A/N: I've wanted to do this for a while, but I kept putting it off. I got inspired by the scene when Brittany tells Artie that he was the only person in the school who hadn't called her stupid - and I wanted to know when Santana would have called Brittany stupid.
It was fair to say that Brittany Pierce wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. Not by a long shot. On her first day of kindergarten, she'd gotten lost.
There was only one room in the place.
When she was in the second grade, she'd discovered the wonders of the sand box, although it managed to really perplex her. She'd build sandcastles in it, slide her toes through the grains of sand, but she never understood it.
Once, she'd voiced her concerns to a classmate who was in the sandbox with her, lazily drifting her slender fingers through the sand.
"How can the sand all be here if there's no ocean?" It was a genuine question. The only sand Brittany had seen was at the beach, when she went on a holiday with her parents to California. If there was no ocean, how did all the sand survive?
"Sand doesn't need to be near an ocean," a young Santana Lopez replied, still completely unfocused and not looking at Brittany. "Did you really think that?"
Brittany gulped, and nodded. Santana kind of scared her.
"Wow. You must be really stupid then."
Brittany's face scrunched up. "My Mommy said that's a bad word, and nobody should call other people stupid."
"Whatever," the girl from the Heights replied, completely uncaring.
"You're mean," Brittany said, kicked over the sandcastle she had been building. She stormed away.
Neither girl spoke to each other after that.
When she was ten, Brittany met Noah Puckerman. She thought he was kind of cute, even if he was always pulling her pigtails, and sticking his tongue out at her. He kept telling her to 'Look at my guns!', which, all things considered, Brittany didn't think were much to look at. Brittany, however, was always committed to being sweet and kind, so she politely 'ooohed' at his biceps.
When they were fifteen, Noah had started acting differently towards her. He always smiled at her, and winked at her, and she found it kind of creepy.
They were at a birthday party for a mutual friend when Noah took Brittany's hand and led her into the laundry, where he put his hand on her cheek.
"Do you want to kiss me?" he'd asked, simply.
"What?" Brittany hadn't seen that coming.
"I said, do you want to kiss me. Are you stupid or something?"
The words stung like acid. She'd developed a hatred of the s-word. Everyone was always calling her that.
She pulled away from him, and rushed out of the laundry.
And was then shocked as she ran into someone carrying drinks, as they spilled all over the both of them.
"Hey!" the other girl had shouted, before looking at Brittany's face and noticing that it was stained with tears. "Are you okay?" she asked gently, and Brittany recognized her as Santana Lopez, the girl who had once called her stupid. She didn't want to talk to Santana – after all, it was her fault she'd come to hate the word stupid.
"I…" the way that Santana looked at her was so concerned, so genuine, that she just ended up pouring out the story.
Santana looked at her ashen faced after she was done, holding her as she cried. "From now on, if anyone ever calls you stupid, you tell me, okay?"
Brittany nodded.
"I'm going to look after you."
Since then, whenever someone said the s-word to her, she'd tell Santana. Because Santana promised she would help her, and help her she did.
She had told her when Quinn called her stupid after she'd messed up one of their cheerios routines. When Finn called her stupid after she asked if he and Kurt were an item since they were living together. When Mercedes had called her stupid after she had asked her if she could tell her the name of her tanning salon. When Tina had called her stupid after she asked if she'd had any colour other than black in her wardrobe. When Rachel had called her stupid after she'd asked where she'd bought that talent she kept bragging about, and where Brittany could get some. When Kurt had called her stupid after she'd told him about how much she loved that he was a dolphin. When Mr. Schue had called her stupid after she'd asked how often he needed to relieve his chin, when she'd heard Coach call it a 'butt-chin'.
She'd even come to Santana when Coach called her stupid, but Santana was too scared of Coach, so every time Coach did that, Santana would squeeze her hand and smile at her and she'd feel so much better.
And she'd definitely gone to Santana after Artie had called her stupid.
He was the last one – now they'd all called her stupid.
She had gone to Santana in a crying, heap of a mess (even though Santana was kind of not speaking to her since she'd confessed that she was in love with her) and Santana had just rubbed her back and threatened to kill Artie.
Brittany had told her not to, though, and she didn't. Because Santana did love her, after all.
And after they left high school, hand in hand, Santana would stay with Brittany and whenever someone called her the s-word, Santana would deal with it.
Because, as Santana had learned long ago, calling someone stupid was mean.
And nobody was allowed to be mean to her Brittany.