AN: Ah, yes. This was an accident-one I don't regret in the slightest. Well, okay, I regret it a little. It hurt a lot. And I was supposed to be writing Frazel today, too. Obviously that didn't work out. Sigh.

Placement: As part of my Shattered Glass AU series, there's a strict chronological order that I'm not following in the slightest, but it helps to line things up if you know it. The order goes; Patchwork Hearts, Damaged Goods, Liquor Lingerie (which actually, a lot of this takes place between Patchwork Hearts and Damaged Goods, but much of it takes place after DG), Rum Romance, Bright Eyes, Six Months, Midnight Kisses, Beach Melodies, and Blood Ties.

Disclaimer: So not mine. Obviously.

Enjoy!

~halestorm

Thalia wraps her fingers tightly around the lip of the plastic chair she's sitting in, her feet tapping a nervous beat on the linoleum floor. She knows she'd feel better if Luke were here, but he's out there somewhere, getting wasted and high and making a general ass of himself. Besides—Thalia swore she wouldn't talk to him again until he sobers up.

Thalia glances longingly at the empty seat beside her. Damn it, she thinks. I miss him already.

The girl leading the meeting, a short, athletic brunette, is talking, and Thalia tries to make herself listen.

"I'd like to remind all of you that the point of this being Addicts Anonymous is that we don't use our real names inside this room," she's saying, shooting a pointed glance towards one of the boys in the room, who blushes and shrugs helplessly. "Outside of this room, feel free to exchange all personal information you want. Inside, you're all anonymous."

A murmur of agreement goes up among the patrons in the room, and relief courses through Thalia. She'd signed up for the anonymous group specifically to avoid having anyone find out that she's only seventeen (and also because drugs are fucking illegal and she'd rather not spend any time in prison), but it's still a relief to be forbidden to exchange names at all.

"Now," continues the leader—Artemis, Thalia thinks she said her name was, "we do have a new group member tonight."

Everyone twists to look at Thalia expectantly, and she shrinks down in her chair, wishing that the seats had been set up in rows instead of one circle, as if that might offer her more protection from the group's prodding stares.

"Uh, hey," she says, clearing her throat and raising her hand in a half-wave.

"Hi," Artemis says, smiling warmly in return. "As the newest member of our group, why don't you tell everyone what you'd like to be called?"

"Grace," Thalia blurts out without hesitation. She hates Grace as a name, but it's the only thing other than her first name that she'll actually respond to, so it can't be helped.

Artemis nods. "Would you mind sharing your story with the group?"

Thalia feels sick. She doesn't want to explain about how she started doing drugs when she was fifteen, or how she drug her best friend down with her, or how he's too caught up in it to get out now that she is.

The first step to recovery is admittance, right? Thalia thinks, and before she can really think through her own logic, she starts in on the hashed out version of how the hell she got to be a seventeen year old crack addict.

It actually starts out pretty normal. There's a boy, and Thalia wants to impress him.

Not just any boy, though, because Thalia doesn't settle. No, the boy is college aged, and he sells marijuana out of his basement—a side gig for his psychic con.

Thalia meets him at a party that Luke takes her to. His apartment is shitty, but Apollo is attractive, and the moment Thalia sees him, she's smitten in that stupid girly way that means she wants him to notice her but she wants to look cool if he does. This involves accepting the rolled marijuana when it's offered to her, despite Luke's misgivings.

"Just because you're in high school doesn't mean you have to do drugs," Luke mutters as Thalia lights up and takes her first drag. She comes away coughing, but that doesn't stop her from taking a second drag, then a third, fourth, fifth, and on and on until she can no longer feel the burning in the back of her throat.

"Try it," she says, handing Luke the joint. "You might actually like it. I already feel better than I did before."

Luke eyes the joint suspiciously, but then he takes a drag, too, and the rest of the night is lost in a blur of smoke and pot and a tingling sense of euphoria—especially when Apollo takes Thalia to bed, whispering sweet nothings into her skin.

Thalia feels like shit the next morning, coming down from the high with only half of her memories in tact, but she remembers the triumphant feeling of taking an eighteen year old boy to bed, and the next time she's offered a joint, she doesn't even hesitate.

It takes Luke longer to acclimate to the idea of doing drugs for fun.

"Every time you get high," he says very slowly, driving Thalia back to her apartment (even though he lives in Connecticut, he spends most of his time with Thalia in New York—given that his mother is in a mental hospital and his dad skipped out on him when he was a kid, he doesn't really have anyone to answer to), "you end up in bed with a stranger. I'm worried you're going to get AIDs."

