The woes of Christmas

It wasn't exactly the perfect Christmas, but they were all together in their new place.

Sometimes, when Lena looked at Tony she thought she might be the luckiest girl in the world.

He'd gotten the house from a professor who might have adored him. Actually, she was pretty sure the professor wanted Tony to come and live with him.

Even so, when the professor heard the story of how Tony had taken in his little sister, the old professor found them a nice little house to rent and put Tony on the payroll as an instructor. Tony had been waiting a good long time for that kind offer and then it came right after Thanksgiving.

Thankfully, they moved in the weekend before it snowed. So it all worked out even if they were in dire need of more furniture. If that wasn't enough, Eli and Deiter ended up there for the holidays too.

"He's really weird." Angie took Lena to the kitchen to inform her ten minutes after the guys arrived.

"Well..yeah..my brother.." She started to tell her about her brother Eli's Aspergers.

"No, I mean the other one." Angie stared at Lena as if she needed to talk to her brother about his boyfriend. "He's kind of creepy. And I can't understand a word he says."

"It'll be OK." She hoped they'd get through the next few days. It was just temporary. Or was it?

A day or two later, after their small feast of roast beef and all the trimmings.

"Can we stay, a little while longer?" Naturally, Eli looked helpless about the whole matter as if he completely depended on Lena.

"I-I dunno." She winced wanting Tony to decide.

She'd never been under so much stress with so much family to deal with.

"How..how can I tell him no?" Tony asked her later when they were getting ready for bed.

"You, have too. You..just have to tell them, they can't stay." Lena bit her bottom lip. Was it so awful to be so selfish? Looking out for Tony's little sister was more than enough to worry about. "I'm sorry, but..really, I dunno if I can put up with someone who likes to do yoga at two in he morning. Deiter gets really loud.." Well, she didn't even want to know what they were doing in the livingroom at night. "They have to go. They have to, by New Years."

In all honesty, Eli thought he'd met his man. Well, it seemed so in the beginning. Perhaps, he was just smittened. The way Deiter looked at him. His smile. His charisma. Unfortunately, it wasn't working quite so swell in the states. But he was a nervous wreck in Berlin. It was so artsy and quite massive to what Eli was used too. Deiter was the only thing that made sense there. It was love at first sight. Honestly, Eli never thought that possible in his wildest dreams. He couldn't let something like that go.

But....

He felt more himself here. Still, he hadn't exactly brought him home to meet his sisters and his Mom. It was like he didn't have that family anymore. Lena (his half sister he'd just met) was his family. She knew him much better than his other sisters. After all, he was just their little brother to them. They were aggressive and down right mean with punches in the arm and calling him names he couldn't quite fight back too.

He'd told Deiter all about them. Of course, he didn't want to meet them.

"I guess, what I'm saying, I thought..I thought you'd protect me, from them." Eli didn't exactly shout about it when they had their talk in the bathroom. He was sure Lena thought they were more than talking. And she would be right. This was the only room they could actually be alone in, in this tiny house she shared with her boyfriend. After all, her boyfriend's little sister had the guest room.

"What? What do you mean?" There Deiter went again, being all oblivious. Sometimes, Eli thought it was just an act.

Yes, one moment he could be all pompous, dressed in black like a Goth prince, but seriously, he had no plan for the future other than to have some fun with Eli.

Eli gritted now. He was going to have to be the grown-up, and he'd never been grownup about anything in his life.

Eli's cell went off. It was Ruben with a text. He'd found a job for Deiter. After all, Deiter did do a little yoga instructing on the side when he had too.

"Guess what." Eli glared at Deiter as if he was just going to have to say it. "Times are hard. If ..you want this to work, you better look into this." He handed him over his phone.

Deiter's shrug was more of a wiggle, but Eli supposed Deiter would take take the opportunity.