One: Burnt Away
Remus sits on the stone edge of the well, his back being sprayed by the water, collecting and mixing with the sweat already there. It’s a hot day, hotter than it’s been in weeks.
He has kicked his shoes off, pulled off his socks and dropped them haphazardly along with the shoes. His feet don’t quite touch the ground.
Sirius gallivants across the courtyard, shirtless and very tanned. Unlike Remus, he revels in hot weather, likes to sit where there is most sun so that it will collect around him. He likes, also, the excuse to be mostly naked.
It’s the first of August, and last night it rained so hard it knocked the power out in Remus’s neighbourhood. They got up to look out the window, and the brightest thing in the night was the sky, and its reflection on the wet road. Remus has never known his house this dark, could barely see the outline of Sirius’s shoulders where he kissed them.
Now all memory of the rain, its sound in the gutters, its smell-all these things are gone, burnt away by this blazing hot day. The splash of the well at Remus’s back does not sound like rain; it has its own sound.
Remus prefers the darkness and cool of a rainy night. He knows Sirius likes that too (oh, Sirius made sure he knows), but he can see quite clearly that this is where Sirius’s true joy lies. In the sun and the stone courtyard and the thick blue sky.
They have a whole month ahead of them. Remus hopes it will be sunny.