AN: This is my take on how Santana and Brittany first met, it probably goes against a lot of people's head canon's but oh well. I may keep this as a one-shot or if i get inspired I may continue it on. Also for the sake of the story were believing that Sue Sylvester picks some of her cheer squad before they've even entered high school. It's not that hard to believe considering she seems to have an infinite amount of them roaming the halls.
Disclaimer: Ryan Murphy and co. own all that is copyrightable as they make very clear when they consistently fuck over our ship. Thank cheesus for fan fiction.
I've never been great at feelings, not that I don't have them just that I find that they can be frighteningly overwhelming. It's all together easier to hide them, not ignore them as some people think; just simply hide them from public view. People have accused me of being cold and unfeeling; my own mother used to 'jokingly' say that I have a heart of stone. The truth is that people like me, people who wear a mask and hide their true feelings, they aren't cold at all. It's not that people like me don't feel enough or are numb, it is that we feel too much. Defense mechanisms are something we all have, we develop them early on and once they're there it is incredibly hard if not impossible to get rid of them. All we need though is someone to break down those walls, the person willing to look past the stony exterior and bad reputation, then we become the most loving and sensitive of everyone. It is those with the most fragile of hearts, that require the most guarding. My mask was nothing more than my first line of defense...
Meeting Brittany was possibly the single most terrifying moment of my life, up until that point at least, however outwardly I looked as calm as ever. I remember very clearly what I felt when looking at her, I feel the exact same way when I look at her now. My heart started beating at a sprinting pace and my entire body started heating up. At first I thought I was having some sort of panic attack and had to take in deep breaths of air to keep my face free of the adrenaline rush I was internally feeling. If I did show any outward signs of being affected by her no one seemed to notice.
We were at cheer-leading camp just before freshman year of high school and had just been assigned partners for trust exercises, of course she was mine and I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed her sooner (I later learned that she was actually supposed to go a high school in another district but Coach Sue had scouted her and somehow changed those plans. She apparently did the same for this blonde girl called Quinn, but Quinn and Brittany didn't know each other and Quinn was decidedly less talented a dancer). Back then we had both just turned fourteen years old however Brittany was basically already a a super model, all blue eyes with blonde hair and a dancer's physique, she was a very early developer. She towered over me by at least six inches, and I had never felt smaller in my life but not because of our height difference.
"You're Santana Lopez, right?" She didn't wait for a response before... "Listen there's like no point in you trying to catch me because you're like super tiny and would probably drop me, also from what I've heard from the other girls here you're totally evil and I don't want to touch you in case you take my soul or something."
To say I was slightly taken aback would be an understatement, see like I said, just because I don't like feelings doesn't mean I don't have them, and it was for times like this that I even had my defense mechanisms. I feel things so strongly sometimes, especially hurtful things and even more so coming from someone who was already giving me all sorts of confusing feelings.
" uh…" I started but didn't even get a chance to formulate a sentence before she was speaking again, (that should have been a clear warning sign that this girl was different, if the sweaty palms and rabbit quick heartbeat I was experiencing at that moment weren't enough. I never stuttered or stalled, in fact I had developed quite the acid tongue in the past year although you wouldn't believe so now.) "So basically we're not gonna do the trust exercise, I'm not going to be above you in the pyramid because coach told me you're going to be up near that Quinn girl and were both fliers so the chances of me ever dropping back into your arms are like super slim anyway. Coach just made me assistant choreographer so she really wants me to get doing that. She only paired us because she knew none of the other girls would agree to going with you. I'm going to go now, Coach said I shouldn't linger in case you shank me. I don't know what that means but it doesn't sound fun, does it have something to do with you being a skank?" She tilted her head to the side contemplatively, "those girls were wrong though your eyes aren't black like your demon soul, they're really warm and pretty...once you look past the frowning...anyways, later."
She was gone in a blur of blonde before I even had chance to be offended by the racist comment or the implication that I was a soul sucking demon or the allusion to me being a skank (that one definitely stung the most, upon later reflection, probably because Brittany had come up with it herself instead of relaying the other's thoughts). I hadn't actually thought I had behaved that badly so far at camp, I mean yes I had somewhat of a reputation that preceded me from the last year of middle school, of being a tad bit ruthless, but fear was power and I was fully aware that power was very much a necessity at high school. I figured an early start at that would get me noticed; clearly it worked because as Brittany had just basically told me I was going to be high up on the pyramid near golden child Quinn Fabray.
With my partner off coming up with routines I had no choice but to sit alone and watch the other girls catch each other. Coach Sue was randomly walking through the couples tugging one partner back so the other went crashing to the floor. She was shouting something about never trusting anyone (this seemed to be the real moral of the exercise) and unfortunately for young me I seemed destined to take those words to heart. If only I had known what adventures that summer would bring me, I probably wouldn't have been so quick to agree with her...