#t. baxter.

WHEN THE CRIES OF A NEWBORN LED THEM TO MASON, his skin stained yellow-green from the plants that birthed him, Tegan was terrified.  Every maternal instinct she’d ever had was about raising an heir for her father’s seat at the head of the table, and that world stopped existing a long time ago.  She didn’t know how to be a New Vya mother.   She didn’t know how to be soft or selfless, or how to deal with that godforsaken screeching at all hours of the fucking night. 

Fast forward three years and, somehow, she’s doing alright.  Maze loves riding in his sidecar with mama, so that’s her biggest win to date.  He’s still giggling from the adrenaline when she pulls his helmet   ( hand-painted with the first flowers he ever bloomed )   off that strawberry-blond head   ---   has barely stopped when they walk into the diner and the jingle of the bell above the door sets him off again, big giddy laughs following him all the way up to the counter. 

     “ Is that my sweet boy I hear? ”

Keyleth with hot plates in hand kisses his messy hair as she passes by to serve Janice and Mike from the end of the road, and Tegan is struck for a moment that this is her life   ---   her beautiful girl, their incredible son, neighbours that don’t carry guns or cross the street to avoid her.  Boring is what she would have called it when she was young.  How wrong she was.

Keyleth swoops back in to pinch Maze’s cheeks and cover his face with kisses, doesn’t stop until his squeals fill the room   ---   then she grins and whispers,   “ Should I make Mama make her grumpy face? ”   He squeals again and claps his hands, cries, “ Yes yes! ”

And Tegan can do nothing but stand there and deal with it, as Keyleth makes a show of finding Tegan’s nose and booping it.  The big bad wolf, reduced to huffing and puffing about a booped nose, as   t h e a t r i c a l l y   as she can for Maze’s entertainment. 

     “ CAN I GET A CUP O’ COFFEE AND A KISS FOR THE ROAD? ”

it’s said with a bravado that she, for once, doesn’t feel.  hasn’t had this twisted knot in her gut since she left her   o w n   hometown, and this   ---   this isn’t that.  this isn’t the same.  left to save herself, that time, but now   ...    well.  nice girl like keyleth doesn’t need to get any more tangled in tegan’s SHIT than she already has.

duffel bag hits the floor of the empty diner, followed by a tattered backpack.  everything she owns; more than what she had when she   a r r i v e d .  her heart hurts at the uncertain look on keyleth’s face.  they haven’t   ...   spoken since tegan drove her home last night, hands still caked in gunshot residue around the handlebars.  should’ve skipped town without a word, but   ---   but she couldn’t resist.  coming here, one last time.  shaking off the   p i t   in her stomach to smirk like nothing’s wrong and lean into the counter.  one last time.

     SWINE.

Your daemon would take the form of a swine! Those who have swine daemons are stubborn and lazy people who don't view things as worth doing unless it's a challenge. Their intelligence is often missed and they're frequently underestimated, but they don't particularly care what other people think of them.

     WARTHOG.

Your daemon would take the form of a warthog! You are a sociable but hardheaded individual who has a strong opinion on everything. More so than others with swine daemons, those with warthogs are hardy and aren't the type to give up, whether it be at work or in an argument. They can be generous people who like providing for others, but they always make their opinion on someone clear.

     HEADCANON.   tegan always thought she wanted kids.  not out of any maternal instinct, but out of duty   ---   she had to continue the baxter line; had to have a son that could one day follow in his grandfather’s footsteps.  the thought of growing old and watching her sons earn their place in the club genuinely made her happy, enough to override her  ...  general dislike of kids. 

they’re the last thing on her mind when she gets chased out, so it takes her   ---   a few years, probably, to realise that the club was her entire foundation for wanting kids, and that without it she could just   ...   not have kids, if she didn’t want them.  she rides the “childfree” train for a while, enjoys her newfound freedom, but   ---   the secretly lonely part of her kind of   l i k e s   the idea of a couple annoying ass rugrats loving her as much as she loved her parents.  likes the idea of having a purpose again, being needed again. 

     angst memes. 

TEGAN HAS NEVER BEEN ONE TO FEEL FEAR,   but the   s i n c e r i t y   of keyleth’s words scares her.  it’s the same fierce loyalty tegan was raised with   —   protect your own or die trying   —   but keyleth wasn’t trained for this like she was.  where she’s GUNPOWDER and jagged edges, keyleth is daisies and morning dew.  hints of something sharper underneath, but   …   still soft.  too soft for the   RAGE   burning in her eyes, too soft for what’s   d r i p p i n g   from her fingertips  …

unstained hands find keyleth’s and squeeze   —   steadying, reassuring; a kind of touch tegan’s not used to   g i v i n g ,  but it comes easy with her,  like everything else.  the image keeps replaying in her mind: nature at its most unnatural under fire-red fury, taking, KILLING. all for tegan. as though she doesn’t have her   o w n   wolf-like strength, her own born-lethal reflexes. as though she’s worth the risk. 

     “ I CAN KEEP MYSELF SAFE, DARLIN’. ”

the second image in her head is the one that scares her  —   imaginary, but only for now   —   the familiar bearded face quick on the trigger, red blooming darker than her HAIR, trees quiet in   m o u r n i n g   around her  … 

     marvel memes. 

SHOCKED EYES TURN TO SPENCER,  in disbelief at the absolute stupidity of her objection.  she’d been willing to   l e a v e   the island a month ago, alter the timeline a thousand ways with every single interaction she had, no regard for the consequences   —   but now tegan wants to alter the timeline, with an objectively POSITIVE result, spencer thinks she’s the height of logic and morality. 

     “ WHY NOT? ” 

eyes slide back across the compound, gawky little benjamin linus still clutching his books to his chest, and her destiny feels close enough to touch: a world without that smarmy face and his wicked ways. tegan’s   h a r d l y   a humanitarian, but it just makes sense. 

     “ ONE LIFE and we save how many? dozens? hundreds?