AN: Bit of light-hearted marauder conversation because physics revision is draining my soul. It hints at R/S fluff. Set the summer before sixth year. Unbeta-d, so ignore the likely mistakes.
Disclaimer: JKR owns them both.

Swirly Brown, Sort of Bronzey

Summer holidays are wonderful for roughly the first three weeks. By that point, you find that you've exhausted the Devonshire countryside of every climbable tree it possesses, romped through numerous identical fields and made sure that the mostly retired population of the tiny village knows exactly what sort of youthful joviality they had moved to escape.

The conclusion that the holiday you had such high hopes for is going to be just as drawn out and, eventually, boring as the last was hard enough for two eleven year old boys to come to, but for two sixteen year-olds, it hits both sooner and earlier. Not even half way through week two and James and Sirius are running low on things to occupy themselves with. If Mrs. Potter had let them, it's a good bet to say that neither would've surfaced for breakfast until three o'clock. So far the summer has been uneventful, save the ill-fated sheep incident midway through the first week, which certainly set things off to a roaring start. James is sure the sheep will never quite recover.

On this particularly Monday morning, after fleeing the kitchen with a bag of cheese sandwiches at the sight of James' normally tolerant mother wielding a mop with surprising strength, the two find themselves out by a stream that runs through the dale a little way from the Potters' house.

Sirius collapses onto the grass and lets out a long, hard-done-by sigh. "We can't go on like this."

"Not even two full weeks." James groans. "We're old, Pads. Old and feeble and unimaginative."

"I still say I should've brought firecrackers with me. Would definitely have improved the afternoon."

James gives him a look. "Not after last time."

"I've never seen a terrier fly so high." Sirius grins lazily and stretches out in the grass, and thinks that if only things had gone tits up at home earlier, he could've run off to James' sooner and spent more summers doing nothing at all, instead of sitting in emotionless dining rooms for hours on end with people he wouldn't hesitate to toss a couple of unforgivables at.

James has shed his shoes and socks and is dipping his feet in the stream, flicking water at him every so often. "Fancy going into the village later?"

The village contains a pub, a chippie, a post office, a small shop that they've already been kicked out of once this week and an owl station. As far as excitement goes for two teenage boys, it's rather lacking. "S'pose."

"There might be that girl again." James says, smirking. "The one you were making eyes at last Friday."

The girl to which he is referring is the long-legged brunette who's spending the first half of summer with her newly widowed aunt. They ran into her on the way down to the chip shop, and James seems to have made it his mission of the holidays to hold a conversation with her that doesn't consist of pleasantries and apologies for almost knocking her over. "I was not making eyes at her." If anything, she had been making eyes at him. Eyes that made him both fear for his safety and want to go home and have several scalding showers.

"She was a bit of all right though, wasn't she?"

Sirius closes his eyes against the sky. "If you insist."

"I most definitely do."

"Not my type, mate."

James makes an incredulous noise and swoops his foot through the water again, sprinkling Sirius with a fine shower. "Since when did you have a type? Last time I checked anything in a skirt was fair game."

Sirius doesn't reply for a while, content to lie on the bank, listless with summer heat. "Pass us a cheese sandwich, would you?" He feels about ready to doze off. James chucks the paper bag across the stream and it lands on his chest, sending cheese sandwiches flying. Sirius grimaces and plucks a triangle from the patch of grass next to his ear. He chews thoughtfully, and then says, "Blonde."

"Hm?"

"Blonde."

James raises an eyebrow, though it's cynical nature is wasted on Sirius, still laid out on the grass. "That explains only about a quarter of the birds you've had it off with."

"'M a flexible kind of man."

"Give over, you don't have a type."

Sirius pats about on the grass around him until he locates another sandwich, ignoring James' input. "Not pale blonde though. Sort of sandy blonde."

"More of a redhead fan, myself." James purses his lips in contemplation.

"I'm well aware." Sirius finishes his second sandwich and cracks open one eye. "I think most of England is well aware."

They fall into comfortable quiet again, apart from the odd grunt of discomfort when James flicks more stream water across Sirius' legs – Sirius is fairly certain that, no matter how impossible it may be in a moving body of water, he'll eventually run out of stream – and the hum of midges.

Then James pokes him with a stick and says, "So what brought this on?"

"What?"

"Your sudden change from Snog Anything That Looks Female to Only Snog Sandy Blondes? I find it difficult to believe you woke up and suddenly decided that McKinnon didn't do it for you after those weeks of pining. Go on then; anything else to add to the profile of this hitherto unknown type of yours?"

Sirius mulls it over around another mouthful of sandwich. "Brown eyes." He mumbles.

James wrinkles his nose. "Really? Bit on the boring side."

"What would you go for?"

"Green, o' course. Sparkling green. Bright green."

