Shamrock by Xanthe

www.xanthe.org/shamrock/

Story Notes:

Yummy title pic by Sergeeva

Many thanks to Steve for the original idea and to Mary Ann,

Gaby, Lorelei, Jas and the other Persuaders for inspiring this

bout of total silliness.

Happy St Patrick's Day for yesterday!

Shamrock by Xanthe

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 chainsaw. 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 rasped.

"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, and 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 thoughtfully.

"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 - so I could do a bit of heavy duty fondling of your naked bum, Walter."

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 wet 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 a 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 a few seconds ago that you're mine, 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 remember that 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 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 but all the same, the cane blazed a very thorough punishment all over his backside. 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 in my office 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. It was very frustrating standing by and watching you being so unhappy. I was delighted to finally restore the universe to its proper state - that's with *me* in charge of *you*." 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 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

Disclaimer: Al publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.