Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is not mine.

A/N: This is my response to a challenge/plotbunny in PBAC, which leads me to this shameless plug: "If you are having trouble being struck by inspiration to write, or have more inspiration than you can keep up with; the Plot Bunny Adoption Center is the place for you." there's a link in my profile if anyone is interested :) The underlined word is part of the challenge. I'd also like to thank my buddy LogainFD for beta reading this. You're cool man.

Maes Hughes was, as usual, lurking around HQ and showing off pictures of his daughter to anyone he could find. Which is why the hallways were conspicuously empty, with the exception of Jean Havoc of course. Jean was too busy brooding about the loss of his pack of cigarettes through a hole in his uniform to notice the eerie silence. Well, that was until he felt the hairs on the back of his neck jump to attention and the waves of Proud Daddy™ aimed in his direction.

Jean froze, then slowly turned his head in the direction of the perpetrator and saw Hughes walking towards him with a familiar gleam in his eyes. Jean thought that he probably looked like a cornered animal, though he couldn't be sure; his lack of nicotine was making him slightly incoherent.

As Hughes got closer, he pulled out the Dreaded Pictures™ from his breast pocket, and started flipping through them to the last one Havoc had seen. Havoc wondered how Hughes could always remember who had seen which pictures, but put it off as simply something that made Hughes...Hughes.

Maes finally stopped leafing through the bunch and pulled out the newest photo, shoving it into Havoc's face as usual. Which would explain why he was so surprised when Havoc jumped away like he'd been burned and screamed like a girl.

"What's wrong?" asked Hughes, mildly concerned for his colleague's well being.

"'What's wrong?' 'What's wrong?' I thought you loved your daughter!"

"What? Of course I do!" Hughes was confused by Jean's statement, and not a little angry at what it implied, but before he could demand an explanation Jean started speaking again.

"Then why would you let her around that- that thing?"

"What thing?"

"That thing." Jean pointed an accusing finger at the photo Maes was holding up. Maes looked at it, but could see nothing wrong.

"What?"

Jean pointed more franticly at the picture. Still Maes couldn't find anything amiss and told Jean so.

"THERE!" Havoc pointed more frantically at the picture. Hughes moved the photo into a better angle so Havoc could more clearly point whatever it was that had his panties in a bunch. He still didn't see anything- no there.

"The purple balloon Elysia is holding?"

"YES!" Havoc looked like he would burst from relief.

"It's just a balloon Jean."

"Just a balloon? It is not just a balloon; it's a balloon, and it's purple," Maes resisted the urge to laugh. The way Jean was talking was reminiscent of crazy conspiracy buffs. It didn't help that while talking, Jean was making crazy hand gestures and strange faces that looked various degrees of constipated.

"You know, you're asking a lot of hypothetical questions and emphasizing words a lot today."

"Don't get off topic! Those things are evil and there's no question about it."

"This has 'childhood trauma' written all over it."

"I'm not going into details because it always manages to turn into a megillah, but long story short: There was an incident when I was twelve, it turned ugly fast and my hair has never been the same," Havoc pointed at the poof of hair that passed off as bangs. Maes fought back a smile, Roy's men were always a riot to talk to and had the funniest anecdotes to tell, but he had the feeling that he was better off not knowing this one. A thought suddenly struck him.

"Wait, shouldn't it change once your hair grows out?" asked Maes, voicing his thoughts.

"I don't know why, but it's permanently stuck like this,"

"Well that explains why your hair always looks so ridiculous. I guess a lot of people are going to be disappointed," Hughes closed his eyes and nodded to himself in a sagely manner, like one of the mysteries of life had been answered. When he opened his eyes, he saw Havoc staring at him with a look of confusion on his face, and decided to elaborate.

"There was a bet going around to explain the reason why your hair is like that. I went with the majority of the people betting and put my money on 'He stuck his fingers in an electrical socket, liked it, and has been sticking doing it on occasion since then'. I was wrong but it doesn't matter since no one else thought of that. No one wins," he said then shrugged, while Jean gaped at him.

"This is all the fault of the purple balloons!"

"The ladies said it was funny looking. I'm guessing it cuts you popularity by at least 30 percent," Maes continued, not paying attention to the kind of effect this was causing on his conversation partner.

Jean felt like he'd been punched in the gut, finally realizing why his dates would sometimes ask him why he wore his hair that way or why people would occasionally look at him funny. It was all caused by some stupid bet! The world really hated him sometimes.

"Why me?" Jean sighed and walked away, while muttering about the injustices of life, and purple balloons.

Maes watched him go, feeling pity bubbling up. Roy was the one who had started the bet, in an underhanded tactic to increase his own popularity with the ladies, but Maes would make him see the error in his ways. One way or another. It was time to make a call to Roy's mother.

A/N: Hehe, I write a lot of fics centering around inanimate objects :)