Shamrock
Walter Skinner opened one eye, glanced at the clock on his
nightstand, and groaned. It was nearly noon. He moved his
head and the world lurched around him. Damn, either he
couldn't take his liquor the way he used to, or last night
had been a major bender, even by the standards of his old
marine buddies. He decided that the best course of action
was to lie very still with his head under the blankets in
order to avoid the kind of sudden movements that would
cause the contents of his stomach, which were swishing and
gurgling away merrily, to decide to make a bid for freedom
through his mouth.
With a grunt, Skinner managed to pull the blankets feebly
over his head and was relieved that this muted the vicious
glare of the sunlight as it struggled pathetically to
penetrate the thick drapes in his bedroom. Damn but that
sunlight was persistent. The tiniest little sparks set off
huge fireworks in his head. Yes, the lying still under the
blankets plan was definitely the best one. Thank god it was
a Sunday and he wasn't due anywhere, and thank god also
that he hadn't been the only one attending a reunion of old
friends last night, or he'd have to contend with his
virtually teetotal lover this morning - and Mulder had a
habit of getting very pissy and uptight on the subject of
alcohol abuse. Last time Skinner had gotten drunk Mulder
had poured the entire contents of a full bottle of the
finest old Scotch whisky down the sink, while his hapless
lover had been forced to stand and watch. 'Forced' because
Mulder had him handcuffed naked to the fridge with a ball
gag in his mouth at the time so he had no choice in the
matter. Mulder really did have some weird puritanical thing
going where alcohol was concerned, Skinner thought
mournfully. His lover just didn't understand that there
were certain things a man's man did, like getting rip-
roaring drunk with your old friends from the military once
a year, on your annual St Patrick's Day reunion. It was
tradition - and, Skinner thought smugly to himself, he bet
that he had more fun on his night out than Fox "I'll have a
diet coke" Mulder had had at his reunion with his old
friends from his college days at Oxford.
"Much more fun," Skinner muttered into his pillow,
recoiling slightly from the stench of stale alcohol he
could smell on his own breath. He smiled - last night had
been so fantastic. First there had been the usual back-
slapping in greeting, before they'd settled down to the
serious drinking, which had lapsed into some roistering
carousing of the local neighborhood at around 2 am, and
finished up with a rousing St Patrick's Day chorus of
'Danny Boy'. They had rounded off the evening by drunkenly
marching into a tattoo parlor on their way home, and each
of them had gotten a fine shamrock etched permanently on
their asses, by a very sweet tattoo lady going by the name
of Mary Ann. Yes, all in all it had been a very successful....
Skinner sat bolt upright.
A tattoo?
Of a shamrock?
On his ass?
He battled to throw off the blankets, ignoring the
protests from his head and stomach as they fought over
which had the biggest grievance over the way they had been
abused the previous night, and glanced over his shoulder at
his naked ass.
Oh god.
It was tiny. It was perfect.
It was a shamrock.
It was on his ass.
Tattooed.
Permanently.
Where it couldn't be hidden from...
Skinner made it to the bathroom just in time to deposit
the contents of his stomach into the toilet.
Mulder.
Oh god. Mulder was going hit the roof.
Skinner stared gloomily into the toilet for several long
minutes. The shamrock on his ass while not very big (it was
about the size of his thumbnail) was nonetheless hardly
invisible to anyone who had good reason to look at his ass
regularly, and Mulder definitely came into that category.
Oh shit. Skinner rested his head on his arms and moaned
softly to himself.
He was interrupted in this vital and entirely justified
orgy of self-pity by a noise that scissored into his brain
and reverberated around in there like a chain saw. It took
him some minutes to figure out that it was the telephone
and he got up, and lurched his way out of the bathroom and
back into his bedroom to answer it.
"'Lo," he whispered in a mournful tone.
"Walter?"
His stomach did a little flip and ended the wrong way up
inside his body. He decided he was going to need the
services of the toilet again very soon.
"Mulder?" he whispered.
