worth it for Sam. It was that pay-off which led him to attempt the numerous practical jokes he so enjoyed playing on other people. The dawning comprehension, the grimace of anger – Sam was like a child in many ways: any kind of response was a good response, regardless of whether it was happy or furious. When his sister shouted at him and hugged him, Sam hugged her back – his hug tighter than he had intended it to be. He had missed her a lot. For the first time in a good few years, he felt as if he had arrived home.

‘And the more you tell me to stop, the more I’ll do it,’ Sam told her smugly, smiling his most infuriating smirk. ‘Don’t you know me, by now?’ He had been calling her Kasey for years, after all, and he wasn’t one to quit while he was ahead. If Kali ever wanted him to stop, she would be best advised to ignore his nickname – but even that probably wouldn’t stop him from using it until he found something better to call her.

He pulled away from the hug at last, and sat himself down opposite the chair she had been occupying only a moment before. ‘A second story? That’s great!’ Sam beamed down at her, suddenly proud. ‘Y’know, I think you may be the only Caraway with any business sense.’ It was probably true. Sam was fond of saying that sports didn’t require a brain, so that was Jack out of his mental list. Bailey and Johnny had, so far as Sam knew, yet to actually get any kind of job. And the only thing Sam could do was gamble.

Her question made him grin. ‘Something like that,’ he admitted. ‘My bad luck’s been getting worse, recently. Vegas has lost its appeal – for now, anyway.’ There was no way Sam was going to swear off Vegas entirely. On a good day, he could make thousands. He looked over at Kali, mirth sparkling in his bright blue eyes. ‘So I thought I’d do what I always do – come and get on my little sister’s nerves.’ He glanced at the papers on her bar. ‘And I’ve been thinking of doing some more investing. I hear there’s a bar around here looking to expand…’ Sam trailed off, a smile playing on his lips. What was the point in having money if you couldn’t spend it on your family?

[Kali Caraway]

She knew that moment of panic, that raw uncertainty where the animal instincts didn't quite know what to do. She also enjoyed causing it, and seeing it, but she liked to think she wasn't as annoying about it as her brother. She liked it better where she brought someone up short like that in the middle of a conversation. One of her most treasured 'wtf' reactions she had caused was when she had blurted 'that is the weirdest place to put a piano I have ever seen,' everyone around her had looked around in confusion for this 'piano.' They were standing in an elevator.

Kali gave him a flat look. She knew there wasn't a way to get him to stop calling her that, Kali wasn't enough of a nickname to him, and he was just like that. She acted like it bothered her more than it actually did--but that was just how they were, and always had been and always will be. She gave him a little shove, "Yeah well, I had hoped someone had slapped some sense into you." She grinned and took her seat again as he sat across from her. She stacked her papers back up neatly and wrinkled her nose at the link of ink she'd scratched across it. Oh-fucking-well. She isn't about to go to all the trouble to get the forms again; they can just deal with it.

"Yep, I've been sitting on the idea for the past three months, and now there's all this...." she gestured to the pile of papers, "red tape to sort through. Then I get a contractor to help draw up the blue prints then a hop skip and a jump away from building it." Kali smiled happily as she thought about it actually being completed and ready for business. She grinned when he called her the only Caraway with business sense. That may be true--but she wasn't the only successful offspring. She knew Sam had very deep pockets, and Jack was living his dream in pro baseball. Johnny was still in college but his ambitions might lead him on the path to success. Kali was vaguely worried about Bailey, though. He just didn't have his act together yet.

"Aww, that's too bad." She knew his power gave him bad bouts of luck, "least you got out before it got too bad, right?" She was just kidding but her smile faded faintly, "Right?" She asked again, more seriously.

She rolled her eyes when he continued talking--yes he did come and get on her nerves a lot. But she really did love it when he visited. He made her feel like a kid again, and being her own boss and the boss of others didn't often let her feel that way. There was always room for him at her house (and not just because she didn't even make it there most nights). Her eyebrow arched almost impossibly high at the next words out of his mouth. Invest? The smile on his lips and the way he trailed off led her to believe he was talking about HER bar. She bounced a few times. "Sam! No way!" It was disbelief. Kali didn't like 'hand outs' but she wasn't about to turn away help from her family like this, especially because the money she has set aside will allow her to make a totally awesome second story. Extra help would turn that into a bitching second story.

[Sam Caraway]

‘Jack’s been trying to slap some sense into me for years,’ Sam pointed out. ‘So have Johnny and Bailey. And you, for that matter.’ He grinned. ‘You guys just need to realise that I’ll never learn. Less bruises for me, less anger for you.’ Not that such a situation would ever occur – Jack made no secret of the fact that Sam was one of his favourite people to pick a fight with. Presumably because he was always guaranteed to win when he fought his younger brother. Sam was also the one person Jack could be sure of scrapping with and still being on good terms with afterwards: being brothers did have its’ advantages, sometimes.

Idly, Sam reached over and picked up the pile of papers from the table in front of Kali, flicking through them to see what she was working on. After all, if he was going to put any money into this place, he wanted to know what was happening. He could tell Kali didn’t buy his compliments – but as far as he was concerned, she was the most successful of them all. Sam would never have acquired his money if it hadn’t been for his ability, and while he had never asked Jack if his power had a bearing on his baseball skills, he wouldn’t be surprised. Kali used only her brain to run her bar, and Sam thought that was pretty impressive.

