"I didn't want it to be like this. Where the truth comes out, and we stop talking to each other. I wanted the truth to bring us closer, heal us, not tear us apart."
-via AVA

A/N: I totally fuckin forgot it's father's day... I literally didn't plan this LMAO!

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Lupin Cottage, June 1982

The short drive up to the cottage was the same as it had always been; bumpy and unbearably quiet, even with the bumping of music in the background. The streets' pavements had thinned out miles back, leaving only gravel and dirt to cushion Remus's nearly flat tires. The brown landing was thick with summer greens and lasting spring blooms, and the blossoms added a dash of color in the otherwise dull trip through the village. He could see the dip of the valley nearing, homes and businesses becoming sparse on the open terrain. All of Walter's Ash had either died out or moved away, leaving tattered buildings and decrepit plots of land to stare at in his brooding.

It was the same, Remus reminded himself, yet it stirred with the bitter taste of his nerves. Not that the feeling would ever alter when meeting with Lyall. According to Remus's mother, the retired Ministry worker had resigned his days to the shed outback. An odd place for the old man, Remus thought but decided to leave it be. These visits with Lyall were seldom and meager at best; adding on a million questions about his father's whereabouts during the day would only add tension. With the day Remus was having, that was the last thing he desired.

Remus wasn't sure what he was hoping for as he pulled into their tree-lined driveway. Half of his heart had expected to see the couple in the swing under the tree, a book in his father's hand as his mother drank her tea, or maybe his mother doing work in her garden with Lyall. Yet, the swing hovered dankly, the ropes rotting from rain and underuse, and the flower beds were vacant of blooms: only weeds, vines, and old cigarette butts.

Remus parked the car, dialing the volume of Bowie down and focusing his energy. He didn't expect this to be an easy task. There would always be a settled feeling of fear when approaching his father, no matter how weathered he may have been from old age or spite. It was a sick way of thinking and a bit horrible when Remus sat down and thought about it. Being afraid of his father had been ingrained in his behavior since the turning point in his childhood; there was no denying it. But years later, when his son had proven himself in more ways than one, there was still room for criticism. That criticism, regardless of how deserved, always stung. And maybe that's why Remus was disappointed in himself; it wasn't fear for his physical safety but the image that his father saw when gazing up at him.

The image he could not control, no matter how hard he tried to live up to the title.

Exiting the car, Remus made his way into the house and inhaled deeply. The scent of baby powder and his mother's cooking had faded into the upholstery, replaced with stale assaults of cigarette ashes and smoke. Despite leaving the windows ajar and doors open, there was no ridding the furniture and carpet of the sour odor.

His eyes scanned his surroundings, noting the subtle hints of jaded color in his home. The splotches of yellow in the kitchen, which he could see from the landing, weren't as bright as they once were. The stain of orange soda had all but disappeared underneath imprints of boots and other shoes, and even though the blinds allowed for the sunny day's light, the entire house seemed dim. A shadow of its former glory. Was it glorious, or just a child's naivety implanting those sounds, smells, and colors to protect him?

None of that mattered.

"Mum," he called out, ignoring the echo of his voice far off into the valley.

There was no reply, only silence as he made his way to the back porch. Shielded from the heat, Remus squinted in search of signs. An old crossword book and an empty cup sat on the banister; they were his mother's. The hints of frustration in the scribblings and the chip in the mug said it all. But where was Lyall?

He stepped off of the porch, venturing to the shed in hopes of discovery. There was no real reason for Lyall to have locked himself up in Remus's old transformation location. In fact, Remus would consider his father mad for pulling a stunt like that. All of the memories were intense and fresh, the odors and markings permanent from years of abuse. But Lyall was considered a crazy man, primarily for chasing after Werewolves and dark Wizards for most of his life without a single flinch, but also for his short disposition and temperament similar to Alastor Moody's.

Remus rounded the corner of the shed, peering through the gap between the doors. He detested admitting his astonishment, but Lyall had been found with an old Muggle radio and a pair of... gardening clippers? Lyall had surrounded himself with diverse plants, each one more unique than the next but all equally as mesmerizing. Tempted to watch this unseen version of his father, Remus maintained stillness and held his breath. They would eventually speak about whatever they fancied, but oddly, Remus wished to remember this gentler being. One who could delicately clip the ends of wilting flowers to promote their growth. The man who measured water cups so that he didn't drown the soil.

