This is unedited, unbeta'd and written purely on a whim because I was listening to the song 'Meant to Be Yours' from Heathers: The Musical. It's a bit of a darker fic and I've never really done those before so... Be nice about any criticisms please and thanks ╮(￣～￣)╭

Billy hadn't ever been the loving type, not once in his life had he ever really felt the need to protect someone else. Until her. When young Grace Prescott had entered his life, just a year younger than himself and her older sister, he had been instantaneously infatuated. Even as a young teen he hadn't been able to stop thinking of her, of the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled and the sound of her laughter. Having met her through Sydney when they had begun dating he had had uninterrupted access to the sunshine of a girl, frequently spending time around the Prescott house with Sydney just to see Grace.

Maureen Prescott seemed to read his mind every time he did so, giving him a knowing smile whenever she caught him watching her youngest daughter and a gentle nod of her head like she knew. It unnerved him, the woman's eyes always seemed to look right through him and there were certainly things that he didn't want her to know.

"Hey Billy!" Grace's angelic voice pulled him from the recesses of his mind and his eyes snapped over to her as she made her way towards him, her short summer dress flowing in the slight breeze as he sat on the bench waiting for her sister and Tatum to finish grabbing whatever snacks they deigned 'right'. "Aren't you guys supposed to be having a movie night?"

"We are. Wanna join us?" He couldn't help it, he definitely liked Sydney but something about her little sister made his world light up and his heart thump just that much harder behind his ribcage.

"You sure they wouldn't mind? Syd doesn't like it when I watch scary movies." There it was, the cheeky little dimple popping up as she smiled at him and her eyes sparkled with mischief. Both of them knew her sisters opinion of her movie choices had no affect on what she watched, Billy himself had snuck her multiple videos from the store to sate her need for gore and violence.

"I'll tell them it was my idea." The smirk that tugged at his lips felt dangerous even to him.

Anything to do with Grace had a tendency to through him off violently, he always felt out of control around her but he never cared much. Something about it all gave him a sense of freedom, he didn't have to second guess his words an actions with her like he usually did with everyone else. With others he was the average small town football player but with Grace he felt himself darken to something else, something that could live in the scary movies they watched together.

"Okay. What are we watching?" Grace plopped down gracelessly on the bench beside him and Billy felt himself laugh as he dropped his arm onto the back of the bench behind her. Considering her name was Grace he was always shocked at how little of it she had, always tripping over herself and ending up with bruises.

"Psycho."

"Sweet! How'd you convince Tatum to watch that?" Excitement flashed behind her eyes and Billy's heart thumped a little faster in his chest, warmth spreading through him even as he glanced away from her and towards where her sister would be appearing from.

"Stu said he'd 'protect' her." Bubbles of laughter escaped her at his explanation as he quoted his mildly insane best friend, Billy couldn't understand why Stu was dating the blonde beyond getting a stab back at Casey Becker for dumping him. Regardless he didn't really care, he had too much to focus on already with the odd way that his parents had been acting and looking after Grace.

"Of course he did! She'll be on his lap the whole time." Grace playfully shuddered beside him and he grinned, watching as she wrinkled her nose in mock disgust before her eyes shot towards something over his shoulder and her sunshine bright demeanour faltered. "Uh oh... Here they come."

Psycho had been his favourite movie since the night he had first seen it with his mother, sitting on their old sofa with a large bowl of popcorn and listening gleefully and intently to the screams that came from their television. He had been sucked in from the beginning and the two of them had watched it dozens upon dozens of times. But now the movie left nothing but a bitter taste in his mouth, anger tainting once happy memories.

She had left him. Dropped him like last weeks trash and taken off in the middle of the night after a fight with his father about the affair he had been having. Billy had been infuriated to find out his father had been cheating on his mother, on the woman who had raised him. He had been even angrier to find out that his old man had had this affair with none other than Maureen Prescott. Memories of Grace flooded past his minds eye at the thought of her mother and he felt his hands tighten into fists as he walked, times they had spent together watching Psycho religiously because she knew he liked it and she knew they could 'outvote' any of the others. He had to tell her.

Climbing up to her bedroom window was easy, he had done it multiple times before although he supposed this time he didn't have to be nearly as careful considering her mother was most likely still out picking Sydney up from practice like she hadn't torn apart a family. Easily he opened her window, watching as the girl herself walked towards her desk with what looked like a picture frame clutched in her hands. His feet dropped onto the plush carpet of her room and he paused, taking in the sight of her for a moment before speaking.

"Gracey."

