(For the sake of this story, all of Peeta's movies are just going to be movies Josh Hutcherson has been in) :)

Hardships of a Fanigrl

Chapter One: The Growth

It would be a lie to say she had been there from the start. Because she hadn't.

A book was publised in 2008.

Katniss read that book in 2012.

She felt it was strange to look back on, as there had been a time when someone would have said, 'The Hunger Games' to her and she wouldn't have batted an eyelash. In fact, she'd turned down a request to admin on a THG roleplay facebook page, because she had no idea what it was. She knew there was a movie, she had saw it on t.v, but it hadn't looked appealing to her. She didn't know why. It just . . . didn't.

Katniss first began to properly notice it when her friend Madge started reading the series. Madge's friend Becka had recommended it to her a couple of weeks prior. Katniss still didn't think much of this. She wasn't interested in the book, plain and simple. But as Madge's excitement over the plot continued to blossom and Katniss' reading material ran thin, she decided to give the book a read.

Her mom got a good deal on the books, getting all three from under ten pound on amazon, since the nearest bookstore was a good distance from where they lived. The books arrived a week later, just before Katniss' next library class in school, in a cute black box with the bird trapped in a circle printed on the side.

The only reason Katniss stopped reading the book that night was because her dad came into her room and ordered her to go to sleep because she had school in the morning. She got a good way into it, teetering on the page before part three. She desperately wanted to read more but knew she had to stop, going to sleep with the excitement of telling Madge that she had started reading the series.

Of course, she hadn't realized Madge was a slower reader than her, having not reached the same position as her by the time she got into school the next morning. Katniss accidentally ruined the death of Amandela, having blurted it out that morning when they met in form class. Madge had been annoyed but had known that it was obvious that Amandela had to die for Jennifer to live. And Jennifer had to live, because there were two other books, right?

It slowly became a competition between Madge and Katniss to see who could finish the entire series first. They went through their struggles: Katniss reached the part in the second book when Josh hit the force field around the arena and died just as the class bell in library class went, Madge losing her first book under her bed, later finding it with the front cover hanging off. It was like a battle of literature. And both of them were going through pretty intense experiences.

Katniss won, of course.

Okay, by default.

She took sick the week the both of them were flying through the final book and got a lot of reading done, finishing the book in record time. Way before Madge did. She knew it didn't count as a proper victory but Katniss liked to tease Madge with it just to gauge her reaction, which was always amusing.

After Madge finished the series, Katniss remembered the movie that had been made. She was horrified that she hadn't watched it when it came out. Then again, the movie came out in March and her mother bought her the books in May. Not even the best, most awesome movie in the history of the universe would stay in the cinemas that long. But it made her desperate to see it. But she couldn't. There was no possible way she knew of.

So she took to the internet.

Before all of this, Katniss hadn't been very into the internet. She wrote stories-that sort of thing ran in her family-and occasionally surfed facebook and played Cafe Life but never stayed on the computer too long. But after reading THG series, she wanted to find out more about the film. Which wasn't too difficult, since the fansites had always been there, just hidden in plain sight.

The actors for the movie were perfect, in her eyes. The actress picked to play Jennifer had the exact same name, how much more perfect could you get?! The worst of this though was that when she first saw the actor hired to play Josh, she hadn't given him a second glance. Couldn't even bring his name to mind. The only thing she cared about was that he was playing her favourite character. At the time that was all that seemed to matter, anyway.

Katniss hadn't considered herself obsessed yet. She still thought that she was only doing some healthy research concerning her favourite book series' movie. She was able to take herself off the computer for a couple of hours a night to spend time with her family and do something more productive. Her life was still okay.

Then along came fanfiction.

The weird thing is that she hadn't discovered fanfiction looking for Hunger Games stories. She had went on looking for Doctor Who stories, a sci-fi series she had been raised on but only recently hooked with. The first story she ever read was a rated T story called 'The Underground' and it wet her apetite, made her eager to read more.

Of course she had tried to look for Hunger Games stories eventually but she had been so wrapped up in the movie that she had stupidly clicked on the 'movies' category instead of the 'books' and immediately assumed that the site just didn't do HG stories. It maybe took her another two weeks before she realized her mistake and found THG category. The multitude of stories, people's interpetations of the series and their ideas, were amazing and sometimes irritating. But Katniss fell in love with them.

And that's when it really began, properly.