"Yeah, it's me. Did I wake you?"
"Not exactly." Skinner grimaced.
"I thought I'd give you a few hours to sleep it off. I'm
assuming you got wildly drunk last night and staggered home
at around 4 am."
"Maybe," Skinner said cautiously, not wanting to commit
himself to something he might regret later.
"Walter, this is St Patrick's Day we're talking about.
That night of the year when you and your friends seem to
find it necessary to revert to being 18 again, and stagger
from bar to bar on the noble quest for the bender to end
all benders. Am I right or am I right?"
Skinner made a face at the phone. "You're always right,
Mulder," he said.
"Don't roll your eyes when you state that obvious fact,
Walter," Mulder told him, a trifle smugly Skinner thought.
"How did you know I...? Oh never mind," he sighed, perching
cautiously on the side of the bed, taking a sharp intake of
breath as his recently tattooed ass sent a little shock
wave through his body.
"So, how bad are you feeling?" Mulder asked.
"Very bad." Skinner rolled onto his stomach, and rubbed
his shamrock nervously.
"That's a shame. I've got something I wanted to show you.
I thought I'd drop by and..."
"NO!" Skinner said frantically. "Uh, that is...I have some
work to do. I'll see you at the office tomorrow. Bye,
Mulder."
"Not so fast, Walter." Damn. He had almost pulled that
off. "I'm worried about you. I think I'll have to come over
there and check you out."
"I'm fine. Really." He fingered the shamrock absently. He
was fine now but somehow he had the feeling he wouldn't be
when his lover found out about his tattoo.
"'I'm fine'," Mulder mocked back at him. "Walter, the last
time you said that to me you had just had several million
dollars worth of the latest nano-technology implanted in
your veins."
"Well that was then. This time I've just got a hangover.
And I do have some work to do."
"What have we said about you bringing work home from the
office?"
Skinner sighed. "*We* haven't said anything, Mulder," he
snapped, a little impetuously. "*You've* said it's bad for
me. "
"Well it is. You work too hard as it is."
"Look who's talking!" Skinner protested.
"My work is my hobby, Walter - I spend all day basically
in my own idea of heaven, ferreting around in the X Files.
Your work is demanding, draining, and involves taking life
or death decisions every day."
"Not *every* day," Skinner quibbled. "Just some days. In
fact, it's probably less than once a week, if that, and..."
"Walter." Shit. Mulder was using that 'don't fuck with me'
tone. "This is clearly more serious than I thought," his
lover said sternly. "I'll be there in half an hour." And
the line went dead.
Skinner stared at the phone as if it
were his deadly enemy, threw it down, and then, with a
resigned sigh, walked back to the bathroom. He threw up
more of the evidence of the previous night's over-
indulgence, consumed a whole bottle of mouthwash, turned on
the shower, washed the stale alcohol and cigarettes stench
from his body and then got dressed in sweat pants and a tee
shirt - just in time for Mulder's arrival.
His lover looked young, fresh, clean, and impossibly
cheerful. Mulder carried a bag over one shoulder,
and waved a bag of muffins and bagels in Skinner's face,
pronouncing the word "Breakfast!" far too loudly.
Skinner thought longingly of the toilet again.
"Sit down, big guy. It looks like you need the patented
Mulder cure for hangovers," Mulder told him, examining his
lover sternly. Skinner sighed. Mulder fixed him with that
special 'who's in charge around here?' look and Skinner
rolled his eyes - but only a little bit because they both
knew who was in charge even if Skinner did get to wear the
trousers in the office.
"Okay. Black coffee and a plain bagel. No cream cheese. No
butter."
"I'll just take the coffee," Skinner muttered.
"Who said it was a choice?"
