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It was quiet in the flower shop during the week following Valentine's day. It had always been that way, but Thorin still managed to keep himself busy, he refreshed his displays, did a proper stock count and caught up on all the tedious admin stuff he absolutely detested. Bilbo came over once or twice with lunch and other... distractions, that was always a pleasant respite from the boredom of paperwork.
Today, however, Bilbo was fully booked. Thorin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, making his glasses ride up onto his forehead. He took the glasses off, pushed the pile of papers and receipts in front of him away and went outside to stretch his legs. The external display needed watering anyway.
As Thorin checked over the flowers he became increasingly aware of a couple of teenage girls staring from across the street, one blonde, the other was a red head. He turned to look at them, they were now looking at a phone talking, gesturing, the blonde one kept looking at whatever was on the screen then back up, not necessarily at him, but definitely in his direction.
Getting far too uncomfortable with their strange behaviour, Thorin decided to go back inside, just as he turned his back he heard his name being called. He stopped and looked back at the girls, there was no one else paying him any attention, it had to be them, they were both smiling wildly and the red head was flapping her hands in a strange display of excitement. Thorin studied them closer, trying to figure out if he knew them. He didn't.
Much to his horror, they were crossing the road, while he couldn't hear the words, they were clearly saying things along the lines of 'Oh my god' and 'It's actually him.' Thorin didn't know if he should run or stand his ground. He had no idea what was happening, but the girls clearly recognised him, hell, they knew his name!
"Are you actually Thorin?" The blonde one asked when they reached his side of the street.
"Like, Bilbo's Thorin?" The red head followed up, not giving him a chance to answer.
"E-excuse me?" Thorin blinked, he wanted to retreat to the cool confines of his shop, he wanted to know how they knew him, knew Bilbo. He desperately wanted to be out of this situation.
"Oh, of course it's him." The red head said to the blonde, "I mean, c'mon, the hair, the eyes," She side stepped and peered downwards with a grin, "The arse..."
The blonde one elbowed her friend when she saw the outraged look on Thorin's face. He was at a complete loss for words, his face was flushed, from anger or embarrassment, he didn't know. The girls were clearly comparing him to an image on the phone in the blonde girls hand. Thorin snatched it away from her, ignoring the protests and looked at the screen.
After a couple of blinks and a shake of his head, just to make sure he wasn't seeing things, yes, that was him. A picture of him tending to the flowers outside his shop. It wasn't from today, the display was different, this picture was taken at least two weeks ago. The girls had gone quiet.
Thorin looked up slowly, dangerously. "What the hell is this!?"
"Can I have my phone back please?" The blonde girl asked in a very, very small voice.
"Not until you tell me why you have this picture of me." Thorin almost growled at them.
"It's not our picture." The red head said quickly.
"Then why do yo-"
"I follow Bilbo on Instagram, his personal one and he sometimes posts pictures of you, like, really hot pictures of you, and I swear it's not as creepy as it sounds because he's a million percent in love with you and everyone thinks you should get married and have beautiful children together, I have an appointment with Bilbo for a tattoo and I promise we're not stalking you, please don't hurt us."
Thorin was taken aback by how fast the red headed girl could talk. He would swear until his last one that she hadn't taken a single breath. While he was still a bit angry and very, very confused by the whole situation, he managed to let out a single nervous huff of laughter. He had heard of Instagram, some picture sharing thing, he looked back down at the phone.
Only slightly nervous at what he might find, Thorin tapped the back button and it took him to a profile page, the little profile picture was of Bilbo pulling a silly face. He scrolled down to look at the pictures he had posted, sure enough, just seemingly random pictures of everyday things interspersed with selfies and snaps of Thorin.
It was all too weird, why on earth would Bilbo do this? Surely he realised it was an invasion of privacy. Something Thorin rather enjoyed. He wordlessly handed the phone back to the girls and looked over their heads at the tattoo parlour and saw Bilbo looking back, clearly wondering why he had accosted his next client. Thorin smiled to acknowledge that he had seen him, but it didn't reach his eyes.
Thorin barely heard the squeaked apologies from the girls as they hurried across the street, he finally went back into his shop, not to work, but to think. He flipped the sign on the door, pulled out his phone and dialled his sister's number. She was reasonable, at least. She would help him figure this out.
It rang for a while,the call was eventually answered, but it wasn't Dis. "Good afternoon, Lady Dis' isn't available right now, can I take a message?"
Thorin didn't hear it, he was far too ready to rant and the words just tumbled out of his mouth. "That man is so infuriating, I just can't understand him sometimes, would you believe that Bilbo has been taking pictures of me and putting them on the internet?" He paused to take a breath, not paying attention to the quiet 'Um, Uncle?' that came through the speaker, before he went on. "I mean, seriously? Tell me that isn't weird, Dis."
There was silence for a couple of beats, he'd expected that, the loud, obnoxious laughter that followed was a surprise. "Dis?"
"N-no!" Kili's voice was barely discernible through the laughter he was struggling to contain. "She's gone out."
"Kili?" Thorin felt the blood drain from his face, he groaned out an "Oh, shit." and took the phone away from his ear before he was deafened by his nephew's cackling. When the sounds died down, Thorin brought the phone back to his ear ready to threaten Kili into silence.
"Has Bilbo actually put pictures of you on the internet?" Kili asked once he had calmed down.
"Yes," Thorin grumbled, reluctant to admit anything but if he didn't divulge actual detail, he knew Kili would just make some up and it would be much, much worse, "Instagram."
"Oh, well that's less weird than just the internet."
"How is it less weird?"
Kili ignored is question and fired of some of his own, not giving his uncle any time to answer. "Were they gross pictures? Oh, did he add any tags? Wait, wait... what's his username?"
Thorin sighed for what felt like the millionth time that day. "No, yes and I can't remember, not that I would tell you."
"Doesn't matter," Kili was clearly smiling, "Found it."
"Don't you fucki-"
"Language, Uncle!" There was a series of cooing sounds before his nephew actually said anything. "That's adorable."
"It's an invasion of my privacy." Thorin pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering why, oh why, he didn't just hang up when he found out it wasn't Dis.
"Nah, he really likes you- haha, man cake, what a dork- so does the internet. I wouldn't worry about it, you're almost famous. Anyway, got to go and spread the word."
"Don't you dare, Kili." Thorin warned him. "Kili?" But he had hung up.
Once Thorin had calmed down a little bit, he found Bilbo's Instagram again and perused the pictures. He tried his best not to think of it as weird and stalkerish, but that became incredibly easy when he found several comment threads between Bilbo and some of his followers. Soon it felt like he was prying into something he shouldn't. The sweet words and endearments, the encouragement and belief in their not-quite-relationship from complete strangers, they all made Thorin smile.
Perhaps it wasn't that weird. Not that there was anything Thorin could do about it now, and there was no way he could stay angry at Bilbo. No, he decided two could play at this game, so he signed himself up to Instagram, if only to do this one thing. Thorin chose a name that made it painfully obvious it was him, felt absolutely ridiculous as he snapped a picture for his profile, found the most recent picture of himself that Bilbo had posted and left a comment: '#busted'.