Darkness Within

in follow up to: A Gentleman's Dilemma

Chapter One: Build

Notes:So I couldn't leave it alone. Jane's journey as I outlined in 'A Gentleman's Dilemma' is far from over and I wanted to deal with what is probably the single most defining moment in her life before the series starts. That is, the misadventure she had with Charles Hoyt. Or Warren Hoyt if you go by the books.

Fair warning that this contains my interpretation of the events as put forward in the novel The Surgeon melded and fused with the flashbacks that we see in the show. I wanted to create my own canon as the two that we see are so vastly divergent, so here is my attempt. It will be in three parts.

Full credit to heartsways on livejournal for helping with the beta on this.
Warnings: A lot of gender stuff, gender dysphoria and unhappiness. Also Hoyt is a creepy mother fucker. Mentions of rape and assault.

The bodies are found seventy two hours apart. First the man, always in the same position, bound with his throat slashed latterly across the carotid. The blade never descends deeper to connect with thick tendons and muscle that would prove more difficult to slice through, and the arterial splatter suggests that the killer stands behind the man when he makes the final slash.

They always find a fucking teacup, damp liquid on the floor. Earl Grey, then Orange Picot, and finally Darjeeling.

Jane Rizzoli fucking hates tea, but Korsak seems to enjoy it enough to recognize it by the smell. Jane lets him think that he's pulled a fast one, but she's been in the kitchens of these expensive homes: she's seen the way that the tea service complete with packages of loose-leaf tea purchased at an expensive uptown tea shop is laid out, as if taunting them with its recognizable logo.

The killer sets the teacup – always fine china - on the man's knees, pulling the chair he's bound to up close and personal, forcing him to watch as he rapes the woman. They've found semen at every crime scene. Jane thinks that the killer should probably be more careful, but he never is. Every damn move he makes is taunting them, right down to the final act that they've parsed together; forcing the woman to watch as he kills the man, battered and bruised after he's brutalized her.

Seventy two hours later they'll find the second body and the clock will begin to tick again. There's a decent lull in between this guy's kills. He's not in crisis yet, and if he escalates, Brass is thinking of calling in the FBI. Jane doesn't want that. She emphatically does not want that.

She wants to be the one to catch this guy. She's seen how he's raped, how he's removed ovaries, breasts, uteruses from these women. Maura's said that they were probably still alive, sedated somehow, when he did this. Jane had wanted to throw up.

The violence, the hatred and the utter disregard towards women makes Jane long to be someone else, anyone else. Every minute she's alive she's at risk from this guy. He's killing women so thank god she's not one of those, but holy fuck she wants absolutely nothing to do with this.

When she goes home after they've found the third woman's body, she goes straight to her closet and finds the lock box. The contents fall into her hands after she spins the dial on the lock to line up to the carefully chosen combination. Tommy's birthday. No one would ever guess.

Good.

Her cock is in her hands and Jane feels as though she can take on the world again. She's so fucking afraid of what this madman will do that she can't even bring herself to be female any more. It's safer to be like this, this fucked up and still not entirely accurate version of herself.

Maura says she needs to stop using it as a shield whenever she doesn't want to deal with something. Jane doesn't say much in those moments, but she hears Maura. Hears the truth in her argument.
She needs to go to a shrink, she thinks.

Jane plunges her hands into her pockets and leans against the counter in her kitchen, thinking about how Crowe had put a tampon in her water bottle at work again. About how they all talk about Maura like she's a fucking piece of meat, about how she hates men so much and yet she desperately needs to be one sometimes.

There's a knock on the door and Jane saunters over, checking the peep-hole to see Maura standing there with a brown paper bag full of what looks to be Chinese food. Jane slides the chain out of place and pulls Maura into her apartment.

Jane likes moments like this, when it comes easily to her. When she can take the bag from Maura and set it on the counter. How she can turn back to her lover and pull her in close, fingers smoothing over the swell of her ass, so pretty in that tight skirt. How she can lift her up and press her up against the wall, cock straining against her jeans and kiss her hard.

Maura is breathless. Her shirt buttons are undone quickly. The Chinese food is fast forgotten.

They're not going to make it to the bedroom. Jane steers them towards the couch, pulling Maura down into her lap, lips never parting. Her tongue is harsh; this is a release for her in more ways than one.

Maura's skin is warm against her own, fingers splayed across Jane's shoulders. Her shirt is on the floor – she's glad she didn't wear a button up today.

