"Living With It: The First Side of the Triangle" (1/1) by Susan Jameson

I don't know when I first figured out that Mulder was gay.

I know that I strongly suspected it not long after I met him.

By our fourth or fifth field assignment, I knew it for certain.

That was when Mulder finally worked up his nerve to leave our hotel and go out, looking for -- well, for someone to spend his evening with. Throwing caution to the winds, he told me where he would be, in case I needed to find him in a hurry. I don't remember the name of the bar -- it wasn't anything as obvious as "The Pink Triangle," but it wasn't much more subtle than that, either.

We hadn't been partners more than a couple of months, and we had never discussed anything so personal, but somehow, he had already decided that not only did I know, but that I would not condemn him or rat him out to our superiors.

He had me figured correctly. No great surprise there: He is a profiler, after all.

Yes, I knew, although I couldn't say how, exactly, but I can't say that I cared, either. I mostly just shrugged it off. So he's gay. So what? It had nothing to do with me. He was a brilliant partner, fun -- if frustrating -- to work with, and I admired his quick intellect about as often as I contemplated strangling him for his crackpot theories. Who he slept with was of no concern to me at all.

Well -- almost no concern. I am a doctor, you know. One night, when he stopped by my room just before he went out, I decided to risk a gentle query as to whether he was protecting himself properly.

I was more than a little afraid that he'd be angry, but I must have phrased the question just right, because he smiled at me, almost fondly.

"I'm always careful, Scully," he'd said. "I always have been. Don't worry about me."

Then he'd given me a quick, one-armed hug and a kiss on the forehead and gone out.

And that was nice. I mean, really nice. The hug was so warm and affectionate, and it was lovely to have won his confidence -- and besides, he just looked so damn good that night, dressed in jeans, a heather-green sweater and his old leather jacket. He always dressed well, whether for work or for pleasure.

Well, all right, he did dress like a slob when he was just hanging around his apartment on the weekends; old, faded T-shirts, ratty sweat pants, that kind of thing.

But whatever he was wearing, I liked looking at him. He didn't pay much attention to his looks, with his dates or with me, and that was, paradoxically, one of the most attractive things about him.

And I soon decided that having a gay partner could be a real advantage; it was nice to be able to be close to him, to appreciate his good looks, even to express affection for him, without having to worry about romantic complications.

There were complications sometimes, certainly, but not the kind you might expect. For instance, I was amused, more than once, when various women we encountered in our travels threw themselves at him, only to meet with a polite rebuff.

If you only knew, sister, I would think. Now, get your slimy little hands off my partner -- right NOW.

Yep. I was jealous, and hard as it might be to believe, I had reason, because Mulder does like women. Not sexually, of course, but as friends -- he really likes being with women, and he has a lot of empathy for us. I wasn't about to give up my place in his life to some bimbo he'd met on assignment; no way, no how.

But although the women made me jealous, the men he actually slept with never did. They were here today, gone tomorrow. Mulder was always ready to move on by morning.

Sometimes, if I thought about it, Mulder's footloose love life did seem strange. On several occasions, I got a look at the men he'd brought back with him after a night on the town. They were almost all physically attractive, intelligent, educated men, usually with a good sense of humor; the kind you'd think he would fall for. And he was capable of commitment; my God, think of how deeply he's committed to finding his sister and exposing the conspiracy that took her from him.

But he'd never, so far as I know, made a commitment to a lover. No man, no matter how intelligent or attractive, had ever stayed in Mulder's life for long.

I suppose I'm just conventional enough to think that's really sad.

I met most of Mulder's dates by accident, when I was stepping outside my room for ice or a soft drink. Some -- a very few -- he introduced to me. He wasn't keeping any secrets from me; he wasn't even trying to. He just didn't think I would be interested, and really, I wasn't.

So we were comfortable with the situation, even on those occasions when I chanced to walk by his room when he was kissing someone goodbye at the door. He didn't seem disturbed by it at all.

Certainly, I never tried to catch him kissing anyone. I never wanted to violate his privacy. When I did see him, though, it was ... interesting, even faintly erotic, to see Mulder's hunky dates savoring the shape and texture of those full, soft lips, and to see how much he liked it, too.

Probably the only really awkward time came about six months into our partnership, when I had to wake him in the middle of the night so we could check out a reported homicide at a nearby military base. I knocked on the door that connected our rooms; after a few minutes, Mulder opened it, and behind him I could plainly see the handsome young man who was sleeping peacefully in Mulder's bed, stark naked.

I told him what had happened. Fifteen minutes later, we were dressed and on our way. I apologized for waking him, and he assured me that it was no problem. We never mentioned it again.

But as I said, once I knew he was keeping himself safe, Mulder's sexual preference wasn't on my list of things to worry about.

Not, that is, until my father died.

