Warnings: Altered timeline from 'Ariel', angst, torture

Thanks to lvs2read for the great beta and thunder_nari for the great beta and spurring me on.

~

Everything is foggy, wrong, not like it’s meant to be. Pain burning into the side of Mal’s head tells him he’s still alive, but he’s honestly not sure how that is. Can’t remember passing out, can’t recall a time he’s woken up from it feeling like a mule's just kicked him in the chest. There’s a low hum all around him, his chest burns, aches right over his heart and feels close to agony on his ribs. That gorramn ugly toy of Niska’s gotta be why his ribs are hurting. He still remembers the feel as the ends of its clamps burrowed into him. The white hot agony that flashed through him as it powered on. Felt like he’d just stepped foot into the core of a sun.

He can hear muttering around him, a loathsome noise and it makes his nose screw up. Familiar and vile, Niska talking, saying something low to him, and then something wet flicks onto his ear and the smarting pain that flares up is enough to get him groaning. Groggy and exhausted, he’s not opening his eyes, instead letting the pain wash through him, limbs more leaden then he would like. Niska’s still talking to him, voice low and almost melodious, and Mal just about summons enough energy to answer back, to quip back at the man, even if Niska's not paying that much attention to him.

Niska’s torn between two emotions- happy, glad even, that Captain Reynolds is such an interesting man to explore, to break, but disappointed at the fragility of the human body, that he has to draw back for a moment if he wants to keep the man living. He doesn‘t want to bring back a nothingless mass with the Captain‘s name, after all. Shan Yu himself probably would have liked to meet the man, liked to put Malcolm Reynolds under his knife and truly see him. Niska’s sure he hasn’t seen Mal yet, has only gained glimpses and can now focus on exploring. Now is no longer teasing and giving the preliminaries of pain as he had whe