Katniss was scrolling through a facebook page called 'Always' when a picture caught her eye. Her box room bedroom was shrouded in darkness, save from the glow of her computer screen, so the picture stood out even more. It was an edit of two pictures. One of the blond boy from the kids' movie 'Bridge to Terabithia' and another of Peeta Mellark, the actor who was playing Josh in the THG movie. The caption below said:

"Can you believe how much he's grown?!"

Katniss' eyes widened. No way! She sat up on her bed, staring at the picture until her eyes blurred. She remembered watching Bridge to Terabithia when she was younger. It was one of those movies that you hadn't lived your childhood right if you hadn't seen it. It was a necessity. A sad yet brilliant film that everyone loved, sometimes including your parents. But Katniss hadn't realized that Peeta Mellark was the kid from that film! She wasn't sure why she got so worked up about it but she wanted to burst out laughing and tell everyone in her house, even though they probably wouldn't care.

Except maybe Prim!

Katniss was almost positive that Prim had had a crush on the boy from Bridge to Terabithia when they were kids. She didn't know what it was but there was something about her sister's behaviour when they watched the movie that hinted at attraction. Excited for a reason Katniss could not understand, she went up the stairs to her sister's room, taking the steps two at a time, and knocked on the door.

"Yeah?" Prim called.

Katniss came in. "Guess what!" she said excitedly.

"Is this to do with the Hunger Games?" Prim asked immediately, looking instantly uninterested.

"I barely said anything!" Katniss exclaimed.

Prim rolled her eyes. "What is it and why do you think I'd suddenly be interested?" she asked.

"You remember Bridge to Terabithia?" Katniss inquired. Prim nodded, her expression giving nothing away. Maybe she was just really good at hiding it . . . "Well, the boy playing Josh is the same actor who played that kid Jesse!"

Prim raised her eyebrows. "Right," she said slowly before properly thinking about it. "Jee, he's grown." Katniss frowned, was that all she was going to get?! Now she felt stupid for getting worked up. "I used to think he was a right ugly thing in that film. At least his looks have improved, I suppose."

Katniss stared at her sister as if she was crazy. Of course, she hadn't thought much of Jesse either when her kid-self watched the movie but that wasn't the point. At least she wasn't so blunt about it! "That's a bit harsh," she muttered.

"You're just saying that because he's in your beloved Hunger Games movie," Prim pointed out. "I bet you any money that you'd never even given him a second glance last year. Don't get at me just because I'm not a hypocrite."

"I'm not a hypocrite!"

Prim quirked an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"Name five more movies he's been in."

"Er . . ."

"I thought so."

Katniss glared at her sister and stormed out of the room. She hated the fact that Prim was right. She hated that Prim was nearly always right. Annoyed at herself, Katniss went back into her room and switched on her lamp. The pale light from the bulb bounced off the walls of her room, making it seem much smaller than it already was. Compared to the wide expanse that was Prim's attic room, Katniss was living in a matchbox.

A large part of Katniss longed to go home. Which was strange since the old Everdeen house was only around the corner. They had swapped houses at the end of 2011 because the house they were currently living in had three rooms. Katniss was put in the smallest box room because her parents obviously needed the bigger room and it had always been Prim's dream to have a room of her own and it was her illness that sealed the deal of the move.

Well, she wasn't ill, per say. Was depression an illness? Suffice to say, Prim needed her space, since she had hated sharing a room with Katniss severely when they lived in their old house. Katniss didn't know why she had hated sharing a room so much, to her it hadn't been too bad.

The box room was suffocating. When Katniss went to sleep at night, it felt like the walls were closing in on her in the darkness. Her nightmares got worse, so bad that they almost felt real. It got to the point where she had to sleep with the lamp on, because she feared what would come out of the dark and attack her in her sleep. She didn't blame the move for the nightmares, nor did she blame Prim for being the reason of the move, but she did blame her parents, for not even asking her if she wanted to leave their old home, instead just listening to their baby girl Prim and doing as she wanted without any consideration towards how Katniss might feel about it. It used to get on Katniss' nerves but she had gotten used to it. And honestly, she didn't have the energy to complain.

Katniss liked to think of the 'new' house as the diaster household. While under the roof of this house, her parents split and her mother went into a depressive state that could only be cured by her father getting back together with her. Which wasn't going to happen. It was a difficult situation. Katniss' father didn't love her mother anymore but her mother still loved him. Both Katniss and Prim wanted them both to be happy but if they got back together, their dad wouldn't be happy and if they stayed apart, their mother wouldn't be happy either. No one was going to win.