"Zipper," Jane grunts, and Maura shifts a little to the left. Her warm fingers leave Jane's shoulder, drifting downwards, pulling on the zipper of her skirt, undoing it so that Jane can push it up and over her ass. Jane touches the skin she's brought out into the air and can barely contain the groan that rises, unbidden, from her lips.

Maura Isles, the siren that she is, is not wearing any underwear.

"They'd show," Maura pouts, kissing Jane's jaw.

God, Jane's been wanting to do this all day and now she knows why. The scent of Maura's arousal, the sound of Maura's voice draws her in, never letting her leave. She's no better than those old heroes, drowning in the presence of a beautiful, unobtainable woman.

The only thing is; Jane's got the woman. And she's smug as hell about it.

Maura's wet, and Jane gets her pants undone faster than she's ever done it before. She's hard, ready, it has to be like this. Jane can do it other ways; she actually prefers it other ways, but sometimes Jane has to be Jay and today is one of those days. Maura understands, and that's what Jane loves about her.

There are lips on her own and Maura's whispering into the kiss that she likes this, likes being able to ride him and dictate her own pleasure. Jane grins cockily at Maura and rolls her hips forward, pushing just the head of her cock into Maura. She's so fucking wet, it goes right in, but that's not the point. The point is to drag it out. To make Maura beg for it.

Maybe there's darkness in her as well, darkness that does not allow her to truly feel pleasure unless it's like this, depraved and distant.

Jane shakes her head violently, hands closing around Maura's hips. Jane is grateful that Maura's shirt has fallen off her shoulders and her breasts, just barely contained within a lacy bra, are right in front of Jane's face. She pulls Maura down, onto her, watching as Maura's face changes, watching as she is filled with nothing but Jane.

The case is gone from her mind; the stupid fucking nickname the press has made up for this guy is gone too. He's obviously a serial and that means that they'll catch him in the end. Jane's gunna start going through fucking parking tickets. Maybe lightning strikes twice.

Maura rocks against her, face covered with a fine sheen of sweat. Jane is fascinated at how her face moves, how her teeth worry at her lip. How her eyes grow darker and darker with every passing moment. Fuck, Maura's tight and Jane has to work to push in and out of her. She likes working for it. It makes it better in the end.

Her fingers graze over Maura's breasts, eyes never leaving Maura's face. She can't look away, she has to see how breathless this makes her, how powerful Jane has become in this position. She can see how Maura's eyes grow wide, how her lips are parted in the pleasure of it all; she can see how close she is.

Jane's hands fall back down, fingertips digging into Maura's hips as she pushes up with renewed vigor. Her lips attach to Maura's neck and she's biting down hard. She's learned how to drive Maura higher and higher, to push against her comfort level and pull forward the sexual being she knows that deep down, Maura Isles encapsulates fully.

Jane doesn't care if this is brazen, unwarranted, and really inappropriate given the circumstances that they're in right now. She doesn't give a shit that maybe this isn't the best time to become completely and utterly undone. Maura makes it so easy to forget things, to lose herself in the sensation of it all. Maura is soft and smells good and Jane wants to worship every inch of her.

The words bubble, unbidden, from her lips. They are whispered encouragements, trying to coax Maura to lose herself too. This is how Jane loses control, she isn't stoic and silent and taking without thought. She's involved, talking Maura higher and higher, telling her she's beautiful. That she's riding Jane's cock like a pro and god, she's so tight.

All she wants is Maura, to feel this beautiful woman pressed against her.

Hips rolling forward, Jane dares release Maura into a one-handed grip, She knows that even in this position, one she knows Maura likes more than is perhaps healthy, she cannot come from just Jane inside her. Jane wish she could, it would be fucking hot as hell, but Maura isn't wired that way and she wants to see the glorious look on Maura's face when she comes.

Jane is pretty sure that that is the only way to chase away the terrible thoughts of this case.

Fingers curl, making tight little circles on Maura's stomach, dipping down, finding the small and sensitive nub almost hidden beneath their gyrating hips. "Ja.." Jane cuts Maura off with her lips, she doesn't want to hear that fake name if she can avoid it. She understands that it helps Maura to make sense of her, and she lets it slide. Jane is just Jane.

Even if tonight she'd rather be Jay.

