Wrest Pin | The Mandalorian

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The King

Warning: This chapter is very mature, and it also has brief moments of dissociation on Evangeline's part because she's still going through it. 

Actually, Din is really the one going through it this chapter, the boy needs therapy. Someone needs to fund it for him, cause he's making rash decisions out here.

***

He didn't sleep.

Truthfully, Mando didn't know how he was expected to. Not after what she had told him. What she had told him, in a small and frightened voice that he had only become angry towards. As if the insinuation itself set everything on fire...And awakened a burning rage he didn't know how to counteract. Even just the prospect, the words, the thought of it made everything inside of him hurt. Stumbling and every cell in his body screamed to protect her – but how could he from something he could not see or understand? It was like trying to protect someone from something nonexistent. And every feral piece of him that had cut into people who had dared harm her was slamming into his chest and there was no where to direct that rage.

He stared at her naked body, her thigh lifted slightly over the blankets, her chest exposed with the pillow tucked under her arm where she laid on her side facing him. He was propped against the wall behind them, studying her relaxed face. He didn't know how she could sleep after that. How her breathing was so even, her skin glowing in the dim lighting – beautiful as if untouched, like he hadn't fucked her into oblivion a few hours before. He reached out, sliding his knuckles over her ankle, up the side of her calf and over the bruise on her thigh where he had injected the needles. He then slid over her hip, the side of her abdomen and breast until he stopped at her jaw. Maybe he really would have her wear his symbol. The same one he had Grogu wear. Proof of to whom she belonged.

"I think I might die."

Even just remembering the words made him angry. She had sounded so small, like telling a child their pet had died, instead of telling her husband that she had dreamed of her own demise. Or what she interrupted as such. A part of him was in denial over it. But a part of him could not process what would harm her, every possibility going through his head. She had said the dream was her in labor...And of someone dying, the baby crying. If the baby was crying – that told him the kid was at least alive at birth. So what then? Who then? Would she die in childbirth? He knew such a thing happened, but there was so much technology now – it seemed so slim. He gritted his teeth, looking at her abdomen. His voice broke through the quiet, low and rocky as he pressed his hand to her stomach, leaning close...

"Listen," He spoke to the child. The logical part of him knew the child did not understand him, but Evangeline had said many times that the kid responded to his voice as he continued, as if warning, "Do not hurt your mother."

The other logical part of him knew that if childbirth was the danger...It was not the child's doing. It was an infant, existing because of Mando's actions. But the shock was still inside of him, he had been given little chance to think through it the way he usually would, and he felt almost apologetic as soon as the words left his mouth. She had told him...to take care of the baby and Grogu if she did in fact die, but a part of him was afraid – afraid he'd resent his own kid if she did. There was this irrational part of his brain that needed to protect her, that needed to keep her safe – but what if the thing putting her in danger was her own body?

Either way, he was sorry he had said it.

Mando leaned away, before moving to her face, pressing his mouth to hers forcefully. He felt her startle awake, and her head pulled back, staring up at him in confusion. When they made eye contact, he ordered, "Wake up. We need to head to our next bounty."