Hey guys,

This is the sequel to 'Little Wolfyvamp', and is told from the point of Daniel Kennedy, who is best friends with Imagine (Leah and Emmett's eldest) and has Asperger's Syndrome.

It was sort of going to be a drabble, but I've decided to extend it to about 8-9 chapters, if you like it, which, hopefully, you will.

Apologies for any mistakes - I try my hardest, but the occasional typo slips through :/

Cheers and TTFN,

~ cosugimmebutterflies

An Aspie Like Me

Chapter 1

So, I know this girl. She goes to my school, and we're in the same grade. She's really stubborn but smart, like me.

Her name is Imagine, and she's my best friend.

I've known Imagine since I was three. She is very patient with me, and she doesn't treat me any differently from our other friends.

She is always having intelligent conversations with me and she matches me intellectually, so I can talk to her like we are equal. We share the same interests and we both want to become biologists, although I want to go into microbiology and she neurobiology.

And I think I am in love with her.

Hello. My name is Daniel Kennedy.

I am an only child to a single mother, the product of a seductive gleam in parents' eyes and a bottle of champagne (my mother 'spilled the beans' on my conception when I was 13 and she became nostalgic after too much whiskey; to this day she has never drunk alcohol since).

I tell you now, that champagne bottle's entire life goal was to help two complete strangers have sexual intercourse in the middle of a street and produce me.

I think it served rather well, don't you think?

I am extremely intelligent with an IQ of 168 and am two years ahead of myself in school. I can tell you all you need to know about microbiology; my mom calls me a walking encyclopaedia on the topic. I could tell you a few facts about neurobiology, but Imagine is better on that topic so I would refer her to you.

I have Asperger's Syndrome, which is a developmental disorder that affects how the brain processes information. It is an autism spectrum disorder and no two individuals will have the same set of characteristics.

Basically it means I have difficulty 'fitting in' with the world. So, I am seriously lacking in the social skills department (however thanks to my social skills tutor Regina I can obtain at least some semblance of normality) and don't even mention my communication and emotional skills.

I'm lucky Imagine has stuck with me for so long, although I do think she has Asperger's too. She's just better at obscuring it from the public (and private for that matter) eye.

"Dan…"

Imagine is trying to get my attention. She's the only one who calls me Dan, apart from my mom. Everyone else calls me Daniel; the reason why, I don't know.

I blink at her. "Yes?"

She frowns at me. "You're distracted. What's wrong?"

I cannot confirm if she is either annoyed or concerned, so I don't answer for a moment, instead taking a bite of my salad.

"Nothing."

"You're a terrible liar." She says point-blank. "You know it too."

"Shut up." I say after swallowing a lettuce leaf, wishing she couldn't read me so well.

Sometimes I think that her knowing so much about me is dangerous. She could blackmail me.

She pokes her tongue out at me childishly. I don't reciprocate. Why lower myself to such a level?

She drops the matter and turns to Ronan to communicate to him about our group assignment.

Since us five – Imagine, Ronan, Jack, Adam and I – are the brains of practically this entire school (our school is rather deficient in the intellectual area), our Advanced Placement biology teacher has given us a different task to our less intelligent peers. Our goal is to come up with something good enough to win a Nobel Prize, at least, in our school's and teacher's eyes.

"How about…" Adam begins and then breaks off to push his glasses up.

"How about what Adam?" Imagine asks, and she smiles at him.

Imagine is the only girl member of our group, 'The Braniacs' (as we call ourselves; the term was coined by Jack. Don't ask.), so whatever she says is considered seriously, seeing as our testosterone-fuelled conversations and decisions usually don't include the consideration of our female counterparts.

"Well. Uh." Adam stammers.

He is always nervous, as he's the youngest at fourteen.

"We could…uh…we could…we could harness photovoltaic plants…and…and inject genetically engineered viruses…you know…into them…to harvest electrons to power batteries."

"Cool." Imagine says with another smile.

"Interesting." Jack joins in, looking like The Thinker. "Genetically engineered viruses. It's good. Really good actually. The problem is we don't have the materials to do it."

"We should downscale." Imagine says, again with one of her smiles. "Instead of using genetically engineered viruses, we could just harness the plant's energy."

"Yeah, but then what?" Ronan asks. "We've got a bunch of photovoltaic cells on our hands with nothing to do with them."

I clasp my hands together and speak up. "You know, the idea of fabricating a solar cell is an option. We could use the photosynthetic proteins from the plant and maybe another bacteria or something…and we have the possibility of creating a solar panel."

The others stop to mull over my (in my words, bloody splendid) hypothesis. Imagine then speaks.

"Sure. It'll work. We'd have to use a common household plant though. Thoughts?"

Adam says, "Spinach is a good plant. High in iron, calcium, vitamin A. Can't get much better than that."

