Fic and question
Why Al Wears A Ponytail
It was a quiet day in the office. No crazy alchemists to put down, no would-be terrorists to terrorize, no whispers of treason to investigate. Not even a jealous girlfriend or angry father of said girlfriend to storm in and demand Mustang’s balls on a plate.
Alphonse decided he preferred it that way. Yes, it was a little boring, but he could handle boredom. He and his brother could turn in their research and mission reports without wondering if there’d be an angry evil-doer interrupting dinner, Hawkeye could keep everything running relatively smoothly, and Mustang could be bullied into getting his paperwork done with a minimum of procrastination or threats to his person. Not like last week. There’d been six of the girlfriends last week, and somehow, Al had been stuck dealing with most of them while everyone else in the office suddenly had somewhere else to be. Even his brother.
If Al was one to hold a grudge, he’d have called all of them a lot of spineless cowards, locked the colonel in a small room with all six of the crying girls, and denied his brother anything like nookie for a week. But no, he was not the type for grudges, and so the rest of the staff were merely overly cautious, Mustang had been locked in with only three weepy girls, and Ed had merely been tied down and tormented for three hours.
Everyone seemed to get the message, and the office was thus nice and quiet today. He could handle that just fine.
Not everyone seemed to, however. Boredom tended to make a certain type of person twitchy, and Havoc was one of those people. It wasn’t that he wanted chaos, it was just that he had trouble keeping himself occupied once he’d finished all but the most tedious aspects of his own work. He chewed absently on the end of his cigarette as he glanced around the office, noticing that Alphonse had also finished whatever he and Ed had come in to do. Ed was dozing, head resting on his crossed arms on the desk, and Al was taking down his ponytail, running his fingers through the long honey-blonde strands to neaten it a little.
“Hey,” the soldier said, more just to break the tedium than any real interest, “Why do you always wear your hair up like that, anyway? You got the boss back, so you don’t have to do that to remember him.”
“Hm?” Al mumbled, the sound a little slurred by the band he was holding between his lips while his hands pulled his hair back once again. He blinked large bronze eyes at Havoc, then spat out the tie so he could answer. “Mostly habit, I suppose. I got so used to it up that wearing it down is annoying in most situations. But brother won’t let me cut it.”
“Huh? Why not?”
“He says it’s a convenient handle.”
Okay, that was too much information. “But why just a tail?” Havoc quickly asked, trying to steer the conversation as far away from the danger zone of the Elrics’ love lives as possible. “You could do a braid like the kid, maybe.”
“That’s a little too much like copying brother,” Al replied with a shrug, “And most other ways to wear it are too girly. In one case, it’d be downright dangerous.”
Havoc blinked. “Dangerous? Hair? How?”
“The way I’d have to act to match the look, of course.”
“You lost me.”
Alphonse opened his mouth to explain, then sighed, deciding it was much easier just to demonstrate. He gathered up his hair, deviding it down the middle and holding it up at the high sides of his head in a pair of pigtails. Then he made his eyes as big and dewy as possible, and sang out in a high cutsey voice, “Onii-tan! Let’s save the world again today!”
Havoc’s brain exploded, but he was able to dimly hear the sound of multiple people falling out of their chairs to the floor. In the distance, there was the sound of someone choking.
Only Edward seemed unaffected as Al calmly went back to tying his hair in the simple tail, cracking one golden eye open to give his little brother an exasperated look.
“Real good, Al,” he grumbled sarcastically, “You killed the entire unit. I told you not to use the lolita bomb on anyone but Envy.”
“Yes, brother.”