Thalia rolls her eyes, pulling her short hair out of its ponytail. "Please. Whoever the guy is, he's always wearing a condom. You know I don't have unprotected sex."

"No, but you have a lot of oral sex," Luke snaps. Thalia opens her mouth to protest, but he cuts her off. "Don't pretend like you don't. I've known you since you were twelve, Thalia. I know your sexual preferences."

Thalia huffs, folding her arms across her chest. "So I give blowjobs. I'm good at it—unlike you. That doesn't strictly mean I'm going to get AIDs."

Luke arches a brow. "You sure about that?"

Thalia pouts. "Shut up. I just want to go out tonight and get trashed with my best friend without being lectured on my habits. Can you do that, Luke? For me?"

Luke hesitates, and Thalia gives him her best smiles. He breaks. "Fine. Fine, no more lectures tonight."

Thalia breaks into a grin. "That's why you're my favorite, Luke."

Luke snorts. "That's why I'm the only friend you have."

Thalia laughs, but it's true. And even though she'll never say it, Luke's the only friend she needs.

When Thalia gets into needle play, she starts plummeting down a hill she never should have climbed. She's snorting cocaine in the men's bathroom at sleazy gas stations, on her knees for strangers in dark bedrooms in dark apartments, playing hookie from work just to get a cheap fix.

And then Luke is falling with her, both of them tumbling and tripping and this was never how it was supposed to go, Luke was never supposed to be into needles, he's got his mom to worry about and a house to pay for and people to con, but there he is with Thalia, both of them out all hours of the night, suffering from cocaine withdraw and falling apart into each other.

For a few precious seconds, it's the highest Thalia has ever been in her life, and she swears she'll never turn back.

"Thalia?"

She stops at the sound of Jason's voice, halfway out the door before she turns back to look at her little brother.

"Hey, Jase," she says, tossing her bangs out of her eyes. "What's up?"

He folds his arms over his chest, already way too serious for a sixteen year old, and Thalia hates her mother for putting that look on his face. (It's the same look Thalia sees in the mirror everyday, anyways, so she shouldn't be surprised.)

"Are you going out again tonight?" Jason asks, his eyes searching her face, and she nods.

"Yeah, Luke and I were going to hang. You need something?"

Jason's frown deepens. "Thalia, Mom's been gone for three days."

Thalia freezes. "What?" she demands sharply.

Jason purses his lips. "Mom's been gone for three days, and you haven't even noticed, Thalia."

"Are you sure?" Thalia asks faintly, but she's already stepping back inside, closing the door and tossing her bag to the ground. Jason nods. "Jesus, Jase. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you'd notice for yourself," Jason says, the picture of calm stoicism, and Thalia feels like throwing up. "You always notice when Mom is gone. But you've been too busy getting high to notice this time."

Thalia takes it like a slap to the face—Jason's never snapped at her before. Not that he's snapping now. He's as calm as he always is, but his words are harsh, and Thalia can't breathe.

"She'll come home," Thalia says finally. "Like she always does. She'll come home hungover, and we'll clean her up, lecture her, and send her back to work."

Jason's eyes narrow dangerously. "No. I'll clean her up, and I'll lecture her, and you'll be off recovering from an overdose of cocaine in a shitty apartment somewhere."

Thalia's throat closes off, and she takes a step away from him, back towards the door.

"You're just as bad as she is, you know that?" Jason says stiffly, turning away from the door to walk back into their apartment. "I don't even know you anymore."

Thalia runs because she can't stay there anymore—because she feels betrayed by her little brother, because she's always had him and now he's not on her side anymore, because he's right, for fuck's sake, and Thalia can't handle being told that she's as bad as some burnt out actress who can't even care for her children.

Thalia stays at Luke's for the night, because she can't bear to go back home to Jason now that she knows where she stands with him. And Luke doesn't mind when Thalia cries into his shoulder instead of getting high—he just holds her tighter, kisses her forehead, and tells her that she's going to be okay.

Thalia doesn't think he's right, but she appreciates the sentiment all the same.

When Thalia returns home the next morning, her mom is passed out hungover on the couch, and Jason is curled up in the arm chair, wrapped around himself and dozing out of sleep.

Thalia almost smiles at the care he's given their mother (she's wrapped up in a warm blanket, with water and Advil on the coffee table beside her, and coffee brewing in the kitchen), but instead she bursts into tears.

As she runs out of the living room, she catches sight of herself in the hallway mirror—bloodshot eyes, makeup smeared down her pale cheeks, blue eyes lifeless as her body shakes, hair mussed uncontrollably—and Thalia almost throws up.

