#NEED a Tashi Donaldson attitude adjustment

[artdcnaldson]

(https://www.tumblr.com/artdcnaldson/754864459441405952/have-a-new-fic-idea-based-around-being-art-and?source=share)

Oohhh, and you start to put on walls again, and ArTashi can't figure out what's going on, maybe just stress (I love them, but they can't always read what the other needs) while you try to separate and get comfortable with being just you again bc you're sure they'll fire you and tell you to be well and send you back to your poor little house

Exactlyyyy exactly!

You’re so caught up in your own insecurities about your position within the relationship and within the family that you don’t even recognize the ways they’re still trying to include you. Like Art has you tugged against his side while you’re watching a movie, or he’s holding your hand, but he looks at Patrick a few times and you take it as a personal slight. Tashi is so caught up in coaching Patrick that you lose a little bit of the time you have with her in the evenings, drinking wine and talking and just being together.

They bring Patrick into the bedroom and you look at him like a flea ridden dog. Has he been tested? (Yes) and that you don’t want to touch him (You don’t have to). But you have to watch them touch him, kiss him, lavish him with all the attention that used to be yours. Like one of the cuckoo birds that implant themselves in nests and steal all the nourishment from the real babies.

So maybe you start isolating, like you’re preparing yourself. You get distant with Tashi and Art, and that’s fine, they expect that you might just need some room to adjust. But then you start distancing from Lily, and she doesn’t know what’s going on, she just knows you’re not playing tea party or reading with her anymore and it’s upsetting.

And then there’s Patrick. Right next door, sharing a bathroom with you. Smarmy, self assured, teasing. He likes to crowd into your space, like he’s already trying to push you out. He’s an asshole, and you always leave the conversations pissed off and seething. He ruined everything, and he’s the one that gets them? What does he have that you don’t?

But you don’t know that’s just how Patrick flirts, that he likes to crawl under your skin, to make your blood run hot. Art and Tashi had trusted him when he said he’d “handle” you, that he’d win you over easy. He just didn’t expect that they’d chosen such an upright, prissy bitch for their third.

Tashi gives up on Patrick’s plan after Lily comes to her crying and asking why her nanny hates her and doesn’t want to be her friend anymore. She’ll just have to fix things herself, like she always does. God knows Art won’t be any help.