A number of things inspired this.

milliways_bar fic, re. merrimanlyon and gonna_live.

Translation of the Mandarin: holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews.



'Chess Metaphors'

"Check." As always, her voice is soft, and a little hesitant; she has yet to win a game from him, and Kaylee doesn't expect this game to be any different. They've never had the please don't let me win conversation. Doing that seems as foreign to him as the piece of jade that's always in her pocket nowadays does to Kaylee.

She worries at the jade with her thumb now as she waits for him to make his move. It'd be nice to take a game off of him, she'll admit. He's a professor, after all. Smarter than anybody she's ever met, except for maybe River and Ray Stantz. He's different from both of them, though. He's a professor, yes; he's also professional. All the time. There's a kind of distance there that she sees in her father-in-law, and the captain sometimes, and Moiraine. But where Gabriel Tam's warmth can (sometimes) overcome that distance, and where Moiraine's distance is as constant as Mona Lisa's Eye...

Like both of them, he manages to make her feel young. But unlike both of them, he never, ever makes her feel stupid. He's old as the hills. It's part of why she respects him -- you respect your elders, that's what you do -- but the rest of it is because he respects her.

Merriman castles, and looks up at her, letting his hand come to rest beside the board in front of all the pieces of hers he's managed to collect. His crowd is a lot more...crowded. She's still got her queen, though. That's something Kaylee won't ever do: sacrifice her queen. He asked her about it once, when he'd done it, and she'd reacted with disbelief. She'd said, eyes on her queen (the red one, Kaylee always plays red with him), The way I see it she's the most powerful one on the board, and I get the thing about collateral damage and whatnot. But she's a loss ain't acceptable.

It had taken them a few games, and a few cautious discussions, before Kaylee let on that it was hard not to see the pieces as people.

He'd let the confession go then, even if he hadn't before; had pointed out that it's part of the game, making hard choices, and sometimes -- often -- you lose.

And nothing now remained to do, he had said, distantly, smiling a little, but begin the game anew. He cleared his throat. Another game?

Every week like clockwork, at the same time, he was there, with his board and his pieces and his tea service, with one cup full and one cup empty and waiting. Kaylee started bringing the cake a few weeks later. And a few weeks after that -- they talk, a little, as they set up the pieces, and sometimes during the games, and Kaylee's said things to him that she can't really say to anybody but Crowley, and sometimes not even him -- a few weeks after that, Kaylee started making the cake herself to bring along.

The plates lie empty now, and a third of the cake is gone (Kaylee doesn't believe in skimping on slice sizes when there's not a whole crew that wants a piece), and he's looking at her, expectantly, waiting for her to move. His eyes seem to have a little in common with Dream's. No stars in them, of course. Morpheus is austere enough to represent security; Daniel is kind enough to represent reassurance. Merriman Lyon's hair is always in better order than that of Dream of the Endless, in whatever aspect -- but there's still something there in the eyes, something of age that is flatly impossible and something of vast difference that can't ever be resolved. He does a pretty good job of hiding it most of the time. Kaylee is grateful for that. When Mal gets something of the same look -- not ever to the same degree, but it's there -- Kaylee knows not even she can reach him, and retreats to the engine room.

Now she lifts her hand, considering. Sets her hand on her queen. Pulls her back three squares, on the diagonal. She'll try another approach, to get to his king. It's only after her hand lifts that she realizes: she's left her queen wide open for capture by his bishop. Kaylee bites her lower lip, but doesn't say anything. She's made her move, and she'll take the consequences.

He studies the board, and lifts his hand -- massive, gnarled, precise -- and moves a pawn.

Startled, she looks at him. She's met with dark eyes that glitter.

"It's your move, Kaylee." More rumbled than spoken, and with no hint of lightness that implies he's humoring her. Merriman turns instead to the teapot, and pours more into his cup.

Kaylee blinks, and moves her queen out of danger.

He checkmates her in eight more moves, and she's not surprised as she lays each of her pieces in the box, one by one; she privately doesn't believe that she'll ever take a game from him, as nice as it would be. They say their farewells, and Kaylee waves as he goes out the front door. She loves the glimpses that she catches of the grey sky, the stone buildings, the fireplaces with soft coals, and she's always meant to ask Simon if that's what Osiris was like, for him, but she can't ever quite put what she sees out of Merriman's door into the right words.

There's still a little tea in her cup, and as she likes it better when it's a little cool anyhow, Kaylee retires with it to one of the couches, meaning to go through a mental review of the game. It's a couple of minutes later when the realization hits her.

Merriman Lyon has never taken Kaylee's queen. Never since that conversation.

"Wŏ de mā hé tā de fēngkuáng de wàisheng dōu," Kaylee says, softly, grinning, fingers still worrying the jade counter in her pocket. "How about that."

He's partial to lemon, Kaylee knows; maybe tomorrow she'll experiment with a lemon meringue pie, and if it doesn't work out, there's a crew back home who won't mind eating a sweet kind of mistake, or maybe three of them, until she's got it just right for next week.