"It'd prob'ly be disappointin'." Ed says, not even looking at him, head tilted back and body sprawled carelessly across the sofa like he doesn't know the amazing things that position does to the stretch of his pants or the hitched-up hem of his shirt.

Roy – blinks upward in the direction of Ed's face (chin, really, he can't see his face at all and he's trying not to look at that taut arch of throat) and wonders how long he's been talking.

"What?"

"Huh?" Ed's head tilts back down (Roy can't quite decide whether he should miss the line of his throat when it's been replaced by such a tempting new view) and frowns at him. The alcohol calms him, drains all that tense energy away so that even the line of his mouth relaxes, makes his frown into something of an impatient pout like he's asking – but he isn't. Roy has to remind himself that he's drunk (however much that was a bad idea right from the first swallow) and furthermore that Ed is drunk, and that he values the boy's trust and friendship more than – the man's trust and friendship (though the term friendship seems inadequate when describing the years and days and moments from their first meeting) more than he wants to lick him all over. Really. He does.

"You said something." Roy says after a moment (or three, or thirty, he's not really sure), dragging his eyes away from Ed's mouth with what might be actual physical pain. Though maybe that isn't a good thing to do, either, because Ed's eyes...

"When?"

... he's never really known how to describe Ed's eyes, actually. He'll catch a glimpse of something that will perhaps remind him of the colour – whiskey in a glass, a flash of amber, the whole damn sun – but he's as well to say that the sky reminds him of the sea. Even when Ed's calm, loose, settled like this, his eyes are filled with so much of himself that Roy – well. Really, really wants to take him to bed and watch him come, to be honest.

"Before." Roy replies, forcing his attention back to where he is not in the bedroom. Somehow, he's startled to find Ed still looking at him.

"Oh." Ed says with a slow blink and a lick of lips. "What'd I say?"

For a moment, Roy doesn't even know what Ed said just then or how to speak back, but then his mind heaves itself back upward from his groin and he says, "It'd be disappointing."

Ed just looks at him. Licks his lips again.

"Whad'd be?"

Roy frowns (his doesn't look like a pout and his lips aren't asking any more than usual, but – as usual – Ed doesn't notice and doesn't pounce on him like he should) and looks at the bottle between them (whiskey, like and unlike Ed's eyes but – oh – definitely what Ed would taste like right now –), but he can't remember how much was in it to start with and so can't judge how drunk Ed is. Even if he was half-bottle drunk (assuming they had split it equally, though Roy is beginning to doubt that) he shouldn't be this... this. Drunk.

"That's what I was asking."

"Oh."

Ed tips his head back again, hair fanning out over the arm (sometime after Roy lost count of the number of drinks, Ed raised a hand to scratch his head and knocked his pony tail askew, leaving him to tug the tie out and let the whole lot tumble free with no consideration for Roy's sanity whatsoever), and does – something, some abandoned stretch that lifts his hips up from the couch and then flumps them back down again.

Roy thinks he's far too drunk for that to have the effect that it does.

"Well, yeah, don't'cha think?" Ed asks the ceiling. "I mean, how long've we bin doin' this? F'ckin' ages. Sso it'd prob'bly be disappointin', righ'? All tha' build up."

What?

"What?"

Maybe it would make more sense if Roy was listening properly and not tracing that line of exposed skin between Ed's pants and Ed's shirt with such single-minded covetous, but that would mean Roy would have to look away, and Ed's pants have shuffled far enough down on his hips that Roy can see the shadow of the dip between his hipbones.

"Y'know." Ed says, oblivious. One hand lifts up – drags the shirt a little higher – and waves clumsily in the air to indicate – something. "Like. When some'ne rec'c'mends somethin' t' ya, an'. They say 's really good, bu' when y' try i', s'all," another uncoordinated flap of the hand and oh god Roy can see his stomach muscles "disappoint'd."

"Hm." Roy offers like he's listening and Ed nods to himself, though he sighs and his body sinks deeper into the cushions and he doesn't sound satisfied at all.

"So. Good. Then we sh'dn't."