Mulder disappeared into the kitchen and Skinner lolled
against the couch sulkily. He wasn't entirely sure why he
let Mulder steamroller all over him. When they had first
met he had definitely been in charge. He remembered giving
orders and being all strong and firm and macho. That had
been before he'd come home to find Mulder naked in his bed,
obviously. Sometime after that he'd found himself giving in
to his lover's least little demand. Of course it was
impossible to say 'no' to Mulder when he was on a mission,
as any sane person knew, but he wasn't sure when that had
translated into the rather more formal Dom/sub relationship
they now enjoyed. Not that he minded exactly...actually, he
privately adored it, but not when he was harboring a
terrible guilty secret, etched into his ass...
"...Walter?"
"Huh?" He looked up to find Mulder walking towards him,
holding a tray.
"I said, why don't you sit down. Why are you perching
there anyway when there's a perfectly good couch to sit on?"
"For god's sake! Can't a man stand in his own apartment?"
Skinner snapped testily. Mulder raised an eyebrow. Skinner
growled something macho under his breath, and then
carefully sat on the couch, doing his best not to wince as
he did so. Mulder watched him.
"So, what happened last night?" Mulder asked, handing him
his coffee.
"Happened? What do you mean, *happened*?" Skinner asked
nervously. "Nothing happened. Why would you think anything
happened?"
"Well I wouldn't have done but you're acting more guilty
than Eugene Tooms running from a crime scene with bile
running down his chin, clutching two human livers. So,
Walter, I repeat - what happened?" Mulder took a sip of his
coffee, sat back, and watched his lover squirm.
"I got drunk." Skinner reached for his own coffee with a
surly grunt. "You knew that I would," he said, with a
pleading look in his eyes. That sometimes worked on Mulder
who seemed to be a sucker for big, chocolate-brown eyes,
although not anywhere near as often as Mulder's own
patented chewed-lip, kicked-puppy expression had worked on
his AD. Skinner had long since come to realize that despite
his winsome ways and the cute little-boy-lost thing he had
going, Mulder was made of pure steel. He knew himself to be
far more of a soft touch than he had ever found his lover
to be.
"Yes I did. I said you could." Mulder took a bite out of
his muffin.
Skinner bristled. "I don't need permission to get drunk,
Mulder," he said.
"Yes you do," Mulder replied calmly, taking another sip of
coffee. "We've been through all this, Walter. Remember when
I came home and found you sitting in a room full of empty
bottles after drinking yourself into oblivion?"
"Of course." Skinner rolled his eyes again - but
cautiously, because Mulder had a very short tolerance span
for eye-rolling, and had been known to take his lover's
pants down on the spot, and administer a few hard swats in
order to make his displeasure felt on that particular
subject. Skinner knew that it wouldn't be a good idea to
court a spanking with his ass in its current shamrocked
state. He had heard somewhere about removal of tattoos by
laser. If he could just keep Mulder at bay for long enough
to get rid of the damn thing... attack was clearly the best
method of defense so he leapt to it. "Can I just point out
that when you say 'came home' you *had* just been abducted
by aliens and missing for several weeks, after which you were
presumed dead and actually buried for several months before
we dug you up and restored you back to life. I think, in
the circumstances, that I had every right to be drunk."
"Fair point." Mulder nodded. "However, we did agree
sometime very soon after, that your drinking was a problem
that could get out of control without some strict
overseeing of the issue, which was why you agreed to ask my
permission before you had more than one drink. Yes?"
"Maybe." Skinner shrugged and glared at his feet gloomily.
Sharon had never made him make silly promises like that. In
fact, Sharon had always been very understanding and had
never forced him to face up to anything about himself,
which was possibly why their marriage had failed. Skinner
sighed.
"Walter?" Mulder was giving him that patented,
scrutinizing Mulder gaze. The one that said that he was so
many steps ahead in this conversation that his lover might
as well give in now and hope for the best.
"Yes. I know." He examined his fingernails studiously.
"And I gave you permission to get drunk last night so
that's not what all this is about is it?" Mulder inquired
gently. Skinner found a tiny speck of dirt under his
fingernails and prized it out carefully. "Walter?" Mulder
said again.