Sometimes he wondered what his life would have been if he hadn’t been a probability manipulator. He would never have gone to Hammel, for a start, and he definitely wouldn’t have gone to Vegas – or, if he had, he wouldn’t have had the luck he did now. He would probably have been a sad, unsuccessful gambler, somewhere. Or he would have been completely ordinary, married by now, owning a shop, or something. Or – who knows? – maybe he would actually have used that brain of his, and done something more worthwhile. It was strange to think that Sam would have been completely different without his power – and there had been a time, after he turned thirteen, that he had begun to seriously fear that he didn’t have one at all. Being the only ‘normal’ child in a family of meta-humans? It didn’t bear thinking about.

Kali’s delight at his hints about investing made Sam chuckle. No way? ‘Way,’ he replied, as seriously as he could. ‘I expect to see profits, though – it’s not a present.’ Well, it was, but Sam knew his little sister too well to think she’d be entirely comfortable with the idea of free money. ‘You know what you need extra for, so we’ll work out how much I’ll be putting into the business.’ Satisfied that she was going to accept his help, Sam sat back in his chair and looked over at her fondly. ‘It does mean I’ll be hanging around,’ he warned her with a smile. ‘You’re not going to be able to get rid of me for a while.’ Not that anyone found it easy to get rid of Sam. Even when he wasn’t around, he managed to find a way to remind people that he existed.

‘So,’ he leaned in slightly, watching Kali avidly. ‘Any gossip in the life of my favourite baby sister? Any men I have to involve in an accident?’ Sam had long since given up the pretence that he could be one of those older brothers who threatened other men with violence. Far easier to use more subtle methods.

[Kali Caraway]

"I think we've all just been hoping for the one slap that finally does. Or maybe we just like slapping yah." Either one. Kali grinned like the sometimes-mischievous little sister she was. Jack was in charge of actually knocking some sense into him--mainly because he was older and a lot bigger--and it was Kali's job to turn his own annoying nature back at him. She'd yet to feel like she'd actually succeeded in the act, but she had hope. Now that he was back, only meant she could continue to try.

She watched as he sorted through the papers on the table between them, while he did she went back to the papers that were in front of her. She worked her way through them, in her minds eye she only saw what the second story would actually look like; awesome. She didn't plan on turning it onto a night club sort of thing; she enjoyed the coffee house theme she had now, but she did know the stage would be moving upstairs, since there would be more floor room. She knew at least one bathroom would also be going up there, maybe an instrument closet and a booth or two. She tapped her chin in thought, but knew her idea about the second story could change, just yesterday she had thought about adding only half of a second story, so people upstairs could look down at the stage, but she'd decided against that because the room wouldn't be as substantial--but even know that thought was pleasing.

Kali didn't really consider herself a business genius--she'd changed her major four times freshmen year and three more times in her sophomore year in college before she decided on business. And before she'd went to college she hadn't had a single clue about what she wanted to do with her life. After she graduated she had walked into this coffee house owned by this man named Hunter, and it was just the best little shop she'd ever walked it. On a whim, Kali decided to recreate it. She spoke to her father about getting a starting loan and then decided to put the shop in Pilot Ridge, and the rest was history.

Kali was extremely pleased that he'd want to invest. Sett's idea of holding some sort of battle of the bands could be made possible with this, some sort of a cash prize and some sort of dish that every time someone bought that meal or food item, a percentage of it (a majority) would got towards the bands instruments, or advertising or something like that. Kali didn't really have any connections with talent agencies but maybe she could convince one or two to show up--those were just ideas she had been sitting on since she had taken in the bar tender. "Profits indeed." She could probably have just given him free food for life, but she already didn't charge her brothers food--with in reason-- so that was out. "You'd be welcome to play with the menu a little." Kali loved just switching things up, and she knew Sam also enjoyed a bit of spontaneity every now and then. "Oh no! My favorite brother is going to be around for a while now? This sucks." Her laugh and big grin easily showed she was only joking. Once again, she was enthusiastic and anxious to get started on the building but there was this paper work that had to be done.

She heard his tone and knew what he was going to ask so she looked up at him with a guarded and suspicious expression. Gossip? What gossip did Kali possess? Well apart from her part-time cook and his girlfriend, Kali's life was pretty void of drama. Okay that was a total lie. She broke into a small grin--she had to reign it back or he'd give her the third degree until she spilled. "I'm your only baby sister." She always pointed out when he said something along those lines, it was just meant to buy her time at the moment, though. "There is...possibly a guy. I dunno, but no you can't hurt him. I haven't gone on a date since I started the Kafe. Or had a weekend off....or slept a full night. So yeah. You scare him away..." She glared at him in a warning. Truthfully, there was something simmering between her and her hot bartender, but because she was his boss and she worked all day, everyday, she just didn't have any energy or time--it also wasn't appropriate--to pursue it, despite flirting from both front lines.

"How 'bout you? Any lady's manage to catch your heart?" Probably not, but Kali did want to know what was up in his life at the moment, or if there was a leech that attached herself to her brother that she had to beat away.