Chapter 4

"Malcolm Reynolds." Niska's beaming face being quite possibly the thing he was least fond of seeing in all the 'verse, it was most 'specially not a sight he was jumping to experience with himself playing the role of Saffron's patsy and drugged up to the eyeballs. Unable to do a damn thing to resist the two over-muscled fellows who'd hauled him out of the hover, he slumped between them feeling like his bones had all turned to rubber. His legs seemed to bow alarmingly at some just plain impossible spot mid-calf.

Niska continued happily, "It has been too long... too long. And business since we last met has been, shall we say, not so smooth." He shrugged, gesturing helplessly with both palms around his new surroundings. "For you also, so I hear. You have Alliance trouble. And the work, it does not come so easily now as it once did, no? I think that maybe the reason both our business suffers, it is the same. Perhaps people do not hire you because they hear that Malcolm Reynolds, he cross Niska, so he may cross them. And people do not deal so much with Niska because they hear, Malcolm Reynolds cross Niska - perhaps they think that means Niska is old news now. It was remiss of us both, I think, to put this meeting off so very long a while. After all, we only solve our problems when we confront them, yes?"

While the fellow seemed mighty keen on getting all intense and philosophical about the thing, truth was Mal had to fight just to keep his head up and all signs indicated Saffron's knock-out pellet was working an unpleasant effect on his stomach. "Let's not pretend anything 'specially profound in how you're all set to kill me just as slow and mean as you can and just how happy that's gonna make you, you sick bastard."

He could see Saffron, over Niska's shoulder, roll her eyes and make like to distract herself, buffing her nails with the fabric of her stolen white cap.

Niska gave a sigh like he was a mile removed from all this unpleasantness, and flicked a hand through the air with a 'tut' sound on his tongue. The two goons holding Mal let go, dumping him on the ground on his back. Fenro rested a boot on his chest as he flopped and tried to roll, and Niska leaned over him, peering owlishly through those wire-framed spectacles. "Ah. We will talk later, Mister Reynolds. Perhaps when you will be more amenable to discussing the finer points of our business relationship, and where it has fallen down."

Which likely meant a later with a surgical knife tickling around in his gut. Mal met his gaze stonily, trying not to let on so much that the weight bearing down on his chest was making it a mite hard to breathe. The courtyard of Niska's temporary compound was bare, dry earth, empty save a few lines of small fruit trees slightly straggly from neglect. Stones and cracked mud dug into his back. He watched Niska turn away; rolled his head back to follow the line of the old man's attention.

Saffron gave it a moment before pausing in attending to her nails, and even then looked like she might go back to it anytime the situation happened to slip back toward boring her. "So," she said, with a lopsided smile.

"My dear." Niska inclined his head. "You have done well. Everything as promised. Perhaps your methods are... erratic... indulgent. This, I will forgive. I am very happy with the result. Very happy."

"That's nice," Saffron said, with an edge of spite. She raised the hem of her tunic the necessary two inches to loop the cloth cap through her underwear where it crossed her hip in a thin white band. The move seemed to make Niska's eyes bug a bit, the old bastard looked frankly scandalised. "I'm especially fond of the part where that presumably means you're ready to pay me my money."

"You will be paid as we arranged." Niska waved a hand in dismissal of the subject. "Indulge an old man, Mrs Reynolds, but why? You say you married this man, your husband..."

"He was a monster..." Saffron set her lower lip to quivering, making her eyes all big and tearful. Would've been all the more touching if she hadn't been flashing the world her panties not a minute before. "His sexual appetites were... oh, I can't speak of it, Mr Niska! Please, don't ask me what he made me do to indulge his twisted urges -!" She caught sight of him looking and he caught a definite mischievous gleam in her eye. "I think it was the war that damaged him, you see, and he could never - "

"Hey!" Mal yelled, lack of breath be damned. "You twisted gorram whore! Know how you can tell when this one's lyin', Niska? Hell, you can just assume it's her natural state!"

"Screw you, Mal!"

"In your dreams, you crazy pofu!"