"It's nothing, honestly." Skinner looked up and tried
dazzling his lover with one of his rare smiles. These were
weapons he saved for special occasions. The first time he'd
smiled at Mulder he had been utterly mystified by the
result, which had ended up with them spending 4 hours
locked in a variety of passionate embraces in the bedroom.
He had since realized that his smiles were a valuable
resource in his relationship with his toppy partner.
Mulder was certainly looking weakened in the face of the
onslaught from a row of gleaming white teeth and neat
little dimples. "So, how was your evening?" Skinner asked,
deftly changing the subject, and taking an innocent sip of
his coffee.
"It was great." Mulder nodded, finishing his muffin. "But
I missed you. Do you realize it's been weeks since we spent
a Saturday evening apart? I kept fantasizing about fondling
your sexy ass and I couldn't get the idea out of my mind.
That's why I wanted to come straight over here today."
Skinner coughed into his coffee mug, and the fiery liquid
spilled out all over his pants, making him cry out loud.
Mulder leapt up, alarmed. "Are you okay, Walter? Shit,
you've spilled coffee all down your sweats. Are you burned?"
"No...I'm fine...I'm..." His voice wouldn't work properly, and
the next thing he knew his lover's hands were tugging at
his sweatpants.
"We need to get you out of these. I'll go and get a cold
towel and..."
"No...no...no...." Skinner tried to back away and got his legs
hopelessly tangled in his sweat pants, cursing his decision
to wear them, as he usually did around the apartment,
without underwear, commando fashion, and before he knew it
he was falling, and Mulder was falling on top of him, and
then they were both a tangled heap on the floor. Skinner
lay there winded for a moment, before realizing, with a
sinking feeling in his stomach, that Mulder's fall had been
broken by his own ass, and that he could feel his lover's
warm breath on his naked butt cheeks. Suddenly the
atmosphere turned very dangerous.
"Walter." Mulder's voice was silky smooth.
"I was drunk!" He proclaimed, a defense which, after all,
he had accepted from Mulder in the past, albeit in an
slightly different form.
"Walter." Skinner winced as he felt a finger probe the
outline of the little shamrock on his ass. "There appears
to be a flower on your bottom."
"It's a shamrock," Skinner said testily, getting up, and
pulling up his sweat pants quickly to hide the evidence of
his guilt.
Mulder got very slowly to his feet, his hazel
eyes gleaming dangerously. He crossed his arms over his
chest and waited. Skinner began to roll his eyes - and then
stopped. Now was not a good time to provoke his lover.
"I'm waiting," Mulder purred.
How was it, Skinner wondered, that the man who had single
handedly gotten into more trouble than all the other agents
in the Bureau put together, could somehow manage to make
*him* feel guilty for having one tiny, weeny little shamrock
etched on his buttock? He spread his arms wearily.
"I was drunk," he muttered, shame-faced. "It seemed like a
good idea at the time. Mary Ann said..."
"Mary Ann?" Mulder interrupted him.
"The tattoo lady. She said it looked very...pretty," he
finished lamely.
"Actually it does." Mulder grinned. "However, that doesn't
alter the fact that you went and got a tattoo etched on
what is *my* property, without my permission, while under
the influence of alcohol."
"*Your* property?" Skinner raised an eyebrow. "Last time I
looked it was *my* ass!"
"We've had this conversation before, Walter," Mulder said
calmly, sitting down again, and dragging his bag over to
rest between his feet. Why was it that Mulder always
remembered these damn conversations they'd had before,
Skinner thought resentfully. It wasn't fair that his lover
had an eidetic memory while he was just a mere mortal. It
gave Mulder an unfair advantage during arguments.
"When?" He demanded.
"When you were kneeling naked in front of me with your
wrists handcuffed behind your back, sucking my cock, about
8 months ago," Mulder reminded him smugly. "I said -
'you're my property, Walter Skinner.' And you, as I recall,
said something like 'grumph' which I took at the time to be
an affirmation of that obvious fact."
"Grumph? That hardly constitutes..." Skinner began, but
Mulder raised his hand. "I haven't finished.