Mulder was just trying to comfort me, and that was lovely of him. But then he had to go and touch my face.

Now, if there's a part of the human body that's less private than the face, I don't know what it is. It's rarely covered up -- so rarely that we always notice when someone does cover their face, for whatever reason. Ski masks get attention; surgical masks get attention; veils, goggles, face guards, you name it, we notice it, because the human face is almost always bare.

You'd think all that exposure would mean that your face was public property, but it's not; not when it comes to touch. You don't believe me? Well, ask yourself what you'd think if someone you barely knew touched your face.

That's right -- you'd be uncomfortable, at the very least. Touching someone's face is a sign of a deeply intimate relationship in our society; you don't touch a stranger's face, you don't even touch a close friend's face. Usually, you touch only a lover, or a small child, that way.

It is paradoxical, but true: The most exposed part of our bodies is among the most taboo when it comes to touch.

All these facts made a difference when Mulder touched my face. You see, I am one of the most self-contained people on earth. I am not open about my feelings; I am not lavish with my affections. I seldom embrace anyone, except my mother.

What I'm saying is that it meant something to me that I let him touch me that way.

I think it meant something to him, too, just not the same thing it meant to me. To him, it was a way of offering comfort to me on the day of my father's funeral, of conveying affection in a manner that would be just a little more intimate than anyone else would dare. He understood that his place in my life was special, and privileged, and he wanted to let me know that he knew it, and was grateful for it.

He was right. I wouldn't have let anyone else I knew touch me that way. I wouldn't have responded the way I did to anyone else's touch, either.

Mulder's gentle touch was a shattering revelation: I knew, with that one caress, what a terrible mistake I had made. I had let down my guard with him, let him get past the barriers, because I thought he could not possibly be a threat.

I was wrong.

You want to know what happened?

I trembled.

That's all. I trembled when he touched me, and it wasn't from grief; it was from desire.

Of course it was. It's purely physical, right? My body was simply responding to his touch; his flesh was male flesh, whatever his preferences, and his touch was doing to me all the things that a man's touch normally does.

God -- I wish it were that simple.

The truth is that it's not purely physical. I don't respond very well sexually to men I don't love; I never have. At that moment, I realized there was a good reason why this simple touch was sending my sexual temperature soaring into fever range.

I had fallen in love with him.

And it hurt to realize that. Oh, God, it hurt. Because however much he loves me -- and he does, he does -- his sexual orientation is a line drawn between us that cannot be crossed.

It shouldn't matter, really. This love we have for each other goes far deeper than the love of one lover for another. The intimate connection between us couldn't be much stronger than it already is.

But however intimate it is, it will go no further. There is nothing more behind his caresses than love; strong love, compassionate, understanding, wonderful love, but in the end only love, platonic love, love without desire.

He is what he is, and he will never want me.

But I want him.

I do know, because I am a doctor, that almost no one is 100 percent gay or 100 percent straight. Almost all human beings experience sexual preference and desire across a continuum, with the majority of us having a strong preference for the opposite sex that almost -- but not always completely -- excludes the desire for same-sex relations.

On the other end of the spectrum, of course, are those who have little or no interest in the opposite sex.

There is a lot of room for variation in the broad middle ground of that continuum. It's not at all unusual for a bisexual woman to prefer men but have no trouble at all becoming aroused by another woman, or for a bisexual man to enjoy women but prefer same-sex relations -- or even for a man who has always been exclusively gay to have some erotic interest, at some point in his life, in a woman.

Okay, so that hardly ever happens. Hardly ever is not never, you know. I can rationalize with the best of them.

So when Mulder touched me, I let myself imagine for just an instant that his sexual preference was perhaps not so exclusive as it appeared, that maybe he really was a little attracted to me.

But I promise you, that thought didn't last more than five minutes. He's not attracted to me; not sexually.

And, in truth, I already knew it. I had asked him once, when we were in a particularly relaxed frame of mind, whether he'd actually had an affair with Inspector Phoebe Greene, or ever thought about it.

I remember that night so well; he was stretched out on his stomach on my living room floor, wearing his worn-out jeans and white T-shirt, looking over the end-of-year report we were going to file with AD Skinner. I was sitting on the sofa, not far from him, working on our expense reports for our most recent out-of-town case.

I don't remember now how the subject came up. All I really remember is how beautiful he was, and how happy I was to be with him that night.

There wasn't anything unusual about his being there; Mulder never dated when we were in D.C., only when we were in the field. Coming out, you see, is not an option in the FBI -- which is pretty funny, when you think about it. After all, we work in a building named for one of the great closet drag queens of all time.

Mulder had made quite a few enemies because of the X Files investigations, too, so he was even more vulnerable to retribution than the average gay agent -- if there is such a thing. He had to be extremely circumspect, and that meant no dating where the bosses might see him.