Niska grimaced, looking like all the shouting wasn't doing him any favour neither, and shook his head, making a pained hissing through his teeth. "Please... Mrs Reynolds... Mr Reynolds... there is no need for this... uncivilised behaviour." He interposed his body between the two of them, his hands patting down the air either side of him, one for each. "Ai ya! It is terrible to see the precious thing that is love turn to so much... such hate..."

"What - ? Let me get one thing straight here now; I did not never love that - " Mal started.

"Oh!" Saffron wailed in response. "Mr Niska, when I think of those times, those golden times, I could just..." She sniffed and wiped at her face with a hand. Behind the hand, she smirked at Mal, then pulled herself visibly together for Niska's benefit. "Okay, so you've got my husband for a chew-toy, do you think I could possibly get my money now? Or do we... do we have to re-hash all the bad times?" Her lip started wobbling again as she wound up.

"Fenro will arrange payment for your services," Niska clucked. Caught her shoulders in a manner almost fatherly, seeming more helped along by the touch of irritation in her outburst than not. "He will do so now." He guided her past Mal and paused, leaving her standing facing away from them (and offering from the ground, point of fact, a view up the back of her tiny skirt that some might consider trading him his current situation to see), to gesture impatiently for the fellow still had his boot on Mal's chest. The weight departed. The relief of being able to properly breathe again was almost painful.

Saffron broke loose as Fenro tried to guide her away, and dived back to plant a quick kick in Mal's ribs that he wasn't in any fit state to respond to. She narrowed her eyes and scowled calculatingly.

"Might be best you lay off the torture 'til the drug wears off, if you want him to feel it," she told Niska sweetly, as she retreated back to Fenro with a disdainful flick of her hair. She flicked her hips too, arrogantly, as she took a proprietary grip of the goon's arm.

Niska looked less pleased. "You gave him precisely what, Mrs Reynolds?"

She didn't turn around, nor let Fenro hesitate, distinctly pulling him along toward the house rather than the other way 'round. "Just a little evening mist," she tossed back.

Niska cursed as the two of them disappeared around the corner. He jabbed his finger crossly at the remaining goon, and at Mal on the ground. "Bring him."

Which got them right back onto familiar territory, with Mal roped up to a stand bolted secure into the floor. The bonds across his chest were made tighter for being all that was holding him up. The separate cords tying his wrists low to the structure on either side were tighter than need be to begin with.

Niska leaned in close, intently studying the salvaged ear. "This is very good work. Exceptional." He ran a finger down the almost invisible scar. Mal kept his chin straight and his eyes forward. "I think that you have an excellent surgeon, yes?"

"Nah. Should've seen his first try. Stitched the damn thing on backward. We sure did laugh."

Niska laughed, too. "Yes, this I remember. The jokes. You give me a spirited fight, Mister Reynolds. I have been looking forward to this." He tweaked the ear one last time, then at last left it the hell alone and stepped back. His footfalls, though not heavy, were loud on the smooth, hard floor. Presumably it was smooth and hard to ease mopping up the mess, but even so it had already taken on, around the stand and in a few other patches, a noticeable brownish stain. He'd been aware of the lingering disinfectant smell since he was hauled into the room.

"Hell, if more screaming's all it takes to take the fun out of it for you, then I will."

An instant shake of the head in response. "Oh, no... no, I do not think you will. I think rather you could not. It is in your nature. You see, I have learned a great deal from you, when last we met. You will not submit." Mal watched uneasily as he clasped his hands and paced the length of the room. The goon stationed to the side of the door might have been a statue.

This room had a more makeshift look to it than the last, and was fractionally smaller. Not that that helped his situation any. Still, maybe Niska hadn't brought all of his pets from the skyplex.

Niska raised his index finger, waggling it thoughtfully in the air as he turned again to address Mal. "Your wife... it is a pity. Such an attractive girl. I hate to see a marriage break down. It... saddens me. A man should be able to keep his woman well."

"She's not my woman," Mal said, aggravated, then did a double-take. " - Gorram it, you're gonna start up giving me marriage counselling while you torture me now?"

"So defensive, and yet this does seems to be a perennial problem with you. Always with the women trouble." The old bastard chuckled and waggled that gorram finger again. "My wife, she and I argue, we..." He laughed fondly - nay, lovingly - the idea of which emotion in Niska took the brain to a scary place Mal didn't want to so much as contemplate. "It is good, yes? Proof that there is fire. You need that, for any marriage that is to last." He screwed up his face, disappointedly, head shaking again. "I see that fire, your wife and yourself - I say it is a pity."

