Nine Planets: AmericaXReader

You flopped back on your bed. Your friend Alfred grinned at you. You weren't smiling back like you normally did. You were upset, naturally, about how things had gone for you recently. You had asked out several people, only to find out they were already taken. You only had Alfred as a friend. Yet for some reason, when you told him about trying to date, he got slightly upset. He was one of those perpetual singles, one of the lone wolf types, the hero who couldn't get close to someone because the bad guy would then turn around to use his beloved as a token to stop the hero, or so Alfred claimed. You just thought he hadn't found someone he liked.

"What's wrong with me Al?" you asked.

Alfred jumped on your bed with you. He lay down, knowing that he was very much welcome to do so. He had only been your friend for so many years. It was easy to think Alfred was just a muscle bound brute, but you knew how sensitive the boy truly was beneath all his boasting and bluster. Alfred had a soft heart, and no doubt secretly still cared about everyone's opinion of him, especially you, even if he didn't care about anyone else's lately. He had been offered a recent college scholarship to a prestigious college for it's sports teams but he turned them down in favor of an Ivy League. He was going in for the aerodynamics and nuclear fission program the college had. You wanted only the best for Alfred but encouraged him to do what he wanted, not what everyone expected of him.  

"Waddya mean?" Alfred asked.

"Nine planets-"

"Eight planets, __________," Alfred corrected.

You rolled over onto your stomach to glower at him. He smiled at you, offering his hands up in a sign of surrender. You weren't going to accept that one bit. You hit him with your pillow as retaliation. The two of you always got into arguments over silly things. Whether or not Pluto was a planet was one of them. You would defend that planet until your last days. It was a planet. It had to be one! You were told since you were little that it had been one. Only to find out that scientists don't think it should be considered one was like telling a little kid there was no such thing as Santa. It hurt, because this was all you knew.

"Alfred, I was born when there were nine planets! There will forever be nine planets!" you snapped.

He laughed. He knew you always defended the poor planet Pluto who had lost its title as a 'true' planet a few years ago. He liked messing with you so he picked things he knew you felt strongly about. You had always been use to saying that rhyme, My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. It made up the planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Sure, there were other rhymes, but that was the one you remembered to help remember the planets. Several times in your 'modern' science classes did the teacher have to correct you to tell you that Pluto was not a planet.

"Fine… Nine planets."

"Well, as I was saying, nine planets, almost two hundred or so countries-"

"Wait! Did you count all of them?"

You glowered at him. He shut up. He knew better than to say anything more while you were talking, since you still had the pillow in your hands and were ready to attack him at any moment. He would deserve it. Granted, he would have defended himself against you, but he would have done it while laughing. He did enjoy teasing you so much. You had no idea why but he did. His crush on you kept him single. He got jealous when you started talking about dating. He had always considered that the two of you were already in a relationship and when Arthur pointed it out that he had never really asked you out, perhaps you didn't realize that you were already dating him. He was going to have to fix that.

"Eight hundred some islands, seven seas and over 7 billion people and counting and I'm single…"

Alfred turned to look at you over his shoulder. There was an expression on his face that was almost unreadable. You swallowed nervously. Why was he looking at you like that? It made you nervous. He smiled at you so it made you feel better. He was probably just trying to creep you out again. Why did he always do that? It bothered you sometimes but he always made it up with a tight hug and a laugh. You enjoyed the hugs. He grinned only because he knew that this was his chance to prove to you how special you were to him. This was just what he was waiting for you and the two of you were in the perfect informal setting. And people said he couldn't read the atmosphere!

"You're not single… You have me!" Alfred protested.

He always made comments like that. He always said you were never alone because you had him. It was true. And while you did have a crush on him, there was no way he liked you back. You had been friends since as long as you could remember. You didn't notice that Alfred's head was slowly wrapping his hand around the back of your neck. The palm of his hand rubbed the skin. Then you jumped. Your eyes widened but calmed down. Alfred had always been rather touchy. Your eyes slowly fluttered because of the gentle movement.

"Al, we're not dating…"

"But we could be!"

"Huh?"

He seized you by the collar of your shirt and pulled you into a kiss.