It takes Roy a moment (just one) to realise what Ed's said, and then his eyes have no trouble jerking away from Ed's skin to Ed's face – Ed's chin.

"What?"

Ed startles at the sharp question, lifts his head so quickly his eyes cross a moment.

"What?" He repeats, stupidly, and Roy is never getting drunk with Ed again. He can admit to himself that he has self-destructive tendencies, sometimes, but this is too much and he's too drunk to deal with this.

"We shouldn't what?"

Ed blinks at him, that slow blink that isn't intended to be a seduction even though it damn well is, and looks at Roy like he can't believe Roy is this stupid when he's the one –

"Have sex."

"What?" He'd swear Ed said...

"Have sex." Ed repeats, voice flat like he's talking about having a snack before dinner.

"What?" Roy's mind's stuck on have sex and it keeps spinning around and around in his head like a mantra (have sex have sex have sex) and even though he knows that that's not what Ed means he can't fit any thoughts in around it except maybe Ed and he's really too drunk to be expected to survive the temptation.

Ed shuffles a little further upright on the couch (his shirt falls back down and Roy feels the loss all the way through his chest like a blade) and frowns. Frowns.

"How drunk're you?" He demands, and Roy wants to ask what is wrong with you? but he doesn't open his mouth because he know that's not would come out if he did. "I said, it'd prob'ly be disappointin' if we had sex, so we sh'dn't."

That Roy understands well enough, and suddenly he's sitting perfectly upright, mantra gone (mostly, anyway, he can't imagine being in the same room as Ed without it) and glaring.

"Disappointing." He echoes the word back at Ed and if he didn't want to touch him so badly he'd throttle him. He wants to scream Ed is so... Ed. "You think sex with me would be disappointing."

"Well, no' jus' with you." Ed's frown deepens and his bottom lip sticks out a little further. "With me, too."

Roy opens his mouth – closes it. For a moment all he wants to do is throw his head back and wail why? at the top of his lungs, but he takes a breath, holds it, lets it out slowly.

"Because...?"

"'Cause why'd'ya think? We've go' all this..." the hand waving, again "tension. Y've bin fuckin' me with y'r eyes f'r the last million hours an' I've bin dreamin' abou' you f'r – f'ckin' ev'a, an' if. Neith'a ov'us measures up, then it'll jus' be – awkw'd, an' embarrassin', an'. I don' wanna. Like. Screw this, jus' 'cause I wanna screw you. So, we sh'dn't."

The boy is going to be the death of him.

Man. The man is going to be the death of him.

"Ed..." But what does he say? He wants Ed more than he wants breath and he hates that because it makes Ed right. "Come here."

Eyes gone round like a deer in headlights, if the deer could know exactly what was going to happen in precise, gory detail, and could lose all the colour in its face like that.

"What?"

"Come here." Roy says again, and he's not into fear or pain or domination, but the implied vulnerability in Ed's terror makes his mouth go dry.

"No. I said –"

"That we shouldn't have sex." Did Ed just shiver? Roy's almost certain that was a shiver and just god – "I have no desire to lose you as a friend, Edward. Ed. But I would rather not pass up the chance to have sex" oh yes, definitely a shiver "with you out of hand. Therefore, I propose an experiment." Roy knows he's over-articulating but he can't seem to stop; every moment that Ed stays over there is another no in the air between them and Roy only has words to convince him with.

"What?" Ed asks, finally, slowly, not one of the dumb what?'s they've been exchanging all evening but a curious-suspicious what? like maybe he's been dying to risk this and not daring just as much as Roy.

Roy says, "A kiss." and Ed – lets out a quavering breath, matches Roy eye for eye and doesn't say another word as he sits up, slides off the couch (too drunk to make it all the way to standing and far too drunk to consider walking) and – oh god. Crawls toward Roy. Not in a submissive way, not in a begging way, but in a way like he trusts Roy enough to get drunk enough to have to crawl and trusts Roy enough to let him see him crawl and fuck it all he's the most incredible thing Roy has ever seen and who the hell cares how he gets to him as long as he does?

And he does, oh, he does, crawls right up into Roy's lap and into Roy's arms and onto Roy's mouth and oh, oh, he does.