"Fa kuang! She ain't even my wife!" Mal's annoyance rocked him upright against the ropes before he collapsed back. The drug was wearing off, though taking its time. Best not to let Niska in on either fact. He forced his train of thought back on track. "She's a gorram grift artist with companion training only gone and got herself married to about a hundred men in her time - only one of which happens to be me!"

"It is sad that you can speak of each other so. Oh, that she has her history, I am sure. Why, my own Marlena, they say she killed two husbands before me... it makes it exciting, no? But, ah... you do not wish to hear about me. Where are my manners? This... this is about you. We will learn a little more about you today, Mister Reynolds." Niska turned to the goon and clapped his hands; rubbed them together enthusiastically. "We shall begin now. I grow impatient, all this waiting, this troublesome narcotic..." He trailed off into muttered cursing, before coming back, "We will make of it what we can."

Mal swallowed and offered, "By all means, you tell me more 'bout your Mrs Niska. Marlena, huh? Two husbands? Sounds like a peach."

"Tsk." Niska flicked a hand at him. "Enough! No more distractions! No matter your troubles, it is fortunate for me indeed that your wife is so unhappy that she comes to me and says 'I can give you Malcolm Reynolds - '" He drew out the words with a certain glee.

Mal jerked in his bindings as the meaning behind that struck home. Fetched his head a bash on the side panels that kept him from turning it. "What - ? She came to you?" he demanded, meeting Niska's stare flat-on. "You're telling me she came to you?"

"What difference does this make? Tsk, you wish only to be changing the subject." He gestured to the goon, who started to dig a whole array of less-than-pleasant looking gadgetry out of a tall locker in the corner, some of it familiar from last time and some of it not so much.

"Hell, yes," Mal agreed emphatically, eying the junk. "But the difference it makes is she is screwing you and using me as the bait to do it, so you just might want to listen up here, Niska! She don't do deals and she ain't overly interested in taking jobs workin' for money. She plays for people, and this time you and me are it." He jerked against the ropes again, to no avail.

Niska shook his head, though he looked a little shaken. "This is not becoming, Mister Reynolds. I hope for better of you."

"You better hope that I warned you in time, and that you get your head out of your ass and act on it, 'cause I'm telling you the truth. That woman will take you for everything you got and laugh at the result while you're standin' in your altogether. Hell, yes, I'm married to her, but I don't even know her gorram name - 'ceptin' that it sure as hell ain't 'Saffron'."

"This is... fantasy," Niska said, but sounding now markedly uncertain.

"Well, let me give you some fact." Mal thought furiously. "You sent her off with a fellow. Fenro, right? Now, you seen how she is with men, how she wraps 'em right 'round that little finger of hers sweet as can be... Don't you reckon those two been gone just a little too long?"

He watched Niska cast a questioning glance to the goon, who left his array of goodies alone a moment to shrug and generally look like even that much was putting a tax on his brain.

"Come on!" Mal barked. "Tell me... Fenro got himself the keys to the safe, right? Must do, if he's all set to pay her. Just how much cash you keepin' here on site?"

Niska's expression turned to flat-out terror in an instant. "Mielt," he instructed the goon, "You stay here. Watch him! Fall for nothing. I... I shall return."

Mielt - assuming that was a name - looked uneasily after his employer, then back to Mal, who pulled an unhelpful face and did his damnedest to shrug. Following the parody that turned out to be, the goon lost interest in him and aimed the dint between his brows back at the door. Mal took some advantage of that, testing the bindings on his wrists to see if he couldn't find some slack.

But a small sound called his own attention to the door, just in time to be watching as it swung purposefully open and Saffron strutted in. So quickly the goon barely had any time to react, she squeezed something in a raised fist, opened out her palm and blew across it into the unfortunate man's face. He went down like she'd brained him with a rock.

Mal blinked. "Don't tell me. You're my fairy godmother, now."

Avoiding the settling film of dust on the air, she brushed her hands down on her white tunic and curtseyed and blew him a kiss. She then retreated to the door and dragged through it a very large bag, which she deposited just inside.

