#chastraweek2020

Chastra + Fate

Soulmates AU

In a world where you see in black and white until you meet your soulmate, Charlie refuses to accept it. Someone you’re fated to be with? Bullshit.

Then she meets Astra. They’re soulmates. They must be, because ever since they met, she’s starting to see colors. 

That doesn’t mean Charlie has to accept it. She won’t accept her fate.

Chastra AU: Ex-Assassins

Charlie’s sisters are not very nice people. Atropos and Lachesis are two of the three Moirai—the most infamous, amoral assassins in the game. They don’t care who they kill, who they hurt, or what goal their employers aim to accomplish.

The third of the Moirai, Clotho, is rumored to have been murdered while on assignment in London. She hasn’t resurfaced since, and her sisters have all but stopped looking.

That’s just how Charlie likes it. In the five years since she got out, she’s kept a low profile. She changed her name. She joined a band. She never lets herself be photographed without a stage mask. She’s grabbing life by the balls and enjoying it—or trying to, at least.

All that changes when she hears that her sisters have started grooming a new protégée. Charlie knows that role; it’s a fate she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy.

Chastra Week | Day 5: Discovery

“It’s funny,” Astra says. “I barely know what Earth’s like and now I’m stuck on Jupiter.”

The bartender, green- Martian? Seems to ignore her, and she recognizes the situation for what it is.

“I lived in Hell, you know,” Astra says. “Humans- Earthlings, I guess- We have a Hell and we have a-“ She points up. “This place reminds me of Hell.”

It’s not meant as an insult. An old movie had once taught Astra that there’s no place like home, and Hell is home. And if you stick her in any seedy little bar with a seedy little crowd, she’ll blend right in.

Alien liquor might be a mistake. It hasn’t stopped her from drinking. “I’m looking for someone,” Astra says, pulling Charlie’s photo up on her phone. Most extraterrestrials she’s encountered are surprisingly nonplussed by the iPhone, so she knows that’s not why the bar tender isn’t paying attention.

If this were her bar, she’d have the Martian by the neck, pinned to the wall. But it’s not her bar, it’s not her hell, it’s not even her planet.

“This is my partner,” Astra says. “Charlie. You might have seen her with a blonde woman?”

The fuck is cleaning glasses. Astra is drinking out of one of the bar’s glasses right now, and she can attest they’ve never actually been really cleaned.

“Hey!” she says, pounding her fist on the bar. “Big and stupid!”

That gets the bartender’s attention, and Astra replies with an old fallback, her familiar wolfish grin.

“That’s right,” she says, voice low with anger. “You. I’m looking for my partner. Have you seen her?”

The bartender finally gives the image on Astra’s phone a cursory glance, and then shakes their head.

Astra responds to this with a sort of sneer, running her tongue along her molars. “Okay,” Astra says. “That’s fair. How much?”

The bartender tilts their head.

“How much for information?” Astra asks. “What do you take as payment? Favors? Theft? Hits? I’m flexible.”

“I don’t understand,” the bartender says, and Astra almost startles at the sound of their voice. Not because she hasn’t been able to understand anyone- she’d swallowed that little translator pill when this mess had started, but because the bartender hadn’t seemed at all like the speaking kind.

“What don’t you understand?” she asks.

“I haven’t seen your lover,” they say. “Why would I ask you for anything else?”

Astra’s face feels hot. “I said partner.”

“That’s what I said,” the bartender says. “Lover.”

Okay. Imperfect translator. Understood. “Well that sucks shit,” Astra says. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Charlie’s not even supposed to be here. She wanted to leave and then they got like, the fucking Captain, and maybe I thought it would be good to bring her back, just because it had happened so quickly, maybe I should’ve let her go?” She looks at the Bartender and wishes he’d give her something. Even empathy. “Maybe I wanted her back too much. Now they got her, too.”

“Who’s they?” the Bartender asks.

Astra presses her finger to the screen of her phone, against Charlie’s cheek. “I was hoping you’d tell me,” she says. “They’re picking us off. First Sara. Then Nate. Now Charlie.”

“Go back to Earth,” the Bartender says. “Go back to what you know and protect yourself.”

Astra shakes her head. “There’s no point,” Astra says. “Without Charlie, there’s no point.” She looks up, hoping they can’t read the surprise on her face, at her own words. “I mean. I just got back to the surface, but I don’t want to even… do anything. Until I can do it with Charlie. Does that make sense?”