"I know you're there, Remus," Lyall suddenly spoke, breaking the mirage with his usual gruffness. "Come in."

Knowing there'd be no use in hiding, Remus entered on command, leaving the shed doors open a fraction. Habit. It was a wonder how he'd done it, but Lyall had transformed what was once a place of regret and turmoil to small cultivations of rare flowers and bushes, some magical and others not so. His father had added windows and a skylight for effect. The aroma of bodily fluids and the wet dog had been all but erased, and the only indication of its past purpose had been the talon marks tracking the floor. Remus felt a chill course through him.

"Hullo, Lyall," he managed to say.

"Good afternoon, Remus," Lyall said, clearly put out with his son's appearance unannounced. "What brings you home this time?"

There was a bite in his father's words, a silent insult masked with concern. Remus reminded himself not to read too deeply into his father's words; they were often spoken off-handedly and with nothing beneath the surface. Lyall was unlike Fleamont in that he was straightforward and, more often than not, blunt. To worry himself with hidden meanings would be sentencing himself to insanity. Remus collected his thoughts. There was a purpose behind this wake-up call.

"I," he began, tripping over memories and feelings, thoughts and words. Where could he begin?

A few minutes had passed with incoherent mutterings and silence before Lyall sighed, "I've been told that when you have trouble remembering, it's best to start from the beginning and move forward."

Remus needed the subtle nudge, and he sighed. The beginning of what? He could hardly remember life before their graduation; magic had tampered with the bits and pieces of Hogwarts memories Remus had. His life was nothing but an unorganized sequence of images, some of them missing names and faces, voices and feelings.

"I don't know where to start," Remus said. "There's so much to say."

"Well, why don't you start with what's been bothering you the most these days," Lyall simply suggested, tossing his clippers in a nearby box. "I'm sure that's a good place."

Remus chuckled dryly, his father acting as some psychologist when in reality, he's likely the least suitable to do so. Wasn't it funny how the world liked its irony?

"Nothing makes sense anymore, Dad," he said. A lump swelled in his throat. "I look around me and find things from my life before this mess, and it's practically unrecognizable. There are people I don't remember meeting, memories I don't remember creating."

"That is what happens when you cast that kind of memory charm on yourself, Remus," Lyall was quick to point out, no remorse as he spoke. "From what I understood, you only meant to remove the Black boy from your memories. To anticipate everything else he was tangled with to remain is immature of you."

Remus felt his eyes watering, "It ju—But it was miserable, Dad. All I can remember was that it felt like someone had punched a hole in my chest and pulled out everything else with it. How could I have been so empty yet in such pain?"

"Did you love him," Lyall asked plainly, no malice hinted in his tone or eyes. It was a simple question that Remus could not confidently answer.

"I-I think," he mumbled. "It was complicated."

His father laughed, "Love isn't all that complicated, boy. It tells you who it's after, and it either gets what it wants or destroys you in the end."

"I suppose I've ended up with the latter, huh?"

Lyall pulled a flask out of his breast pocket, gingerly uncapping it and throwing back a shot or two before replying. This was the image Remus had become accompanied within his short life—a brisk, curt man who drank too much and smoked behind his mother's back. Quick and concise with his words, yet meaningful. Spiteful and ironic, not comforting and gentle as he clearly was with flowers. Remus was no flower but a confused animal.

"Maybe," Lyall shrugged, offering the flask. Remus shook his head, declining the enticing offer. He hadn't the stomach for hard liquor, as his father preferred. His shift at the emporium began in two hours, and Mrs. Grimes would not appreciate him appearing drunk on the job. "But, if your reaction at the trial is enough to base my decision on, I'd say you still love him. I wasn't too involved in your love life, so that I couldn't be the judge of that."

"You weren't involved, period," Remus shot back.

Lyall snickered, "You've got a fair point. But can you blame me?"

Remus felt that familiar flare—the same heat burning in his stomach as James and Lily continued on with their blissful ignorance earlier—and blinked. A laugh bubbled in his throat.