"I'm guessin', then, that this would be the plan," Mal commented slowly, eying the evident weight of the bag, how it pulled her downward as she set it on the floor. "Zhe shi shenmo lan dongxi? You hand me over to Niska to get my fingernails pulled and it ain't even for a payout - I'm just the gorram distraction!"

"Took you long enough to figure it out." She stepped up to the frame he was tied to, and curiously walked around it, her hands trailing over the bars and loose ends of rope and wires. Completing the circuit, she swung on the frame, leaning in to him. "You could at least appreciate me spinning him a little untruth about the gas. You're still intact." She tugged at the rope around his chest, testing it more than anything else, then pulled herself forward to lean her head on his breast and nuzzle in. Her hair tickled his chin and got in his mouth. He twisted his head, spitting flame-red locks. "Did I mention this is kind of a hot look for you?" Saffron teased. A hand came in low and snuck in a fondle through the fabric of his pants, making him muffle an undignified sort of a yelp.

"Get the hell off me, you devil woman!" He barely managed to keep a lid on the volume.

"How about we make it a dinner date, hubby?" She looked up into his face; big innocent eyes not to be trusted one inch. "You, me, the thumbscrews..."

"Woman, you're crazed. Get me the hell out of these damn things before Niska comes back and starts tryin' out his fun-filled hobby on the both of us." He twisted. There was some give in the ropes hadn't been there before, courtesy of Saffron's prodding, but not enough.

She stepped back, a frown on her face. "Who said anything about letting you loose?"

He stilled. "Do not joke about this. I played your distraction, you got your loot. Now all's fair, you let me loose and we can make tracks, ma shang. But you are not thinking of leaving me here like this."

Her face screwed up like she'd sucked a lemon and she kicked him in the ankle with her pointy little shoes. "You left me in the garbage, you fink! Do you have any idea what I had to do to get away before the feds landed - ?"

"So? You stranded me butt-naked on the planet of rutting dust that gets into crevices you didn't even know you got! I was keepin' finding that stuff for a month. So I think we're even, princess, 'part from the bit where you're itching to sell me out to the sick bastard who wants to slowly torture me to death."

"Well, I think that was your doing. Tell me, what kind of an idiot first agrees to work for Adelai Niska and then goes back on the deal? Please. Half the 'verse would call it plain suicide."

"I take your point, Saffron, and why don't I skip commenting on the irony here and you do me a kindness in return. Let me the hell loose and stop screwing about!"

She pouted and shook her head. "You ratted me out!"

"And who in the hell wouldn't have? Fair's fair, lady. Stopped him getting out the hot pokers a mite longer. Which, let me think, I do believe I was in the position of needing to avoid 'cause of you."

"Sorry, Mal." She shrugged, and stepped back out of reach, and smiled that little-girl smile had made him think her about a decade younger'n she actually was, that first meet. "I don't think Fenro would like the thought of sharing me, and besides, you'd only find a way to throw a big, dumb spanner in the works anyhow." She made to turn and retreat.

"To hell with you." Mal threw back his head far as he might to yell, "Hey, Niska! Might interest you that gorram two-faced whore is - "

An inarticulate note of rage escaped Saffron's lips, and in a lightning quick motion she'd cracked a fist across his jaw, bouncing his head back against the panels. She looked around quickly, frustration twisting her face, then tore the fabric belt off her tunic and leaned up to tie it over his mouth, forcing the knot past his jaw.

"There." She dusted off her hands briskly, while he glared daggers at her and made a few noises he was damn sure she'd at least grasp the general gist of. She backed over to the bag, hauled it up over her shoulder, eyes never leaving him. Something odd in there now... maybe trepidation. "I wasn't just going to leave you, you know," she said resentfully. "I was only kidding around. Leastways, I was gonna leave you this." Something small and metal flashed in her hand. "Screwed that one up, sweetie."

She turned for the door. There were faint shouts now. She didn't have much time.

She paused, cursed violently, then darted back. A hard, sharp something pressed into his palm. Then with a flick of red hair, a stuck-out tongue, and a glimpse of creamy thigh as she dug under the tunic to draw his own gorram gun out of her underwear, she was gone.