Whilst I am definitely positive you can, I decide to take some guidance from my social skills tutor Regina and don't say anything derogatory.

"Spinach it is then." Jack says.

I finish my salad and join the others to go to Fifth period, Advanced Placement calculus.

I'm not excited for it.

So far (although I'm positive it can't possibly climb any higher) today is probably a five out of ten. Yes, I do rate my days. My psychiatrist, Dr Baker gets me to rate my days as to how I'm feeling, so that ten is the very best and vice versa. Most days I have end up in the 3-5 zone, and today is no exception.

As per usual, after school finishes I go home with Imagine.

As soon as we enter her double-storey household, Imagine's mom Leah calls out from the kitchen. "Hi Daniel!"

"Hey Leah." I shuffle awkwardly behind Imagine and avert my eyes.

I hate making eye contact. It's uncomfortable. It's like people can see right into your very soul. How would you feel?

When we enter Imagine's room upstairs, Imagine sits on her bed whilst I make myself as comfortable as I can on one of her many beanbags (she has a thing for them). This one is my favourite, as it's the biggest with grey and green triangles and doesn't sink too much when you sit on it.

"Want some?" Imagine says, holding out a packet of Pascall marshmallows.

I take five, three pink, two white. "Thanks."

She smiles around a yellow one in her mouth. I always like it when she smiles. Makes my existence complete in some way.

"So, what did you and Regina do today?" She asks, crossing her legs to sit like an (abject apologies for sounding terribly cliché) Indian.

Rats. I had hoped she would not ask about my lesson this morning with my social skills tutor.

"Uh, we practised asking someone to the prom."

"And?" She coaxes.

A marshmallow drops from the packet and lands near my feet.

"Ten second rule!" She says.

I am sure she is joking.

I grimace. "That's gross Immy. Do you know how many germs are on your carpet? Or better yet, what about all the dust mites and various species of bedbugs that have moved from your mattress to the floor and burrowed into this very carpet so the bi-weekly vacuuming you do has no effect on them?"

She has the smile on her face that tells me I am babbling, so I shut up immediately and say automatically, "Sorry."

"No problem." She picks up the marshmallow and puts it in her rubbish bin.

I eat another marshmallow, a white one.

"You never answered my question." She says.

I falter in bringing the third marshmallow to my lips. Crap. Crappidy-crap-crap.

"What question?"

I should get some lying lessons; I am pathetically hopeless at lying. Imagine knows this too.

This time she ignores it. "Y'know, the one where I asked you what you did with Regina today?"

I swallow hard. "Oh, yeah. Asking someone to the…prom."

"And?" She repeats her earlier question.

"Um, Immy, you know, the prom…I know its like, three weeks away but…"

"Spit it out already Dan." She says impatiently, but she's smiling.

Three conflicting aspects in one sentence; I can't win with her.

"Metaphorically or literally?" I ask.

"Depending how you look at it."

I frown in frustration and bite my tongue momentarily to stop from cursing. "Fine."

"Imagine. You're the only person on earth who 'gets' me, and when I'm with you I don't feel like a freak show. So, please come to the dance with me, because you complete me."

For a moment Imagine goes what she calls 'bug-eyed', and then she's jumping up and pulling me to her and wrapping her arms around my neck and hugging me and, shit. It's a nice sensation, but I have to push her away because I become physically aroused right then and there and I would rather die than let her see it, let alone feel it.

I tug at my collar and clear my throat, unsure of what to say or do. Imagine is grinning at me.

"Was that hard?" Imagine says.

I nod, still trying to come to grips that Imagine hugged me. It's making me feel all stupidly giddy.

Get a grip Daniel. You are the master of your hormones.

"I thought so." She sits next to me on the arm of the beanbag. "So…who are you going to ask?"

"I thought I just did." I say, confused for the second time in less than a minute.

"Oh." She says once, then again. "Oh. Okay. That's…different."

"You don't want to go." I stand quickly, anxious.

I was a fool. Why would she have even wanted to go with me?

My hand has started to flutter. Imagine sees this and stands, taking my fingers in her hand. Her own long ones wrap around three of mine gently. I try to keep my eyes open but it's hard, because her warm touch is sending my bloody hormones crazy.

Crap.

Come on Daniel! Pull yourself together and stop succumbing to your primal feelings!

I am nearly positive she has seen it and the thought is making me die (metaphorically, of course).

You, Daniel, are pathetic.

She looks at me as her thumb starts to rub little circles on my knuckle, which she knows always calms me down. My mom always does it for me whenever I'm stressed.

My fingers stop flapping in her hold and she grins.

"There." She says, then drops my hand. "Sure, Dan. I'll come."

Go figure. Today has just become at least a sixteen out of ten.

That's how good it has just become.

So, there you go. R&R if you feel like. Feel free to be as critical as you want to.