"Yeah, I can actually," he said. "Everything was perfect until I was turned. After that... I was sub-human to you. Not worthy of your time or your effort. Mum took care of me and my feelings after transformations, not you. She comforted me when I cried, not you. She got me ready for my first year at Hogwarts, not you."

Lyall stared out the window, unmoved by these words flowing from his son's mouth. Predictably, he took another sip from his flask, cringing at the taste as it dripped from his lips. Remus knew he was acting on emotion, and his father was no victim to teary-eyed gestures. Yet, it still stung that this unfiltered image of his son was still not enough to warrant accountability or responsibility. He still wasn't enough.

Would he ever be?

Lyall let his head hang, palms pressed firmly against his eyes.

"Everything I've ever done has been for you and your mother," he whispered, the sternness in his voice dwindling. "I haven't always done it right, but I've tried to take care of you and her in this shit show of a world. When you were turned, I didn't just have to worry about how our people looked at you, but how the real world would look at you. Not just as a child, but for the rest of your life."

"And treating me without a shred of decency or kindness was the goal," Remus snapped, ready to fight.

"I wanted you to be strong," Lyall shouted, the vein in his forehead pulsing. Remus flinched away from his father, shrinking into the shadow of his corner. "Strong in ways I wasn't, in ways your mother wasn't. Looking back on it, I can see it's done the opposite."

Remus felt another string in his resolve snap, voice cracking as he screamed, "Would it kill you to refrain from berating me? Just one conversation where you don't insult me!"

Lyall smirked, "But this is the proof. You can't even have a conversation about your feelings without losing your grip. This is what I wanted to avoid. As a Werewolf, your temperament could have been unstable and explosive. It was one of the reasons why I didn't like you with the Black boy."

They'd somehow managed to circle back to the topic at hand without truly settling their differences; that was their typical heart-to-heart. They danced around truths and feelings until both felt satisfied enough to go on about their lives for another few months without contact. But Remus was determined to find a solution in this shed.

Remus felt his heart race, his mind clouding with memories of the Lupin's dining table. They were young, their hair unruly and long, shirts untucked. They sat in a circle, the image of what Remus thought was Sirius beside him. Their fingers were locked beneath the table, hidden from his father's narrow eyes and pursed lips. Then the kitchen sink and their lips crashing against each other, fingers gripping skin and curled in their hair.

He remembered Sirius's voice, him demanding that Remus look him in the eye.

Look at me, Moony.

Remus willed himself to remember those eyes, the same eyes he'd seen his dreams and nightmares alike, in jaded photographs and drawings. In the past, they looked as though they belonged to someone else entirely—a different entity in which Remus had never come across.

Look. At. Me.

Remus pictured them in that kitchen so many years ago, skin tinted pink with frustration and anticipation. The way Sirius tasted like their dinner, lips wet with spit. His teeth and the way they clashed with Remus's as they snogged poorly. If he could freeze the image of the moment they pulled away—Sirius's eyelashes batting against the dark skin beneath those eyes—he'd frame it.

"You remembered something, didn't you," Lyall broke the trance, pulling his son back into the world with a jolt.

While disappointed, Remus had made a significant breakthrough in his chase for Sirius. He nodded, rendered speechless by the filling void in his chest. It gave him hope. It made him feel light. But more importantly, it revived a part of his heart and mind he'd once thought dead.

"It was of Sirius," Remus said. "That's the first memory that's made sense in years. It felt so real... like I could really feel him."

"I knew you were, erm," Lyall turned a shade of pink Remus thought impossible. His father embarrassed? You had the wrong guy. "I knew you were together—"

"I'm not gay, you know," Remus stated firmly. "I like men and women. You don't have to talk to me like I'm some sort of sicko."

"Women," Lyall exclaimed. "Like who?"

"One of your old partner's kids, actually... I dated his daughter in my early school years. Jerome. Julienne Jerome. It didn't last very long, and I didn't like her much in that way. To be honest, I think she fancied a friend of mine rather than me. We were young and confused about a lot. But she was the first friend I ever had."

Lyall seemed to pale slightly, looking down at the floor. While Remus had lost a friend, so had his father. The Jerome's had been massacred in their home one night, leaving only one survivor. Neither got to say goodbye, and neither got their closure until today.