She's seen some shit in her days, but she's never been scared to look in the mirror before. Of course, she never thought she'd mistake herself for her mother, either.

Thalia blows smoke into Luke's face and whispers, "We should stop. The drugs, I mean. We're likely to get AIDs or something."

Luke snorts. "Now you want to quit."

Thalia closes her eyes. "I'm seventeen, Luke, and I'm already on a straight path to becoming my mother. I just always thought—I thought I'd be better than that. I thought I could be good enough for Jason."

Luke is quiet, and Thalia opens one eye to gauge his reaction.

"You are good enough for him," Luke murmurs. "The way you are. You may not be the perfect older sister, but you're the best he could get."

Thalia sighs, shaking her head. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you don't want me to stop."

Luke laughs bitterly. "'Course I don't. Who else am I supposed to shoot up with?"

Thalia falls silent, and lets Luke hand her his needle when he's done with it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, her conscious screams at her about how unsanitary this is, how unsafe, but Thalia's already too drunk to listen to it. She plunges the needle into her wrist and lets go.

Thalia wakes up foggy, the glass of a broken syringe embedded in her arm, and she knows it's time to get out.

She's in Luke's house, which is different—usually they don't get high in either of their houses. It's too messy, too risky. But there wasn't a party last night, and Luke hates being high on the streets.

Thalia stumbles to her feet and to the bathroom, wondering why the hell she didn't take the needle out before she fell asleep, because the glass of the needle broke in her sleep and has dug into her arm, which throbs painfully as she steps into the bathroom.

She's not wearing pants, either, which is new. And something is up with her bra—it digs into her skin uncomfortably, and she thinks one of the cups might be backwards.

There's a line of cocaine on the counter, half-sniffed before being abandoned, and Thalia stares down at it before collapsing to the bathroom floor, tears welling up in her eyes as she punches the sink cabinet.

Thalia's always wanted to be as white as the cocaine line on the counter—white symbolizes purity, right? And she's always thought, if she could be that white, if she could be pure…maybe it'd be enough. Maybe it'd be enough to make her dad come back, to make things okay for Jason.

But here Thalia is, sitting on the bathroom floor with not a single fucking clue where the hell her pants are, or how her bra got to be so twisted around her chest, and everything she's fought to become is destroyed. All in the name of one lay two years ago, with a boy Thalia can barely remember.

Thalia isn't white. Thalia's all sin and curves she used to have that went away when she got on drugs and drunken sex in bar bathrooms and lacy bras that smell like alcohol.

Thalia is red—as red as the blood on her arm, pouring down her wrist to puddle in the palm of her hand before dripping onto the floor.

Thalia throws up on the floor, her shoulders wracked with sobs.

She was supposed to be good, for Jason. She was supposed to be good enough for him, but now, she's no better than her mother.

"You don't have to go to the meeting," Jason says quietly from his perch in the seat next to Thalia's. "We can do this another way. I know you don't want to do this without Luke. I—I'm sorry he's not here, too."

Thalia gives Jason a nervous smile. "It's his own goddamn fault that he's not here. Now, quit frowning. You're about to leave on a roadtrip with your best friend and your girlfriend. Get it together, Grace."

Jason breaks into a grin. "I love you."

Thalia blinks back tears, smiling back at him. "I love you, too, bro."

She leans over and kisses his forehead, jokes that he's her "Saving Grace", and climbs out of the truck, marching into the community center like the proud, anonymous, recovering addict that she is. This is a new chapter in a story that isn't over—some of the pages are tainted red, sure (just like Thalia's bras are stained with liquor), but the next few pages will be white as snow.

Thalia can feel it.

Thalia clears her throat, swinging her legs back and forth in the chair like a fucking child. The AA leader, Artemis or whatever, studies her intently. Her eyes are soft.

"That's very brave of you, Grace," she says, starting up a slow clap. "Especially to admit to only being seventeen." Artemis glances towards one of the other girls in the room, a tall, skinny thing with auburn hair and feisty eyes. "We actually have one other seventeen year old here. That's Zoe-you might get along with her."

Thalia cocks her head, studying the girl, Zoe, and shrugs. Artemis moves on, asking other members about their sobriety, and Zoe grins at Thalia, waving slightly, before her eyes drift over Thalia's shoulders, eyebrows rising. Thalia follows her gaze, and can't stop the grin that breaks over her mouth as Luke drops into the seat next to her.

"Can't very well let you get sober alone," Luke mutters, blushing and avoiding her gaze. "I know how much you hate being alone."

Thalia beams, reaching out and tangling her fingers through Luke's. Just like always, then. Thalia can do anything as long as Luke is right there with her.