Katniss sat down on her bed and went onto Youtube. The only thing that compensated for the gap that could only be filled with the Hunger Games movie was watching interviews with the cast and promotional videos. At first, it started off as watching the ones that consisted of only Jennifer talking about the movie. Then she found herself clicking more and more of Jennifer and Peeta together. Apparently people shipped them as a couple. Katniss could clearly see it. They had an amazing, fun, jokey dynamic that was one-of-a-kind bonding.

But then Katniss clicked on a video she thought was another interview of them but turned out to be one of Peeta only. Her started beating quickly, as if her computer was going to judge her for clicking on a video of a boy on his own. She watched the screen carefully, curious as to what he was going to say.

Katniss' mouth dropped open as the video started and she realized that Peeta was actually a natural blond. Whoa, so he wasn't dark like Josh? What was that about? Did the casting director take a YOLO moment and decide to give the fandom a heartattack? The hair stylist must have done their job pretty well, since she had been convinced that he was naturally dark.

Peeta was an interesting guy. Every time an interview ended, Katniss immediately clicked on another one. It got to the point where it wasn't even about the Hunger Games anymore. She was watching random interviews, for various movies, all of them consisting of Peeta and sometimes his co-stars (Katniss preferred the ones where he was on his own, she didn't take to the female co-stars as much as she did to him).

Katniss hadn't cottoned on to what she was doing until she was scrolling through the comments while a video buffered (she hated it when they did that) and spotted one that made her pause.

Urgh, Peeta has a jawline crafted by angels.

It had nearly one hundred thumbs up. Katniss was almost tempted to click on it too. When the video finally started playing, Katniss focused on said jaw. She wasn't an expert on boys nor did she know what was attractive and what was not, but she did notice the clean cut of his jaw and came to the conclusion that the damn thing could cut glass.

What did this mean?

When she switched her laptop off, Peeta was still in her head. Katniss smacked herself as she went to bed, as if it was going to send the actor's name straight out of her head if she whacked herself hard enough. But it wasn't leaving and she knew she was out of her depth.

"It turns out that Gale and Jennifer aren't natural blonds either," Madge said the next day at school.

"Wow," Katniss said, more to the table than to Madge. "I wonder how the Tributes reacted to that."

"I don't think they were too worried," Madge replied. "The Larkers were certainly worked up about it. I bet they wet their pants."

Katniss looked at Madge, her pencil pausing it's movements across the page. "The what?" she asked incredulously.

"Larkers," Madge repeated. "It's what the Peeta Mellark fans call themselves." The sound of his name made Katniss' heart flutter but she hid it well. "Like how we're Tributes and you're a Tribute and a Whovian."

"Larkers," Katniss said slowly. At first it sounded insane but it started to actually seemed quite fitting. "So a single fan would be a . . . ?"

"Just a Larker."

"Right."

Katniss didn't pay much attention for the rest of class, relieved to be released for lunch. Because of her family's situation, she got a free lunch pass. She hated it, it was basically a large flag that screamed, "MY FAMILY HAS MONEY ISSUES! GIVE ME FREE FOOD!" Herself and Madge hated the canteen, it was too crowded and noisey, so they always ate in the History room, which could be pretty packed too if you didn't get there quick enough.

"Did you know that Peeta Mellark was in Bridge to Terabithia?" Katniss asked Madge over the table.

Madge took a bite out of her sandwich and nodded. "Yeah, I did. I thought you did too," she said.

Katniss opened her mouth to answer but was interuppted when Delly burst in. "Heeeyyy guys!" she said, dropping into the seat beside Madge. They had met Delly in second year, when they were in the same Art Class together. "What are we talking about?" She paused. "Let me guess, The Hunger Games?"

"No, actually," Madge said smugly.

"Then what?"

"Peeta Mellark."

Delly's eyebrows dipped. "Who?"

Katniss scowled. "It doesn't matter," she said. There was a part of her that wanted to keep the knowledge of how genuine Peeta was close to her chest, but she knew Madge was going to blurt it out.

In three, two, one . . .

"Remember Bridge to Terabithia?" Madge asked.

Delly nodded.

"He was Jesse."

