Fic: A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations: The Master, Dirty Harry Style

[ausmac]

Title:  A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations: The Master, Dirty Harry Style
Rating:  Blue Cortina
Summary:  The Master goes to the movies, and Gene gets a bit dented.
Notes:  Third in my Doctor Who/Life on Mars Crossover
Doing this while having my mid-morning coffee at home.  Just as excuse, really.

Link to story #1 "The Master, in Polyester" here
Link to story #2 "The Master, and Paperwork" here


It was just starting to drizzle as the Master and Gene Hunt made their way through the crowd leaving the movie theatre.  They turned together away from the main flow of pedestrian traffic towards the Ford parked a block down the street.  Gene dropped his empty chip bag into a rubbish bin and dusted his hands.

"So, watcha think?"

"It was fairly dreadful.  Are all of these movie things like that?"

Gene frowned.  "Anyone would think from that you never seen a movie before."

"I haven't."

"How could you not have a seen a movie?  You come from another planet or somethin'?"

The Master smiled, curling the collar of his leather jack up against the cold night air.  "You could say that.  Let's just say I find reality far more entertaining that make believe.  Although I did approve of his gun and his attitude."  He gave a small, wicked grin.  "Nothing quite like a violent man with a large weapon."

Gene Hunt, for all his bulk and appearance, had a fast collect on innuendo.  "Ah yes, so you like a long pistol do you?  Bit of the old magnum force?  Enjoy getting' tooled up?"

The Master could see where this flow of foolish puns was heading; a wall somewhere, with him face first into it getting shagged.  That was the sort of fantasy he approved of, the sort of fantasy he lived in where DCI Hunt reamed him on a regular basis.  Each time he found himself becoming angry or maddened by his state, each time that feral need to maim and destroy made his eyes glint, Hunt would ground him again with his rough-and-ready physicality that had no ulterior motives or grand schemes.  What they did together was basic and unsubtle.  It just felt very good.

Gene Hunt had no idea what his DI Sam Tyler really was.  The Master suspected that Gene just thought his Sam was a bit loony.  Which, from a certain dispassionate point of view, was probably accurate.

As they passed the darkened mouth of a laneway, a figure half-emerged from the dark.  "All right you two, hold it.  Gimme your wallets.":

It was such a surprising thing that for a moment the Master didn't understand.  He'd always been the committer, not the commit-ee, of crimes.  It went against the natural order of things.

Gene, though, responded immediately.  "You little mongrel shite, you point'n a gun at me!"

The Master focused on the hand holding the gun.  It was shaking.  The mugger was either terrified or drugged out of his head.  Either way, attitude could get either or both of them shot.  "Gene…"

"Not now, Sammy, I'm dealing with this waster here.  Sonny Jim, you are in a whole world of trouble."

The gun twitched, pointed towards Hunt.  "Shut the fuck up, yer big slob, gimme your money!"

Maybe it was the high-pitched sound of his voice or the increasing shake of the gun, but Gene finally got the idea and put up both hands in a conciliatory way.  "Fine, just take it easy, not worth doing someone in for a few quid.  Here.." and he reached into his coat.

Whether the nerves or the drugs finally got to him, the Master didn't know, but a moment later the gun twitched, there was a loud bang and Gene staggered back against him, and the Master knew he'd been shot.

Rage filled him, a murderous fury turned his vision red and a moment later he'd pushed Gene aside and leapt across the small distance between him and the attacker.  He kicked the gun aside, slammed the mugger into the wall and drawing on strength he didn't even realise he had, the Master wrenched the man's head around with concentrated force and broke his neck.

He was back hanging onto a staggering Gene before the mugger's dead body crumpled to the ground.

Gene had his hand to his shoulder and even in the poor light the Master could see his was white.  "Fuck it, little bastard…shot me."

"Yes, your own stupid fault.  Come on, I'll get you to a hospital.  Can you walk?"

Gene straightened, bit his lip.  "Yeah, think so.  Kilt him, did you?"

"Yes.  One less rodent running in the gutters of Manchester."

Gene sighed, leant on the Master as they made their way to the car.  "Another shitload of paperwork.  And I know how yer love paperwork…"

It turned out the bullet was a shoulder shot; painful, messy but not serious.  He was back to work in a week, arm slinged up, short of temper and mixing his booze and painkillers with an utter lack of common sense.

The Master knew two things; he'd felt a brief, sharp but undeniable anguish when he'd thought Gene had been killed, and the mugger had made it necessary for him to fill out another report.

"If he were alive," the Master muttered as he typed pick-and-peck style at the report sheet, "I'd kill him again for making this shit necessary."

He looked up from the half-typed page as Gene sank into a chair on the other side of his desk.  "There's somethin' bloody twisted about the fact that yer less likely to commit serious mayhem just to avoid having to do the reports."

"Well, a man just has to know his limitations," the Master said, tearing the sheet out of the typewriter and tearing it in half.  "As Dirty Harry would - and did - say."

"I'm glad to see you're getting' an education in the world of Hollywood."  Gene leant on the desk with his good arm, eyelids half-lowered.  "And did I mention that bein' shot makes me horny? Really, really horny."

The rest of the squad were off elsewhere, and the Master stopped what he was doing and concentrated on Gene.  "You did not previously mention that.  But perhaps you're too weak for it.  Wouldn't wish to impede your recovery, Guv."

Teeth flashed in a savage grin.  "Nothin' wrong with that part of my anatomy that a bit of exercise won't fix up.  Lost and Found, DI Tyler, and bring the Vaseline."

Bent over the desk, trousers down around his ankles, with that impressive weapon lodged deep inside him, it was quite obvious to the Master that Gene Hunt had no idea at all of his limitations, and even if he did, would always strive to exceed them.