She jumped at the sound of his voice and a sharp sliver of guilt shot through him for a millisecond, he didn't even like the idea of scaring her. Everyone else was fine but never Grace.

"Jesus Billy! You scared me!" She giggled that usual happy little giggle of hers but he could see something was off in her eyes, they didn't shine as brightly now and if he looked closely he could see red around her eyes. In that moment all of his own thoughts and feelings disappeared leaving nothing but pure unadulterated rage in its wake, his heart racing as his hands itched to do something. Something he wouldn't ever admit to wanting.

"What's wrong?" He didn't mince his words, brows furrowing as he stepped forward towards her and he could have roared with his fury even as his worry built when she turned her face away from him. Hiding from him. "Gracey, talk to me." He ordered her, his voice was probably too forceful but he needed her to listen.

"Nothing's wrong." Her light tone would have fooled anyone, but he wasn't anyone. In the nearly two years since he had started dating her sister he had analysed the way she spoke, the way her words seemed to float when she was really truly happy.

"Gracey."

There was a moment of silence after he spoke before he saw her shoulders sag, saw the slight tremble in her fingers before the picture frame tumbled down onto the plush carpet with a dull thud. His eyes barely had time to register the sight of a picture of herself and her family before she shot towards him, her slim arms wrapping around his waist as she buried her face into his chest. She was crying. He could hear it, feel the moisture soaking into his shirt.

"Shh, Gracey, it's okay." He cooed, he knew well enough that the kind of sadness she was feeling needed his softness even if it felt foreign to him right now with all that had happened that night.

"It's not okay, Billy... She's ruining us!" Sobs wracked her smaller body and Billy felt his muscles freeze, his arms tightening around her reflexively. He didn't know who she was, what she had done but something deep within him was furious. Something darker than Billy had ever felt before. Something even he was afraid of.

"Who is, Gracey? Who's ruining you?" A need burned within him. He could make things write for her. He needed to.

"My mom... She's cheating, Billy, on my dad-" Another sob broke past her lips and fury burst forth in him, his hands no longer rubbing at her back like they had been for her comfort. Her mother. The bitch had not only ruined his family but now she was causing her daughter pain, bringing his bright light to tears. "I heard the rumors... But today at school the other girls... They found me in the locker rooms." The sobs tumbling from her lips didn't stop even as she spoke, her breath hiccuping against his chest and immediately he willed his hands to move and comfort her. "Casey said I was just like my mom... And they were laughing at me."

Billy strained to understand her between her crying but some words were simply lost to him and his anger, he knew Casey was involved and that Grace knew about her mothers affairs now but he suspected there was more she wasn't telling him. He had never seen her in this much pain before even when she had broken her wrist nearly a year ago. Cooing softly he stayed silent as she cried, he didn't have the words to make it all right for her but he would fix it. All of them would pay for hurting her.

A week later Billy wasn't shocked when Grace continued to avoid him at every stage, her bedroom window had been locked ever since that night that he had gone to her house with the intent to tell her about her mothers infidelity. She had made a point of staying away from her sister, away from him and Billy was barely able to catch glimpses of her walking alone through school. He could readily admit he wasn't tapped into the gossip at school so he wasn't sure where her previous friends had gone, hadn't deemed them worthy enough to really take notice of so he wasn't even really sure who they were.

"I'm worried about her..." Sydney sat back against him as the five of them sat around the fountain outside of their school, the pair of them catching a glimpse of her sister as she rushed past over the tops of their 'friends' heads. Billy silently agreed, taking in the lacklustre shade of Grace's usually glowing skin and the way she sunk deeper in on herself the further she walked.

"Why? What's wrong with her?" Tatum questioned, deigning to glance over her own shoulder for barely a second before her eyes returned to Sydney and Billy felt his temper flare familiarly at her complete lack of concern for her best friends sister.

"I don't know but she's been acting strange... She won't eat and I haven't seen her with Eleanor or Kate in weeks." Sydney sat up straighter and Billy followed her, his eyes glued to her little sister as she walked across the street and began down the road towards their home. "Have you heard anything about a fight? They aren't usually quiet with those three..."

"No... But I heard Casey and a couple of others started a whole bunch of rumours about your mom and Grace. Said Grace was stealing Billy..." Tatum was clearly uncomfortable revealing what she had heard from the gossips she could friends, Sydney and Grace were never receptive to the rumours about their mother to begin with but Billy had had no idea about there being rumours about Grace. And about him.