So when we were in town, we spent a lot of quiet evenings together -- most of those evenings entirely devoted to work.

I didn't mind too much, although between travel time and late- evening report time, my social life had dropped to nothing. We spent so much time together that the Bureau was abuzz with the rumor that we were lovers.

As if.

But the rumors helped him stay in the closet, and if that was where he had to be, I was happy to help -- although it was a bit of a problem that every other man I knew now thought I was spoken for.

When I asked him about Phoebe, he shook his head. "Nope," he said, still looking at the file. "Not with Phoebe or any other woman."

For a moment, he didn't say anything else, and I was afraid again that I had offended him, but then he put down the file and looked at me thoughtfully.

"I guess that is just a little unusual," he said, reflectively, as though we were discussing some aspect of a case and not his most intimate self. "I know a lot of men who've made at least some attempt at having a straight relationship."

"Didn't you, with Phoebe?" I asked. "Emotionally, at least?"

He shook his head again. "Phoebe's a fag hag," he said, with just a trace of contempt. "She's always trying to screw gay men. I think it represents the ultimate challenge for her, the greatest possible proof of her attractiveness. She wanted to try it with me, but it just wasn't going to happen."

"But I saw you kiss her," I reminded him, maybe just a bit archly.

"Kissing isn't sex," he said, wrinkling his nose a little. "I kiss women who are my friends all the time. I kind of like it; I mean, it seems so completely normal and socially acceptable, but really, it's almost kinky, given what I am. So there I am, being kinky right in front of people, and they never even know it."

I laughed, as he had meant for me to, and he gave me that smile he always gives me when he's made me happy. It has always touched me to know how much that matters to him.

He rolled over onto his side, propping his head on his hand. "Sex with women was never an option for me, Scully," he said, reflectively. "I've always known what I am. It wasn't the most welcome discovery I ever made -- nobody wants to be hated for being what they are, and I was already Jewish, for God's sake. Being gay as well seemed kind of like double jeopardy."

I laughed a little at that, too, and he smiled again, but I thought there was some real sadness behind his eyes, and that worried me. "Are you happy with your life, Mulder?" I asked him, more quietly.

He really smiled at me then, giving me that crooked smile that I love so much. "Yeah," he said. "I'm okay with myself. Don't worry about me."

Yeah, that was me: His Mama Scully, always worrying about him.

"It's just that ... it must be hard to live with that, knowing that people hate you for what you are," I said. "I don't want anyone to hurt you."

"No one's going to hurt me, Scully. Don't forget, I carry a gun," he said, grinning wickedly and pointing his index finger at me. "Bang."

I smiled again.

"But to get back to your original question," he went on, more seriously, "I never had any thought that I could change, or that I should try straight sex just once, you know, just to be sure. It's just not me. And I think most of us, gay or straight, know -- deep down -- what we are. I mean, did you ever think to yourself, 'You know, I should have sex with a woman, just once, just to make sure I'm really straight?'"

I shook my head. "No, but that doesn't mean there haven't been women who have ... caught my eye," I said, feeling a little uneasy saying it, but knowing he would understand. "It's never gone further than -- well, you know, imagination -- but it happens."

He shrugged one shoulder. "That's normal," he said, dismissively. "But it doesn't change your perception of yourself as a heterosexual female, does it?"

"No," I said. "It doesn't."

"There you have it," he said, easily, as he rolled back onto his stomach and picked up the file again. "Hey, Scully, help me out here -- if I say Eugene Tooms is a hepatophage, does that make sense if what I'm trying to say is that he eats people's livers?"

And that was the end of that conversation. We didn't discuss it again. We didn't need to. We remained entirely comfortable with each other, right up until the time I knew I had fallen in love with him.

But I dealt with that, too; I forced myself to lock that feeling away in the darkest, most distant corner of my brain. I refused to think about it. I kept it hidden and I promised myself that I would never, ever let him know.

What more did I need, anyway? I got to look at him, I got to be alone with him and talk to him, I got to touch him just about anytime I liked, and he touched me, too.

They were nice touches, too, just a little more intimate than the standard platonic stuff: hugs, cheek kisses, a hand on his arm to calm him when he was angry, and sometimes, a real embrace or a little hand-holding.

I reminded myself, too, that even if he were straight, he would still be just as severely off-limits because he is my partner. I sternly ordered myself not even to think about whether I could seduce him; I did not want to become a fag hag, not even in my own mind.

And, oh, yes, I thought about that phrase; it came up in my mind a lot, always accompanied by the image of Mulder's upper lip curling in disgust as he told me what he really thought of Phoebe Greene.

I didn't ever want him to say that about me.

In the third year of our partnership, I began to notice that Mulder wasn't going out at night anymore. At first I was afraid that something bad had happened, like some overly rough sex that had hurt him. After all, I slept in the room next to his and -- well, not to put too fine a point on it, but I knew he liked it a little rough.