Delly's face lit up. "Oh, him!" she said. "God, he was hot in that film. Such a shame he was so much older. That was made in, what? 2007? We were only eight then. Then again, an older man has more experience . . ." She trailed off, a dirty smirk gracing her features. Delly was infamous for her dirty mind. She liked to make Madge and Katniss uncomfortable, claiming that they were too innocent to be thirteen years old.

Katniss picked at her lettuce irritably. She had done the math late the previous night. She had been born in 1998. Peeta was born in 1992. That put exactly six years between them. The number six had suddenly felt like a larger number than it really was. Compared to the obsessive crush she had had before Peeta, six was nothing, but something about this time around told her that it wasn't the same as having a school-girl attraction to a forty odd man from Doctor Who.

"Don't forget he's from the Capitol," Madge added through a mouthful of bread. "Why would he fall for someone from 12?"

"Who said anything about falling for anyone?!" Katniss snapped.

Delly and Madge looked at her as if she were mad. "Whoa, calm down crazy chick," Delly said. "However, I would very much like to watch this 'Hunger Games' when the DVD comes out."

"Well, it comes out at the end of the week." A fact Katniss was very excited about. Madge gave her an annoyed look. A week prior, Katniss had found a pirated version of the film on Youtube and had avidly watched it in her bedroom until 11:00pm. She had tried to tell Madge that it was on but her friend refused to watch, claiming that she was going to watch it properly when it came out.

"When I have you guys over next week, bring it with you," Delly instructed.

Katniss and Madge nodded like the trained puppies they were. "Okay Delly."

~xXx~

"Because she came here with me."

"Shut UP!" Delly yelled for thousandth time, pushing Katniss into Madge, who fell off the end of the bed with a yelp. Both of them kept quoting the movie along with the actors, which was getting on Delly's nerves to a large extent. "Madge, are you okay?!"

"Yup," Madge said. "Just gonna . . . chill down here for a bit."

Katniss decided to cover her mouth with her hand to keep herself quiet through the rest of the movie. Her heart did that strange butterfly flutter when Peeta was onscreen and she fought not to blush. She didn't even know this guy and he had a strange affect on her. She fell in love with the way he portrayed Josh and knew that no one could have done it any better. She had also found herself hating Gale's guts but she guessed it was maybe because Liam was Josh's rival love interest. Who would ship Jennifer with Liam anyway? Her and Josh were obviously perfect for each other.

As soon as the movie ended, Delly ejected the DVD and declared, "He's mine."

Madge sat up slowly with a frown. "What?" she asked.

"Peeta," Delly said. "He's mine."

Katniss scowled. "You can't say that," she said. "You can't just claim someone like that."

Delly smiled. "Watch me!"

Katniss was horrified. She didn't know why. Delly obviously didn't own Peeta, the guy didn't even know any of them even existed, but the thought of Delly believing that she held ownership over him irked her. "You can't do that!" she protested.

"I liked him first," Delly said, as if this were obvious.

"Since when? You didn't even know his name!"

Madge sat quietly while they argued, not bothering to interject. Katniss guessed it was probably because she didn't have anything to contribute. She didn't like Peeta the way Katniss did. As far as she was aware anyway.

"I liked him in Bridge to Terabithia," Delly said smugly. "When did you start Katniss? When the casting list for the Hunger Games went up?"

"No," Katniss lied. She didn't want Delly to know that it was even later than that. "I started liking him in . . . Little Manhatten!"

"Bullshit Everdeen," Delly replied. "How come you've never mentioned it before?"

"Because . . ." Katniss fought for words. She didn't know why she was fighting so hard to prove Delly wrong. She just felt very frustrated at the idea of Delly ever having ownership over Peeta. An actor . . . who she didn't even know . . . Why did she care so much? Delly took her silence as answer enough and went on to babble about what she would do if she was in Jennifer's position when she was washing Josh by the river. And it didn't include any washing what-so-ever.

Katniss didn't speak again for a long time. Who was this irritated, defensive girl and were had she came from?

And the bigger question being, how much longer was she going to stay?

A/N: I'm trying to provide a realistic insight into what life as a fangirl is really like, from personal experience and some of my friend's experiences as well.

As for my other Everlark fanfics, a few of them are on hiatus due to writer's block:

Hold On to Me;
Bloodlust;
Chained Hearts; and
A Never ending Routine called Love.

Please R&R with your thoughts on fangirl!Katniss ^_^