Envy

05

*Cypress's POV*

"Everyone alright?" Vander asked as he made his way down the stairs. "Never better." I replied with a slight smile as I leaned on the arm of the chair Vi was sitting in. 

"Good." He said as he got closer to the middle of the room. "I don't suppose you can explain why it is that I'm hearing about an explosion, and a foot chase top side?" He asked looking around the room before continuing,

"5 children fleeing the scene. What the hell were you thinking?" "That we can handle a real job." Vi said. "A real job?" Vander asked in response confused as to how we could be so reckless. 

"We found our own tip, planned a route, nobody even saw!" She continued trying her hardest to justify our actions. "You blew up a building." He said with a slight scoff. "That wasn't-" Vi started before Vander had cut her off. 

"Did you even stop to think about what could've happened to you?" He asked. "Ay? To them? And Cypress, you're older. I expect you to talk her out of stuff like this." He said looking to me. 

"This was so reckless, and stupid, what do you think would've happened had you gotten caught by Enforcers huh?" He asked rhetorically. 

"Where did you even get the tip?" He asked. "We heard it at Benzo's shop." Powder said making Vander's eyes shift to me. 

"From?" He asked. "Ekko." I admitted quietly not wanting them to get in anymore trouble. I saw Vi about to get up so I shot her a glance silently telling her to stay in her seat before standing and saying, "It was me. He told me about the tip, I told Vi. It was my idea." 

"I agreed to it!" Vi said standing up. "I knew it was dangerous and I said yes anyway. If you want to be mad, be mad at me." She admitted before continuing, "but you're the one who always says we have to earn our place in this world." 

"I've also told you time, and time again the North side is off limits! We stay out of Piltover's business." He said sternly as Vi and I got closer to him. "Why?" I asked. 

"Yeah, they've got plenty while we're down here scraping together coins! When did you get so comfortable living in someone else's shadow?!" She yelled. 

"Everyone out." Vander said eerily calm as the others cleared the room leaving just me, Vander, and Vi in the family room. Vander threw a wet rag to me. "Clean up, her and yourself." He ordered as I nodded and sat down. 

"I'm fine." Vi said. "Sit. Down." Vander repeated before she sat next to me and I began to dab the rag on her head. "Those kids look up to you." He said with a sigh. "We know." Vi said before Vander continued. "Yeah you know but you don't know." 

"When people look up to you, you don't get to be selfish. Cypress I expect you to know that better than anyone." He explained raising his brow at me as I couldn't bring myself to look him in the eye. 

"You say run? they run. You say swim? they dive in. You say light a fire? They show up with oil." He explained. "Whatever happens is on you. Just like it's on me whatever happens to us down here." 

"If we make ourselves a problem for Piltover both of you know they're going to send the Enforcers." He stated bitterly. "Why would we answer to them?" I asked.

 "It's not fair. They have everything! They stay up there making all the rules, they've got all this money to burn and we don't get that. Why? Because we got the short end of the stick." I yelled my voice full of confusion. 

"Exactly they come down here and tell us how we should live? These are our streets someone should remind them of that." Vi yelled. "You're not hearing me. That path?" He said before continuing. 

"This?" He said grabbing Vi's wrist and looking at the blood on her knuckles. "It's not going to solve your problems, it just makes more of them. You have to understand that before you get yourselves killed." 

"We clear?" He asked and we both nodded.

"How'd you get that?" Vander asked looking at the quite large cut on my arm that Deckard left there. "Some idiot was following us." Vi responded. 

"On our side?" Vander questioned. "Who?" "His name is Deckard. I've had a few run ins with him trying to take Ekko's stuff when we go on walks. He saw us with the stuff and went after it." I answered. 

"And where is it now?" Vander asked. "We lost it." Vi replied with a sigh. "All of it?" He questioned and I nodded in response. "Good. Nothing can tie you to what happened up there." He said. 

"You have to lay low for a while understand? We need to make this go away." He said. Vi and I replied with a simple okay. 

"I'll take care of the rest and everything will be fine." He said and started cleaning. "You both put those idiots on their asses right?" He asked with a smirk. "it's us, of course we did." I responded with a chuckle as he walked away. 

Mylo then walked in and started talking. I'm guessing Vander had said something to him that lit a fire under his ass. 

"She's the problem." He started. "Mylo.." I warned him. It usually takes quite a bit to make me angry, but he just kept pushing, and pushing, and pushing. 

He's been talking absolute garbage about Powder all day long, knowing damn well he made way worse mistakes when he was younger. 

"C'mon CJ you've been sticking up for her, but you know I'm right. Do you remember what was in that bag?" He asked. "The biggest payout we've ever seen and she just let it go!" He exasperated. 

"She's a Jinx." He said with a chuckle.

 "And you're an air-head with a monkey brain shitting on Powder to make yourself feel better. Y'know now that I think about it, if it hadn't taken you so long to fight Deckard's goon, you could've ran with her and fought the guy off for her, so we'd still have the pay out. Didn't think about it like that did you? Shut the fuck up." I said before going to leave, and opening the door to find Powder standing on the other side. 

She wrapped her arms so tightly around me I could barely breathe. "Thank you CJ." She said burying her face into my stomach. "Anytime Powder. We've gotta stick together don't we?" I asked with a smile. 

She nodded and we went up to her room to hang out.