Later, after we'd both enjoyed ourselves to the
utmost of our considerable ability, you
told me how much it turned you on being my property, so we
agreed that from now on, this..." Mulder got up, and ran his hands loving
over Skinner's chest, and then placed them firmly on
each of his lover's buttocks, "...entire body belongs to me.
It's mine. However, I'm perfectly happy to renounce my
rights to it if it isn't what you want after all."
Mulder continued stroking his lover's buttocks, and
Skinner found himself looking into Mulder's wickedly
gleaming hazel eyes, trying to figure out what was going on.
"I think that would be best." Skinner nodded in relief,
deciding to take Mulder at face value. "I mean, it's
ridiculous to think that a grown man can be another grown
man's property - not to say illegal under the constitution
of the United States." He laughed nervously.
"That's right. So, if you'd just like to remove your
pants..." Mulder smiled sweetly at him.
"What? Why?"
"Because that's where the evidence is," Mulder said
slowly, as if speaking to a complete idiot. "If your cock
is not rock hard right now as a result of me telling you
that you were mine a few seconds ago, then I'll happily
renounce my claim on your body. Otherwise..." he shook his
head sadly. "Otherwise, I'm afraid you're in big trouble.
Pants down, Walter."
Skinner clenched his fists uselessly at his sides for a
second and then, with a savage movement, slid his pants
down to reveal his huge, purpling erection.
"Damn you for always being right, Mulder," he snarled.
"I think, if you don't mind, that I would prefer my
property to address me by my correct title." Mulder tapped
his toe impatiently.
Skinner sighed. "Yes...my lord," he whispered, bowing his
head and feeling very silly. My Lord. Strange how words so
ridiculously humiliating and daft could turn him on so much.
Mulder smiled happily. "That's right. Your lord, and
master, and ruler of your entire universe. Lose the pants
altogether, Walter. You won't be needing them. That ass of
yours, which, in case there was any doubt on the matter,
belongs to me..." Skinner's cock surged upwards at those
words, much to his chagrin and Mulder's mirth, "...is going
to feel my righteous wrath. You know I said I had something
to show you, Walter? Well, I had no idea I was going to
need it this soon, but obviously fate was on my side last
night. Come here."
Skinner removed his sweatpants, and tee shirt, and
shuffled, naked and shame-faced, to his lover's side.
Mulder opened his bag and withdrew a long, thin, whippy
cane. Skinner stared at it, aghast.
"You can't! Not on...oh god..." Skinner watched as Mulder
swished the cane through the air a couple of times.
"Yes I can. You see, Walter, while you were out getting
unauthorized decorations added to your already perfectly
pleasing backside, my friends and I were reminiscing about
our days at Oxford...and Mark brought along the old school
cane that we kept in the Junior Common Room as a joke. In
fact, it's very fitting that he gave it to me for safe
keeping, as this cane occasionally got a good work out on
those members of the JCR who got themselves too drunk to
defend their asses against the pranks of their friends.
Bend over, Walter."
Skinner thought about it for a moment. Mulder tapped the
cane slowly and menacingly on the palm of his hand.
"I'm waiting," Mulder said imperiously.
"As if my butt didn't hurt enough already," Skinner
muttered, giving in, and bending over the back of the
couch. A few seconds later he felt Mulder's hands on his
butt cheeks.
"Hmmm...a shamrock. Mary Ann was right - it's cute...and
it has the added bonus of giving me something to aim for,"
Mulder said, a trifle too smugly for Skinner's liking.
"All right, Walter, what's this caning for?" Mulder asked,
and a second later there was a swishing sound and something
burned deep in Skinner's backside.
"Ow! Oh shit! For getting drunk!" Skinner yelled.
"No, Walter. Try again. And remember to address me
properly when you do." Mulder's hand came down to rest
softly on his back, the gentleness of the gesture belying
the horrible sting of the cane. Skinner wished his cock
didn't betray quite how much all this was turning him on,
despite the truly agonizing feel of that vicious cane on
his tender butt flesh.
