40 for Pippa for the whump prompts?
40: Grieving their normal life
Every Breath is a Sin
Word Count: 1k
CW: Violent death, blood and stabbing, implied extrajudicial violence, transphobia, racial bias, grief, survivor’s guilt, and psychological distress
Pippa Lowe tells herself that she is a good person. This is a lie.
Two years ago, Pippa Lowe got her powers after being struck by lightning in the bathtub. Two years ago, Pippa was still living in Boston, teaching art to kids in an underserved neighborhood. Two years ago, Luna was still alive.
Luna was everything to Pippa. She was Pippa's roommate, but more than that, she was the one who made Pippa realize she was into girls, even if Luna never reciprocated her feelings.
Things were simpler when Luna was alive. Unfortunately, life is rarely simple, and good things must come to an end.
She came home to a suspicious silence in the apartment. Every day, when Pippa came home, it was always to Luna's noise- the obnoxious screamo metal she loved, Luna yelling at the chat while streaming herself playing Halo on Twitch, whatever anime Luna was into this time blaring at top volume.
Pippa told herself that Luna had probably just gone down to the corner store for some snacks or something, or had finally gone to that trans support group she'd been telling Pippa about for months, but never worked up the courage to go to. But the lightning in Pippa's veins crackled in warning, telling her something was undeniably wrong.
When she got into the living room, Pippa froze. The carpet was stained a dark red, a perverse bloom surrounding Luna's body, her friend's formerly warm brown skin ashen and lifeless. A knife stuck out from Luna's abdomen, a man leaning over her, smirking.
Murderer. Pippa thought, but as much as she wanted to move, to force those words past her lips, she managed half a high-pitched squeak, her body as rigid as Luna's had become. She recognized the man- Luna had been showing her pictures of him for weeks. Luna had met him on a dating app, and he'd flirted with her, made her feel special, and now, he had killed her.
The man stood up, taking one last look at Luna, spitting on her body. Pippa's face burned red with fury, but still, she couldn't move. Luna's murderer smirked, shoulder-checking Pippa on the way out.
"Fucking freak trans bitch deserved it."
It was only half an hour later that Pippa finally managed to break out of her shock and call the police. Officers arrived minutes later, bringing the coroner with them, who took Luna's body away in a bag. Pippa answered all the questions the officers gave her, showed them the photos of the guy from the dating app on Luna's phone, then, when it was over, went to sleep on the couch as usual, overlooking the blood stain on the living room floor. She couldn't bring herself to sleep in Luna's bed, and it wasn't like she had anywhere else to go.
Unfortunately, Boston Police had better things to do than care about a murdered Black trans woman, apparently. They ruled Luna's death a suicide, and that was the end of it. No justice was served, just her friend in a box and Luna's murderer walking free.
No justice came. The man who spat on her friend’s corpse walked free. Pippa’s hands still trembled thinking of him, her fists tingling with energy she couldn’t release, rage thrumming in her chest like the storm that gave her powers. Luna deserved better. She swore it.
The tension in her brows still sits there whenever she thinks about what happened that night. Luna Watson deserved better. Pippa tells herself, and she doesn't know if she's talking about Luna's death itself or what happened in the aftermath.
She still won't think about it now, what she did that night. Lightning in her veins, hatred blooming in her chest like the horrible red stain in the carpet that would never come out, a metal bat clenched in her hands.
He killed Luna. Pippa tried to justify what happened that night, when all reason constricted to a tiny singularity of rage and grief, that it had to be done, that it was necessary, that she was protecting the world from someone who deserved no mercy. Even then, she wasn't 100% sure. The evidence was there, but she hadn't seen the killing. She couldn't have known for absolute certainty that he hadn't just walked in on the aftermath, and for some sick reason agreed with what had been done, and fate had conspired against him to make him look guilty.
They never found out what she did that night. Pippa moved across the country, away from the bloodsoaked apartment and the streets still haunted with a man's screams and the snapping of bone, and took up a new job at a community center, teaching art.
This time, it was hollow. She loved her work, but something in her told her she didn't deserve it, didn't deserve to be making beauty, to be surrounded by these pure, wonderful kids, but like all things, she repressed that under yet another layer of hopeless optimism, another patch on the dam which held back one desire-
“I miss the person I was when Luna was alive. The one who believed in goodness without knowing what darkness could do to you- or what you might do in return.”