No response. The bartender seems to be considering the glasses again.

“And now I’m stuck here, by the way,” Astra says. “With no way to contact my ship and no idea where I am, besides Jupiter.” She wants to stop talking, but she also doesn’t. She wants to throw it up. “John says I’ve just replaced getting my mom back with finding Charlie but- I didn’t love my mom like I love… like Charlie. It’s completely different.” She checks the photo on her phone again, to make sure Charlie is still the same, unchanged. Not a trick. Not an illusion. “Why do I keep doing this?”

She realizes the bartender has slipped out, leaving her to stare at the items behind the counter, another new thing to study that will lead her nowhere.

“Love,” Astra answers herself. “Every time I’ve pushed my boundaries, it’s for love.” Some of the bottles have creatures inside them, another familiar, hellish feature of the place. “It’s stupid,” Astra says. “It’s stupid of me to keep looking for love in the biggest, most dangerous places.”

One of the bottles seems to bubble and fizz and she sighs.

Chastra Week | Day 3: Fate - Chastra Hadestown AU

The way Astra looks at her is familiar, hateful, warm in a way that only anger can bring. “Why is the girl even here?” she spits.

It’s rhetorical. There is no one Astra knows better than Charlie. Vise versa. She wants it said out loud.

Charlie stays seated, letting herself sink further into the throne, letting the apathy briefly fill the silence for her. “Like I said,” Charlie says. “I missed you.”

“It’s not right,” Astra says. She’s always been so full of passion and so poor at concealing it, her voice heavy with tremors as she gestures wildly, pacing back and forth in Charlie’s office. “What you did- What you did was wrong, it was horrible-“

“People who starve tend to die,” Charlie says, nonplussed. “Or am I supposed to ignore that because you’re jealous?”

Astra is in her face faster than Charlie can blink, leaned down to be at eye level, teeth bared. “That’s all it is, isn’t it?” She curls her lip. Disgust. “You needed the attention.”

“So what if I did,” Charlie says, hissing like she isn’t slightly sinking under Astra’s gaze. “The girl means nothing to me.”

She cracks. She frowns, betraying her intention. “I know.” Pity. Sympathy.

Charlie opts to cross her arms. “What?”

“Nothing,” Astra says. She backs up, offering Charlie her hand. Charlie is always stupid enough to take it, and she does, letting Astra pull her to her feet. “It’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing,” Charlie says.

Astra waits a beat before releasing Charlie’s hand. Tucking her own hand under her chin. “What’s happened to you?” she asks. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” Charlie asks.

“You’re so much colder,” Astra says. “You’re not the person I married anymore.”

“The person I married wasn’t so eager to run off,” Charlie says. “The second mother nature calls, you’re gone.”

“But I always come back!” Astra says. “Like it’s always been. Like it always will be.”

“And and then what?” Charlie says. “You come down here and you promise them… what? Moonlight? The sky? That they can leave?”

“I-“ Astra presses her lips together. “The moonlight is for me.”

“The second mother nature calls,” Charlie sneers.

“You used to be fine with this,” Astra says. “You used to understand.”

“I never understood!” Charlie says. “But you used to make it… bearable.”

“Charlie,” Astra says, her shoulders slumped. “What have we become?”

“I need to handle this,” Charlie says. “I need to fix this before they… tear down the wall.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Astra says.

“I don’t have an answer,” Charlie says. She lets out a huff, pinching the bridge of her nose. She drops her hand, offering Astra her arm. “Are you coming?”

Astra takes a step towards her. Another, and then she gingerly takes Charlie’s arm. “Yeah.”

Summary:  Charlie and Astra play for the Orlando Pride. It’s the finals. Astra is not nervous.

Characters: Charlie & Astra

Relationships: Charlie/Astra

A/N: be gay play soccer! written for chastra week’s day 2 prompt, pride <3

fic: the thing about circles is they never end (charlie/astra, M)

But here's the fucking thing about Charlie. The thing that just makes Astra want to scream into the night sky about her. Charlie is warm and soft and infinitely kissable and present, until she's not. She's the smell of sweat and stale beer and glitter on Astra's cheeks and the most beautiful, aching almost that Astra's ever had in her life.

(or: Astra and Charlie begin, post-s5)

Chastra Week Day 1: Future

“It’s time for us to set down some roots”