"I didn't care that you were homosexual," Lyall continued, blinking away the nearly invisible line of tears in his eyes. Remus didn't even try to correct the old man, as he was set in his ways. "I cared that you were with someone who could upset what you'd been working so hard to maintain. I was worried that you might get to school and meet some juveniles and go down the wrong path."

"I can understand that, but Sirius was—"

"Unstable," Lyall finished his son's sentence. "I heard what the mind healer said in the trial. I'm not saying the kid is psychotic, but it just reaffirmed to me that he was doing nothing but stirring up what you'd only just gotten settled."

Remus pondered his father's words, muddled them, and picked them apart as they situated themselves in comfortable silence. This didn't make up for the years of mistreatment or lack of fatherhood. It didn't make up for the borderline abuse and absence. But it made so much more of this kaleidoscope of emotions make sense. In a fucked way, it made the actions of his father partially justified. Partially.

"I didn't know what I was getting into," Lyall continued, "when I married your mother. We weren't young and reckless. We were in our thirties and lonely. Your mother had gotten pregnant, and I thought the best thing to do was settle down before either of our reputations went to shit."

"I wasn't planned," Remus clarified a fog lifting and allowing for age-old questions brewing within him to be answered.

"Not in the slightest," Lyall laughed. "I don't think she ever wanted to get married either, and it showed. The house wasn't mine, nor the car. The furniture and the decorations—they were all your mother's. It wasn't mine. Your mother was never mine. I lived in a sea of unfamiliar faces and names, in a house I didn't own, in a neighborhood, I'd never heard of. But then you came along.

"When you were born, I looked at you, and for the first time since we'd been married, I felt as though I was looking into something without wondering whether or not it would be taken from me. You were my son, my boy."

Remus dared to step out of his shadowed corner, seeing now the man in the shed rather than the father who locked it from the outside. He saw the vulnerable Lyall Lupin that always hid from plain sight.

"Am I still your son," he finally asked, heart paused for response.

No expectations, he reminded himself.

Lyall stood, releasing a sigh and stretching his arms above his head to signal the closing of their conversation. Remus hid his disappointment, clamoring from his seat and hovering near the exit. His father stepped into the afternoon sun, basking in its warmth and glow. Remus stood beside him, feeling more his equal now than ever. So many of his questions went unanswered, but Remus had unearthed more in a heated discussion than years of conversation with his father.

They strolled to the car in a hush, enjoying the fluttering of birds and the chirping of insects. In the distance, Remus caught the sight of his mother under the nearby weeping willow on the swing, her crossword strewn across her lap and tea iced. She waved brightly, calling out for her son and bidding him goodbye. Remus raised his hand, ignoring the swelling in his chest.

His father opened the driver's door, gesturing for his son to get in. As Remus situated himself, not caring to comment on his father's prying eyes, he smiled. The engine roared to life with the turn of a key, and Bowie hummed in the background. Remus went to shut the door, but Lyall kept his grip firm.

"You'll always be my son, Remus," he said. The look in his eyes was genuine and emotional, as emotional as Lyall Lupin could ever be, but it spoke volumes.

He patted the hood of the car, retreating to the swing where his wife sat. Remus lingered a moment, finding more empathy for his parents as the time passed. Unlike his father's opinion, things were quite complicated, but the knot was untangling, and the pieces were coming loose. Soon enough, Remus would have enough to start putting his life back together. This time, he didn't have to wonder if his parents would be a part of it.

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Hey, guys. So a few things. I changed the name of the first book (Mischief Managed) to Carve Me Open. I did this for a few reasons, the first being that it was entirely unoriginal and basic to me. I know a bunch of other good stories with the same title, but I imagine you all do/did as well, and I wanted my story to stick out. With the themes in the book, I think the title is suitable. The second reason was that the series is starting to gain a lot of traction again, and I want the title to stick in your head forever like All the Young Dudes or Casting Moon Shadows. I'll never forget those headliners!

But, like I said, we're beginning to repair again, and Sirius's appearances will become more and more frequent. I hope you all liked this chapter and noticed the development in characters/arcs.

Until the very end,

Nic.