Chapter Text
When Mick was a kid, he remembers a time when he didn’t feel the need to hide from his parents. Life was simple back then, as it tends to be when you’re a child, and he was more… settled, so to speak. It’s not so hard to be around your parents when you’re not so complex. It’s a natural instinct, really.
Living out there on the farm with the animals and his dogs and his parents, there was a sense of peace about that. Hard work, sure, but it truly wasn’t anything one couldn't get used to. Seeing the animals grow up big and strong left a sense of pride in its wake, and made the taste of the ones made for eating all the better, knowing they lived a good life. He could always see why his parents found such comfort in it.
That itch always grows, though. It’s not uncommon for children to want more than they’re handed. Young people in general, Mick reckons, have a thirst for adventure that can’t be satiated by the routine most grow into as they age. His father, as gruff as he was, was secretly a bit glad to pass on some of the knowledge he hadn’t gotten to use much in the last years. Dingos were always a problem, but the man was such a force of nature many of them had learned to avoid the farm with a mile radius.
Hunting trips became a regular part of the routine, once-a-month outings in his dad’s old truck with two rifles in the bed riding along the outback. They started with some hares, his father shooting a few before setting Mick up in a way where he could practice himself. The first time he fired he nearly fell flat on his face, even with the help of the barrel rest to support the gun’s weight and the support of his dad’s hand behind his shoulder.
It was slow-going, at first. He’d be the world's biggest liar if he claimed he took to it like a duck to water. It really started like a fish out of one. He couldn’t hold the gun up himself, for one. His stance wasn’t wide enough, then he was practically doing the splits. Was too twitchy to keep the iron sights steady and aim it. Nearly got his finger pinched in the bolt action of his father’s savage. Only hit a slow hare in the leg, making his father quickly off it to put the poor bastard out of its misery. But at the end, his father had looked down at him and saw a wide-eyed wonder in his kid’s eye and knew they would be going out again, and soon.
Mick’s dad had shown him very carefully how to skin the hare in the bed of the pickup and tossed the meat into the cooler, and Mick’s own leg-fractured, less-smooth meat got tossed in not too long after. When they had gotten home his mum congratulated them for the kills- a praise that made him light up the room- and they had a delicious stew that night. His mum kept talking about how he could take over the job of scaring off dingos from the area, singing praises.
It took about six months for him to consistently begin hitting shots. At the kid’s incredible insistence, his father set up a shooting range off the side of the farm in the open land for practice. Mick used it nearly every day, rushing to complete his chores, schoolwork, and maintenance of the gun his father had gifted him for his birthday so he could get better. It was slow going, but with the patience of his father and consistent practice he had started to become quite good. They had started to hunt some of the feral cats that were breaking into a friend of his dad’s chicken hutch every night.
Then, one night while he was staying up looking at the stars and making up names for the constellations he’d forgotten, Mick had seen a dingo in the distance beelining it for their sheep pen. He hadn’t even thought, just ran to grab the freshly-oiled rifle leaning against the wall and gave it a skull piercing between the eyes at a mile off.
His pa had woken to the crack, of course, but after figuring out there wasn’t some home intruder, that his kid hadn’t just been shooting the shit, and how far off the shot had been hit… after a lecture about not worrying Ma at the wee hours of the morning, his pa had a lot to think about on his mind.
The range was extended after that. A lot of different distance targets for Mick to practice with. And hunts started to become bigger.
His father went over the pests the government encourages people to kill on sight. Wild dogs, like the dingo he laid to rest. Feral cats, goats, and pigs that were released and started to take over areas. There was a particular hatred behind his dad’s insistence that all emus deserved to be killed at first glance, despite the fact it wasn’t being so encouraged as it used to be.
They went out of their way to start searching for the bigger ones. Mick learned from his mum that Pa used to hunt game for a living, pest control. It was when they were both much younger people. Ma had insisted upon his retirement before getting hurt, and Pa only agreed once his quivering hands made him miss more shots than he made one day. She confessed to Mick that he seemed to miss that life, now that he couldn’t get that same accuracy at the butt of a gun as he did in his prime. Farming satiated him fine, but everyone misses the good ol days. What’s the harm in living through your kid?
More than expected, it ended up. It started off reasonably. Pests that were bothering neighbors and friends, both father and child getting praise for accuracy and for the help. Bigger animals, ones that were causing damage to property in further reaches of the outback. Wild boar, it seems, had a habit of crushing watering tanks they didn’t like. Those were handled with ease.