Sirius rolls his eyes behind closed lids. "I can see a theme emerging here." He sniffs. "Not boring brown."

"Oh?"

The summer heat and the stillness around them has lulled him into a comfortable, half-awake state and the words that leave his mouth haven't quite made it past customs yet. "Swirly brown. Sort of bronzey. Like chocolate." Sirius swishes one hand through the grass languidly. "But more gold."

"Merlin, you sound like a right girl." James grins.

Sirius throws the paper bag of sandwiches back at him with surprisingly good aim, considering he doesn't bother sitting up. "Says you, Mr James 'I wish to drown in her sparkling emerald eyes' Potter."

"Least I'm open about my infatuation."

"I don't have an infatuation."

"No, all right then. These are just generic bronzey, chocolate-but-more-gold eyes you're babbling about."

"Quite." Sirius finds yet another forlorn triangle of cheese sandwich by his head.

James doesn't say anything for a while, a suspiciously long while, and instead picks at the bag of sandwiches himself. Summer seems to bring time to a standstill. "Let's just say that these eyes belonged to someone in particular."

They do, of course, but he's not about to put James' out of his misery just yet. Sirius makes a 'hm' noise.

"Would you let me in on the identity of said person?"

"Perhaps."

"Right." James lets it go too easily, but Sirius is glad because he doesn't have enough energy to even sit up for great lengths of time, let alone get into a proper conversation right now. "Right." James says again, and that is that.

But of course it isn't. A throwaway comment or two has set something close to mischief alight in James' head and he seems intent on following it. To his credit, though, he doesn't mention it again until the night before they're due to head off to Kings' Cross. He doesn't even bring it up when Remus and Peter are staying with them and the brunette with the legs becomes a topic of conversation again, albeit mainly between him and Peter; Remus had his head stuck in a book at the time and Sirius was busy trying to distract him from it.

The night before school, the two of them have snuck out of the house and walked to the top of the nearest hill with six bottles of fire-whiskey and the intention of drinking all of them before midnight. At half ten, two and a half are already gone.

"What about this Not Boring Brown mystery woman then?"

Sirius sighs, but it doesn't have much substance. "Dunno what you're talking 'bout, mate. Was just a couple of preferences."

James doesn't look convinced, and from the derisive noise he makes he doesn't sound it either. "Bet I know who it is." He watches Sirius carefully.

"Do you now?" Sirius cocks one eyebrow over the neck of his bottle.

"That Hufflepuff girl who sat by you in Divination last year."

"Yeah?"

James squints. "Yeah."

Sirius shrugs half heartedly, warmed by the still night air and the fog of alcohol. "Nah. Too airy-fairy."

"You like 'em thoughtful and down to earth all of a sudden?"

"Mm."

James swigs from his bottle, and sighs. "Down to earth girls are too much trouble."

"You reckon?" Sirius flops backwards, lethargic and thoughtful and feeling a little floaty about the head.

"Look at Evans. Least airy-fairy girl I know, and she won't even say hello without getting in a snide comment."

Sirius shakes his head, which he later decides is a bad idea. "That's feisty, that is. Not down to earth. Down to earth is quieter." He concentrates on the stars for a bit, and then tries to remember if they bought the cloak with them because he isn't sure he wants to be caught by Mrs. Potter when they let themselves back in. "Hm. Quiet."

"Quiet?"

"And bookish."

James looks a little confused, and cracks open his third bottle. "Quiet and bookish with swirly eyes. You're becoming a fourth year girl, Pads."

Sirius thinks James is probably right. "Swirly like chocolate." He corrects.

"Gods forbid I forget that."

Contemplative silence settles. The dusky sky drifts into darker tones and Sirius is dimly aware of James, somewhere to his left, straightening out in the grass. Sirius sighs. "Prongs?"

"What?"

"Y'know how some people are just... right?" James doesn't say anything, but either Sirius doesn't notice or the filter between his mouth and his brain has dissolved completely and he's content to mumble onwards. "With their bronzey eyes and books and parchmenty smell and freckles and... and correctness about everything. Y'know? And when, when he smiles and you just want to hug him or kiss him or something. People like that." He shrugs, which is more difficult than it sounds when one is lying flat out on a hill in Devonshire with a good deal of alcohol in one's system. "S'my type." And oh look, your mouth has run away with itself again, he thinks. Why not spell out his name too, while you're at it?

James props himself up on one elbow. He picks out bits of that speech, garbled as it is, and though Sirius is not the most coherent at the best of times, James is starting to think that maybe they aren't talking about Hufflepuff girls any more. One phrase sticks out to him, even after two and a bit bottles of fire-whiskey and he frowns at Sirius, certain he's misheard.

"Who the fuck smells like parchment?"