Title: Complement of Human Virtues
Author: Tiamat's Child
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist manga
Word Count: 681
Rating: K
Characters/Pairing: Ran Fan, Ling
Summary: Ran Fan is Ling's to command - even when he's a doofus.
Warnings: None.
Notes: Written for fma_fic_contest at Livejournal, prompt 24, "fallible". It took third place.

Complement of Human Virtues

"It happened just as I've told you," Ling said, gesturing off to the side so as not to get in Ran Fan's way. "The packet had been cleared, and there was the chewing gum, the bubbly pink kind, which attacked in my sleep."

Ran Fan, who had already loyally exhausted the possibilities of ice, honey, fine and coarse toothed combs, and Ling's suggestion of hot wax, which had been a very bad one, gave this the reply it deserved, which was none. "Please hold still, Master," she said instead, and waited.

He held still. She waited another moment, to make sure he'd continue to hold still, and then began to cut. Fortunately for them both the scissors were sharp and the chewing gum had not spread all that far through his hair, so the clump was quickly out. Ran Fan caught it as it fell and leaned over his shoulder to hand it to him.

He took it and sighed. "Such a little thing to cause such a lot of trouble. How bad is it, Ran Fan?"

"You will have to have your hair cut again," she said. "You look lopsided now."

"Serves me right, too," he said, tilting his head back to smile at her. She looked gravely back at him. "Doesn't your grandfather always say that a person should wear his mistake upon his person for as long the mark lasts?"

"That's what you said after you fell in the brambles."

"Did I?" He relaxed, swaying backward slightly into her space. Ran Fan caught his shoulders with her palms, a silent agreement to contact. She'd never really figured out how he managed to go from reasonably correct, politely upright posture to a sprawl on the floor, his cheek on her knee, within the span of a heartbeat, but he always did. It was a knack of his. "I don't remember what I said when I fell in the brambles," he told her from this position, looking up at her. He contrived to look up at her a lot, although he was much taller. "Was there anything else good?"

"Mostly you said 'ouch', Master. Or 'ow'."

"A lost opportunity, then," Ling said. "After all, if you were there and you don't remember me saying it, I know that I didn't." He grinned. "Because you remember everything I say."

Ran Fan looked back at him very steadily, her hands curled ever so slightly at her sides. "Because what you say is important to me."

The grin vanished and he was looking up at her with equal gravity, his voice quiet and even, private and warm. "What you say is important to me, too, Ran Fan."

It was always hard for Ran Fan not to shut her eyes when Ling talked like that, so as to better relish the timbre of his voice, the shape of his words, but it was important for her to meet his eyes when he said important things and they were face to face. It was very important that she hold his gaze, that he be able to see that she was listening, that she did not shy away from the trust he put in her, that she would not try to avoid giving the answers he asked her for. "Master," she said.

"Yes, Ran Fan?" He never wavered, unshakable and still, waiting, because what she said mattered.

"Master," she said again, softer, because it was hard to find the right way for words to fit together, sometimes. Sometimes they did not want to go together, and often it was easier to let them sit in silence, unspoken, but it was all right, when it was Ling, for her to have trouble, or to come to the middle and find she had nothing to say after all. "It does not matter who holds the throne, Master, or who reigns over the capitol. You are my king. You are my king now."

He shuddered, she saw him shudder, heard his breath shake as he took it, watched his eyes flutter closed. "Ran Fan," he said.

She said, "Yes."