"Billy? She'd never!" Sydney's nose wrinkled like the mere suggestion of her sister stealing him filled her with disgust, her hand finding his were it lay on her lap and she thread her fingers through his own as she shook her head. Mentally Billy could have laughed at the way she had reacted, because Sydney didn't know just how much he truly cared for Grace. She didn't know that her sister could steal him away from her without even realising it, without even trying. Billy would drop any one of them in a heartbeat for Grace.

The fact that a rumour like that was circling and that her two friends had basically disappeared on her worried him and his hands tightened on Sydneys for a split second as he thought, her smile flashing before his minds eye. Perhaps her friends were distancing themselves, perhaps she was avoiding them as much as she was him. Either way he would be visiting her again that night, he would find out what was wrong one way or another.

WARNING mentions of su*c*de and dea*h ahead, please read only if you feel that you're in a suitable mindset!

He had been too late. By hours, maybe minutes. Rage filled his bones as he sat at the edge of his bed, vivid red flashing past his vision as his breath caught in his chest and his heart reverberated like thunder in his ears.

She had been angelic even then, even finding her the way that he had she had seemed at peace and yet everything about it felt wrong. She wasn't supposed to look calm when she wouldn't ever breathe the same air as him, she wasn't supposed to look like the angel that she was when she had stolen her smile from him. It had taken everything in him not to fall to his knees at the sight of her in her bathtub, soaked in red that seemed to seep into the very pores of the clean white tiles around her. He hadn't thought he needed to rush over after hanging out with Sydney and their friends, had thought that she would be sitting around in her room like Sydney had said she had been doing the past week.

A sob fell from between his lips before he could stop it and his fingers tangled further into his hair, gripping at it harshly as he curled in on himself in the dark of his bedroom. It was obvious standing over her at her house that no one else knew about her, that no one had seen her but him and he couldn't handle it. He had stumbled back out of her bathroom door and nearly vomited onto her plush carpet because yeah he could handle gore, he could handle blood, but he couldn't handle seeing her like that. Seeing her gone.

He had barely caught sight of two letters on her desk as he stumbled back towards her still open window, stopping only to scoop up the one with his name on it before fleeing the scene altogether before his emotions could give him away.

Billy had barely made it a block from her home before he broke down, before his pain had gotten the better of him and he had sprayed some old ladies rose bushes with the meals he had had. He had felt like a child kneeled down on the ground crying as he expelled anything and everything left in his stomach, his hands shaking as he gripped the grass. Luckily there hadn't been anyone around, he had stopped in front of an abandoned home and he was long gone before anyone else could have seen him.

Now though her note sat opened beside him as he sobbed once more, then twice. He was surprised when his father didn't come in to investigate the sounds but he supposed the old man could have also gone out, thankful for the privacy that provided him as he struggled with his pain. With his mind.

Her curly bubbly handwriting had matched her personality in a way Billy wouldn't ever admit to loving out loud, the look of her writing at a stark contrast to what was written in the note she had left him. Her pain had been unbearable, unfathomable and he hadn't even known. Her letter wrote of Casey Becker and how the blonde cheerleader had been bullying her for months alongside her idiot boyfriend, how she had witnessed her mother cheating on her father in their bed and how her mother had sneered at her afterwards. Fury eased through the pain in his chest at the thought of Maureen Prescott demanding that her daughter hide the truth from her father, at the thought of that bitch telling his Grace that she had been the product of such an affair.

His anger built the longer he sat there, his hands painful against his scalp. Casey Becker needed to pay for hurting her. Maureen Prescott needed to pay. Sydney too. They would all pay for what they had done.

Billy could almost feel her presence as he lay there, he wasn't entirely sure who had shot him that second time when he lunged upwards in an effort to grab at Sydney. Between his all consuming anger at Sydney and the multiple wounds he had gathered over the course of the night he hadn't been paying nearly enough attention to what was happening around him as he tried so desperately to kill her sister. He could almost imagine her fingers on his cheeks as he listened to the voices of Sydney and that loser Meeks becoming increasingly muffled. He was dying. He knew it and he didn't care.

He had achieved his goal even if Sydney fucking Prescott had gotten the better of him. He had gotten revenge against those who had snuffed the light right out of his life just the year before. Billy, though he had let that dark part of him take control, hadn't ever stopped thinking about Grace. About how proud he wanted her to be of him for ridding the world of the scum around them, about how funny she would have found his and Stu's games.

And as he felt his chest tighten and the edges of his vision darken Billy found himself at complete ease with his situation, the faint sound of her twinkling giggles meeting his ears as he let himself into unconsciousness pleased to once again be blessed by her presence. By her Grace.