Soap x nerd! Reader
High school AU
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You were the kind of student teachers loved to hold up as an example — perfect GPA, endless extracurriculars, captain of debate and track, a college application portfolio that was already fat with promise. You had a seat practically waiting for you at the Ivy League of your choosing, if you could just keep your record clean.
Soap, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. He was the kind of boy parents warned their kids about: ink-stained fingers from doodling in his notebooks, a reputation for cutting class and showing up smelling like smoke, the constant soundtrack of his laughter echoing through the halls as he clashed with authority. He never studied, and yet somehow never quite failed. People either adored him or wrote him off entirely.
You never had a reason to talk to him until fate — or maybe the guidance counselor — threw you together.
They needed tutors, and you were the school’s shining example. Soap had slipped below the line one too many times, and tutoring was his last shot at keeping himself from summer school. And to your utter disbelief, they paired him with you.
The first session was a disaster. He strolled in late, grinning like he’d won something, hair messy, twirling a pen between his fingers.
“So, you’re my babysitter, aye? Gonna make me a genius, lass?” His accent rolled over the words like a tease.
You bit back a sigh. “I’m here to make sure you don’t flunk out of senior year. The rest is up to you.”
And somehow, session after session, he kept showing up. He leaned back in his chair, smirked when you grew impatient, called you “professor” just to see you frown. But he listened, even if he pretended he didn’t. You caught him studying your lips when you explained formulas, eyes softening in ways you didn’t expect from someone with his reputation.
It was dangerous, the way he made you laugh when you weren’t supposed to, the way you found yourself wondering if he was really as careless as he let on. He smelled like smoke and peppermint gum, but sometimes, when he forgot to play the clown, you glimpsed something sharper — a boy who was smarter than he let the world believe, hiding behind jokes and haze.
And maybe, just maybe, he was exactly the kind of chaos you’d been too disciplined to admit you wanted.