Too much ease it seemed, as while the young Mick reached twelve, his Pa started looking even higher. A buffalo, he heard, was crashing into trees and scaring a friend of a friend of a friend’s animals all night. A spark grew in Pa’s eyes.
The two prepped for weeks, using the range more than ever. Mick’s homeschooling went on standby as they waited. Mick was excited. His father, even more so. Ma was too, at first. But with each passing day a crease formed between her eyebrows. The excitement of her husband was… hell of a lot more than her kid’s. Her husband was lagging on farm duties, even. It worried her. She handed them sandwiches once they were done practicing three days before they were planned to head off and pulled Pa aside.
It was loud. Mick went up to the roof to get away from it and looked at the stars, as he’s used to.
Ma packed a cooler full of snacks and sandwiches for the drive the next day. His Pa took it wordlessly and went out to the truck to get it started. Mick’s mum leaned down to him and advised him that his father had impaired judgement, sometimes. To trust his gut, if it came to it. Then she wished him luck and they were off.
The beast was massive. Biggest he’d ever seen, even compared to all the well-built guys that walked around town all the time without their shirts on, that much muscle.
It was smart, too. Mick and his father were posted in some shrubs a distance off of where they were told it usually came from, and when he had shifted to get a better eye on the thing when it wandered out of the opposing treeline it heard.
And knew.
It all fell to hell quickly. It was vicious, likely had rabies or some other sickness to it that made it lash out without regard or reason. It had charged at them. Startled, Mick’s shot went awry and missed the vital areas, plunging into the meat of the shoulder. The two scrambled out of the bush they were camped behind and sprinted for the nearby tree for cover.
His dad clambered up the first branch, leaning down to yank the smaller off the ground, when Mick saw that look cross Pa's face.
Even thinking back on it now, he couldn't place what it was. Fear definitely played its role. Regret, probably. Something like a dash of guilt in the mix. But never the last ingredient.
Greif?
In that moment, so many years ago, Mick had felt a panic he had never felt since, followed by searing pain down his spine.
__________________
In a moment that had been explained to him by his mother when he'd woken up after the fact, the buffalo had slammed him into the trunk of the tree as it shoved past, knocking him out. His father had ended up taking the rifle and giving it a piercing right between the eyes, then had rushed Mick to the closest urgent care.
It had taken him 3 days to wake up fully.
His mother was beside herself. Crying, sobbing, yelling. Pa was getting an earful and a half. Disallowed everything. Threatened to make him sleep in the barn with the sheep.
Mick’s father hadn’t said almost anything. An apology, sure, but one that had been pulled out of him by a thwack on the back of the head from Mum. Otherwise though, nothing. He just kept looking with a darkness in his eyes, a weight on his shoulders that wasn’t there before. He was a man of few words, but even Mick could tell he was scared of how close it had been to his death.
It took a while to recover, physically and emotionally. The hospital had kept him for another week, making sure no long-term issues would come from the thorough bruising to his spine. Months after that was physical therapy. He was limited to only 30 minutes standing up with a cane, slowly increasing over time. It was excruciatingly boring, being cramped into the house all day, but coming with his dad in the bumpy truck had been worse for a while. He started whittling on the couch in his free time.
It was a full year before he finished his last session, walking reliably on his own and only using the cane on bad days. Being around the larger animals on the farm, like the horses, took longer.
Surprising both his parents, though, there wasn’t any trauma tied to his marksmanship abilities and holding the rifle. He wasn’t able to use the range for a while, but once he was up and walking around again he was back out there like nothing changed. It had worried his Ma at first, thinking her kid was going to go out and get hurt again, but it never really was about the animals for Mick. Just the sport of hitting shots.
She tried to discourage him, his Pa too, but he kept at it. Mick signed up for competitions when he was old enough- almost done with his schooling- and started placing in them. His parents were there and praised his accuracy, sure, but a gap had formed between him and his parents. They didn’t approve of it. Thought he should be dedicating himself to an actual job instead of further refining the craft. Some odd jobs came here and there, sure, but nothing stuck with him like the rifle did. He was getting antsy. Wasn’t so much of a challenge, anymore, wanted to go farther and off on his own.
And then he got approached in a bar he had slipped into after his last win by a guy with a stack of bills in one hand and a hefty grudge in the other.