A/N: Sparked by: the dancing queen's birthday, the Martha's Vineyard farmers market I went to last year, and the time I was in a vendor at a farmers market. There were too many bees. Enjoy.
Farmers markets are much more fun for the people who are buying.
For the vendors, however, it's 4-6 hours of pure, unending boredom.
And bees. Always bees, Eren always manages to get placed right next to some jackass who thinks it's funny to sell flowers and attract all the bees in a ten mile radius.
It was always better when Jean and Mikasa would tag along, Eren thinks, silently fuming and pressing the flat of one of his whittling knives to his lips, staring down at the half-finished bird in his hands. He had someone who could watch the stand when he needed a break or wanted to check out the other vendors. Now Mikasa's in Cali on a track scholarship, and Jean's backpacking across Europe, and sometimes Eren's life feels stagnant and lackluster, and all his friends are growing up and running wild without him.
The knife skips and skids on the wood and stabs into his thumb.
The squawk he lets out is as dignified as the words he says are appropriate, and the mother who was just browsing through his antiques gives him a dirty look, covers her son's ears, and steers him away from his booth and into the one across from him. Of course.
Even luckier, he's all out of Band-Aid's, and so are the people he sort of knows beside him, so he has to go and see if the jackass with the flowers and disgruntled mom has any.
Eren has never been one for faces, so the first thing he notices are the fact that the vendor is wearing a shirt with an all-lace back and floral shorts. It's… Really cute, and Eren's already finding it hard to stay mad at them for the amount of bees crawling over everything. Floral Shorts gives the kid a lollipop and thanks the mom before all but ushering them both out so they can give their full attention to Eren.
"Can I help you?" they say, and it takes Eren a few seconds of staring at their utterly flawless face to realize that yes, they can help him, and that's a question he's supposed to respond to.
"Uh! Yeah, actually, I work over there," He jabs his non bleeding thumb at his booth, "And I managed to cut my thumb open, do you have any Band-Aids?"
They do, but they're Hello-Kitty ones, which is fine, Eren tells them, he was wearing a sundress yesterday, a Hello-Kitty bandage isn't going to dent his pride.
"So, what's your name? And, if you don't mind me asking, what pronouns should I use for you?" Eren says, putting on the Band-Aid.
They grin. "Armin. And he/him pronouns are fine. What's yours?"
"Eren. And same." Eren answers, smiling down at him. A customer walks over to his booth at the same time that one walks into Armin's, and they say their goodbyes.
Eren spends the rest of his day thinking about bright aqua eyes and the way gold hair glints in the sun.
The summer whizzes by in a hot blur of lights and colors, late nights at the beach and half shouted jokes across strips of grass and customers to Armin, who always smells like flowers no matter how far away from his booth they walk. Mikasa calls at least once a week, Jean calls much less and always in the middle of the night from a payphone. They both tell him he sounds happier than at the start of the summer, tell him how their lives are going, the new friends they've made, and in return he tells them about Armin. Armin's cornflower blue eyes and round sunlasses, Armin's collection of sea glass, Armin's flowers, the fastest way to make Armin laugh is to tell him a bad joke, the fact that once Armin found out that Eren loathed bees he let one walk up his arm in front of him to prove that they were harmless.
"And I'm still too shy to ask for his number, let alone ask him out." Eren sighs into his phone, a week before the final farmers market. Theres a sound like someone spitting water out, and he hears Mikasa drop her phone.
"You aren't dating." Mikasa says, after she picks her phone up and stops sputtering.
"..No?"
"Oh my god." Mikasa says. "Oh my god. I have been listening to you rave about this person for months, a blind man could see that you're head over heels for him, and yet you still haven't asked him out."
She hangs up on him.
Eren sighs and texts her.
To: Mikarin
OK SO CLEARLY I SHOULD ASK HIM OUT BUT HOW IM NOTGOOD AT TGIS ROMANCEY STUFF PLS HELP A POOR HEARTACHEY BOY MIKA
From: Mikarin
Yes u should ask him out holy shit. Just carve him a bird? And write a letter? Love letters are romantic + coming back into style i thinks idk just wing it
To: Mikarin
SEE WHT U DID THERE
From: Mikarin
?
To: Mikarin
A BIRD. WING IT.
She sends him a photo of her and her two roommates flipping him off. He laughs, and gets up to carve Armin an indigo bunting, which is his favorite bird, if Eren remembers correctly.
The night before the farmers market he goes out and picks a small bouquet of wildflowers, and spends two hours and half of a notebook on the letter, printed as neatly as Eren can get with his scratchy writing, and signed with his name and number.
Armin is playing some upbeat hipster music out of his car's speakers as per usual when Eren pulls up, and he's singing and dancing along, sunglasses perched on his head and white sundress swishing around his knees.
"Hey Armin!" He calls out as he hops out of his truck, and Armin bounces over and shoves a hand over his mouth before he can even begin to tell the joke.
"You only get to tell the joke if you dance with me." He says, dead serious, then removes his hand when Eren starts licking it. "Gross! I've been touching dirt all day!"
"But I can't dance!" Eren says, and Armin rolls his eyes.
"Who cares? I didn't say you had to dance well, you just gotta move!" Armin says, grabbing both his hand and pulling him out into the open grass.
They dance for three songs, laughing when they step on each other's feet and shouting more than singing the lyrics that they know and making up the ones they don't. Eren regretfully tells Armin that he still needs to set up at the end, as Armin tucks a daisy behind his ear.
Later on, Armin asks Eren to watch over his booth while he goes to the bathroom. Eren slides over and puts the bird, the flowers, and the letter on the passenger's seat. The rest of the day is a swamp of nerves, butterflies making his stomach churn every time he sees Armin.
He gives upon hoping at the end of the day when Armin says goodbye for the last time at the end of the day, hops into his car and drives away. Eren sighs heavily and shoves his tailgate shut, kicking himself for not confessing earlier. It seems a little ridiculous, he did write his number after all, but disappointment sits leaden in his chest, because Armin only might call, and might has never been good enough for Eren to live with.
"Eren! Catch!"
Eren whirls around, hands out to catch whatever Armin has come back to throw at him.
He's extremely surprised when Armin throws himself into his arms instead. So surprised that he ends up falling down with Armin still in his arms, yelping in alarm.
Armin is babbling, his face smashed into his shoulder and hair doing up Eren's nose and into his mouth.
"Of course I like you ohmygod you're such a sweetheart I love it you're such a dork you picked wildflowers for me and Indigo Buntings are my favorite and- I'm so sorry am I crushing you?"
Eren sputters and assures him that no, he is not, it's just that Armin's hair is full of static and attempting to worm its way up his nose and into his brain. Armin immediately backs up and pulls Eren into a sitting position before wrapping his arms around him and presses their foreheads together.
"I like you too." He whispers, giggling slightly. Eren brings his hands up and gently cups his face, sliding his thumbs across his cheeks.
"Armin," He says, grinning, "Would you do me the honor of dating me?"
Armin laughs. "Of course. You are such a nerd, I could kiss you right now."
"Please do." Eren whispers.
Armin's lips feel like sunshine.