I was most afraid that in spite of the care he took, he had come down with something too terrible to contemplate, like hepatitis or HIV.

But I soon realized that wasn't it; he seemed happy, happier than I'd ever seen him, in fact. It was a puzzle.

The first clue to that puzzle came, naturally enough, while we were on a field investigation.

We were staying in a rotten little side-of-the-road motel with walls as thin as rice paper, and I heard Mulder in the next room, talking on the telephone, laughing. Several times, I heard his voice drop lower, to a more intimate register.

The conversation went on for hours. I hoped whoever he was talking to had at least let him call collect; otherwise, we were going to have a hell of a time explaining the phone bill when we turned in our expense report.

From then on, every time we were in the field, Mulder followed his new pattern. He seldom went out at night, preferring to stay in and talk on the phone. When he did go out, it was with me, to a movie or out for dinner.

It was nice being with him; we hadn't spent much social time together before, and he was always a charming companion, but on these evenings, he would always be a little distant, a little sad.

By that time, I knew what was up. He was missing someone terribly; someone who, for whatever reason, couldn't talk to him on the phone that night.

Mulder was in love.

I said nothing. I waited for him to tell me.

But he didn't.

Mulder was always careful to keep a low profile, but as I have said, he never hid anything from me -- until now. His silence was a major clue that this was -- for him, at least -- the real thing.

Time went by, and I still knew little about the man my partner loved, until the day I heard Mulder murmuring a name as he slept next to me on our flight home from an investigation in Butte, Montana.

Daniel.

His new lover's name was Daniel.

I tell you now, with no pretense at all, that I was glad he had found someone. I had always thought that he needed that kind of love; now, it seemed, he thought so, too. I had no illusions that he could ever find it with me; I never really did, except for that brief moment of wishful thinking when my father died.

I had gotten very good at loving Mulder from across that line that couldn't be crossed.

I told myself that whatever Daniel turned out to be like, I would try my damnedest to like him because he clearly meant so much to Mulder. I also promised myself that this Daniel, whoever he was, was going to get his ass severely kicked if he ever broke my partner's heart or hurt him in any way.

When I finally met Daniel, it was more or less by accident.

I had called Mulder that morning to tell him that I'd be late for work -- my mother's next-door neighbor had died, and Mom wanted me to pick up the neighbor's son at the airport. I told Mulder that it might take me until early afternoon to do all the driving I needed to do. He said that was fine.

But the airport transfer took less time than I had expected, and I got to work when it was not quite lunch time. I walked downstairs to the X Files office, and opened the door.

There was Mulder, seated behind his desk, smiling happily at a very attractive man -- tall, slender, with dark hair, dark eyes, creamy, Irish-looking skin, and about Mulder's age -- who was perched on the edge of the desk, looking down at him. They were holding hands.

They were mighty damn shocked when I walked through the door, I can tell you.

They dropped the handclasp quickly, but not quickly enough, of course, and they knew it.

"Sorry," I said, seeing their flustered faces. "Am I interrupting?"

Mulder, of course, recovered first; after all, unlike Daniel, he knew who this was bursting into the office, and knew they weren't about to be outed.

"No, Scully, come on in," he said, standing up. "I've been wanting you two to meet. Dana Scully, this is ..."

"Daniel," I interrupted, and I almost had to laugh at the looks on their faces.

"Oh, come on, Mulder," I said, smiling. "Did you really think I didn't know?"

"No," he said, and his resigned sigh, as he sank back into his chair, was almost comical. "I should have known you'd figure it out."

"I _am_ a trained investigator," I said, reaching for Daniel's hand as he rose and offered it to me. "Daniel, I'm delighted to finally meet you."

"Same here, Dana," Daniel said, smiling. "I've heard a lot about you."

"I wish I could say the same," I said, with a reproving look at Mulder, who groaned and rolled his eyes heavenward. "Were you two going to lunch?" I asked.

"Yes, but I hope you'll join us," Daniel said. "I'd love a chance for us to get to know each other."

I looked up into Daniel's dark eyes, and although I couldn't really read him, I saw no deception there. He sincerely did want to get to know me, I thought, and that was good, because I was sure as hell going to get to know him. He wasn't going to date my partner without my knowing a little more about him.

Old Mother Scully, the fag hag. How terribly attractive.

"Will you go with us, Scully?" Mulder was asking, and of course, I could read him easily. Please, Scully, try to like him, he was saying. Please. For my sake.

I hoped he could read what was in my eyes: I will, Mulder, because you love him.

And I love you.

Maybe he did read it; he smiled at me with the smile that was always mine alone.

The whole silent conversation was over in a split second; I didn't even miss a beat before replying.

"Sure," I said, as gracefully as I could. "I'd love to."