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In their sixth year, Summer came early, and June found James and Sirius at the lake's far end; James hauled himself from the water to sprawl on his stomach atop the warm slate, basking like a lizard in Gryffindor-red swim trunks, while Sirius' concession to the heat was black trunks and a light shirt, worn open, in the shadow of a boulder. Sirius hadn't trusted sunshade potions since that faulty one back in their first year, but James never worried about burning: His tanned skin glowed under the sun, brushstroke-like shadows picking out the dips and planes of James' back and shoulders, catching droplets of lakewater that beaded in his hair and on his skin.
James was almost dozing, stretched out with his usual lack of self-consciousness, lulled by the gentle lapping of waves. The feeling of elegant fingers carding lightly through his hair caused James to stir, though not to open his eyes; that was nothing out of the ordinary until Sirius stopped petting him and his hand moved down, lingering on the nape of James' neck before tracing the outline of his topmost vertebrae. Cool fingertips moved over sun-warmed skin as if trying to read something in the subtle shapes, and James remained both silent and still as Sirius counted every notch in James' spine through the medium of touch.
“You should think about a tattoo,” Sirius said, his voice drifting down from somewhere above James' head, his words a little dreamy in the summer haze. “You'd look so good in ink.”
James was finding it increasingly hard to keep still as Sirius' fingertips trailed lower, so he fixed his eyes on the sunlight glinting off the water and tried not to visualize Sirius as he must have looked, shirt falling open to display the gallery-in-progress emblazoned on that famously pale skin.
“On my back, though?” James managed, unable to suppress a shiver as Sirius lightly dragged his nails over every individual divot, though James was proud of how his voice was only slightly strained. “What would I get where no one would actually see it?”
“Wings, maybe,” Sirius replied, with just enough sarcasm to play it off as a joke, though the pattern James could feel against his skin didn't read like wings. Having reached the base of James' spine, skimming dangerously close to the topmost edge of his trunks, Sirius was tracing something in florid script across the small of James' back: S-I-R-I-U--
Footsteps clattered over the pebbly shore, and Sirius' touch disappeared as Remus and Peter arrived, Lily a step or two behind them. James pushed himself into a seated position as Lily settled beside him, peering up into his face.
“Are you alright?” Lily asked, running a hand across James' cheek, still coloured by a lingering flush. “You're a bit red.”
“I'm fine,” James assured her, grinning; Sirius was chatting with the others, but the weight of his gaze was an almost physical thing. “Just a little too much sun.”