"Uh...for the tattoo! For tattooing your property, my lord!"
he exclaimed as the cane rose and fell, printing its fiery
kiss on his buttocks again.
"That's right, Walter. And why are you being punished for
that?" Mulder demanded implacably.
"Because my butt belongs to you, my lord, and because it's
not mine to get tattooed! Oh FUCK!" Skinner gave a yelp of
utter agony and tried to get up as the cane made contact
with his skin again. Mulder pushed him back down again.
"Stay in position, Walter. I'm afraid this is going to have
to be a very severe punishment if we're going to avoid you
waking up next St Patrick's Day with a dancing leprechaun
or all the words of 'Danny Boy' plastered all over your
body," Mulder said sternly. Skinner closed his eyes -
Mulder did have a point. Getting a shamrock tattooed on his
ass hadn't been the brightest thing he'd ever done.
It is fair to say that the next few minutes were some of
the longest of Skinner's entire life. Despite his comment
about target practice, Mulder steered well clear of
actually landing any blows on the tiny shamrock itself, for
which Skinner was duly grateful. When finally Mulder
let him up his ass was covered in 10 very neat, even
stripes, which led Skinner to believe that his lover was
not a novice at wielding a cane - a fact that didn't
surprise Skinner who had been of the opinion for some time
that Mulder was a Dom of considerable experience. When he
said as much to Mulder, as he hopped and danced naked around the
room trying to relieve the sting in his ass, his lover
laughed.
"Of course I have some experience, Walter. I was very
experimental in my college days. And why else do you
imagine I was so fucked off when you first became my
supervisor, to find myself - *me* - in the position of
having to obey the orders of the most gorgeous sub I'd ever laid eyes
on. It was a travesty of the natural order of the universe,
and one I felt duty bound to put to rights."
"No wonder you had so many tantrums back then if that's
how you felt," Skinner muttered, grabbing hold of his stinging
bottom and trying to rub away some of the ache.
"I knew I could make you happy if I could only show you
your true nature." Mulder grinned, standing back, the cane
tucked under his arm, and watching with a smile on his face as
Skinner pranced around the room, his cock rock hard, his
ass striped with the marks of the cane.
"Come here, big boy." Mulder opened his arms, and Skinner
hopped right into them. Mulder seized his lover's hands and
held them tightly behind his back. "No rubbing the sting
away, Walter. You earned it."
"Damn." Skinner rested his head on Mulder's shoulder. "A
shamrock? What was I thinking?"
"You were drunk," Mulder said affectionately, bestowing a
kiss on his lover's cheek.
"I was an idiot," Skinner said morosely.
"Uh-huh." Mulder shook his head and placed a finger over
Skinner's lips.
"You've been punished, and what have I said about
your tendency to wallow in morose introspection about your
faults, Walter?"
"Oh god, not another of those conversations that you
remember in great detail but which are all a blur to me,"
Skinner sighed.
Mulder laughed. "Oh, Walter...you are the most perfectly
adorable sub. I wish you could have seen yourself just now.
My big, handsome man, hopping stark naked around the room
with a shamrock and the marks of his Dom's cane on his ass -
it's a sight that will stay with me all my life. Hold
still." Skinner did just that as Mulder lifted his chin,
and bestowed the sweetest kiss on his sub's lips. "I love
you, Walter Skinner," Mulder said firmly when he released
his panting lover. Skinner moaned, turned on beyond belief
by his beautiful and demanding young Dom. "And I'm can see
that I'm going to have to keep you on a very short leash if
we're going to avoid a repeat of the tattooing incident."
"No more tattoos. I promise," Skinner said in a heartfelt
tone. "They hurt too much."
"Really? Wasn't Mary Ann very skilled at her job?" Mulder
asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not Mary Ann. She was great. I didn't feel a thing."
Skinner replied, nuzzling his lover's neck hopefully,
angling for some hot love-making, his cock
begging for release. "I wasn't talking about her needles.
I was talking about your cane!"
The End