Jane twists her fingers sharply and Maura moans into her mouth, hips giving one or two half-hearted movements as she comes. Jane pulls her hand away from Maura's oversensitive core and lets it rest on Maura's hip. She pushes her cock up and into Maura a few more times, relishing in the tightness and the way that Maura babbles incoherently as Jane continues to fuck her.

Jane likes the after as well.

x

Jane is being Jay tonight. Maura Isles is quite content with that normally, but Jay's working his way through this terrible, awful case that they've both been working on since the month began. The victims are so horribly abused; Jay isn't able to handle it. He's pacing up and down the small space between the wall and his couch, running through the case to Maura, trying to figure out what they're missing.

The women are usually missing for seventy two hours once they find the men. Couples; rich, upscale. The man tied and forced to watch as the woman is beaten and raped. They've found semen, fibers, spent condoms. He's flaunting everything that they know about him and the fact that they can't catch him.

This case is horrible.

They're calling him 'The Surgeon' in the papers and Jay is going to go insane if they don't catch a break soon.

Maura's pulled her skirt back down over herself, but her shirt still hangs open. Her chest, covered in small marks from Jay's urgent lovemaking, is bare to the world. She's got Jay's jacket draped over her shoulders so as to possess at least some minutia of modesty. She doesn't care really, but she knows that Jay isn't as comfortable in his body as she is, she doesn't want him uncomfortable.

"Did that help?" Maura can't help but ask. They've been doing so well, Maura's finally fairly convinced that she's got Jay figured out. This complicates things.

Jay is a very complicated individual.

"Not really," Jay admits, hands plunged deep in his pockets. He hasn't taken off his pants, the marks of their encounter are evident on the front of them in the right light. The bulge of the phallus is still there. Maura swallows, thinking about how good it feels inside of her. "I just wanted to forget."

Maura understands this. She is a rational being, but she understands that most humans do not embrace logic as a tenant of their being. This case is horrible. They all want to forget.

"If someone were to have this sort of training, what would they need to do?" The question has been bothering Maura as well. They've sent Detective Moore down to Georgia to see if they can find anything on the guy – the modus operandi is similar to a series of attacks and rapes that took place in Savannah several years ago. No one is sure that they're going to find anything there, the perpetrator was killed by his final victim.

Still, Maura likes Moore almost as much as she likes Korsak. She despises some of the other men that Jane works with, but she holds her tongue and smiles politely at them. They're all on the same team, as the expression goes. She'll have to remember to misquote that at some point to annoy Jay.

"Medical school," Maura rattles off, "or work in a morgue or mortuary. A funeral home perhaps." She's pretty sure that the level of skill suggests that this person at least attended medical school, far enough into the curriculum to have encountered cadavers. There's something about the way that the sutures are placed that suggests no residency or formal training out of school. After a while, a surgeon will develop his own unique technique, and this killer's is strictly by the book, as it is written.

Perhaps it is a psychosis.

Maura will have to examine the wound tracts again to make a determination, so she doesn't say anything else to Jay.

Jay rolls his eyes at Maura, "Well, which do you think it is?"

He always does that, always asks the questions that Maura isn't prepared to answer. She wants to say that she hates it, but it really does help with her immersion therapy. It forces her to evaluate her theories and test hypotheses quickly in her head – to see if they truly hold validity before she rattles off her response.

"Medical school," Maura sighs, "I would need to do further tests, but the stitches that are used on the sutures are very academic."

"I don't even want to know how you know that." Jay laughs.

Maura opens her mouth to protest, to say that it's very recognizable if you know what to look for, but thinks better of it. Jay did not go to medical school, there's no way he could possibly know.

They all have to wait for Thomas Moore to call them back with his findings in the morning. Hopefully he will have found something.

x

Jane cannot fucking believe Moore. Sleeping with the fucking victim who is probably at least somewhat guilty of withholding evidence from them. Jane knows that Catherine Cordell is withholding information from them the moment she first meets her. When Moore decides that they're going to hypnotize her, Jane thinks it's bullshit, and when the profilers suggest that the killer could have easily once upon a time worked with someone, she wants to fucking scream.

Poor. Life. Choices.

She saw them together; his hand on the small of her back, and is suddenly very, very glad that she is principled. She'd never fucking sleep with a victim. That's just in poor taste.

He tells her privately that she's just wounded, that she needs his protection.

She's a goddamn rape and trauma survivor, to mention nothing of the fact that she's fucking smart as hell and far too good for him.

Funny, the parallels in her life.

Still, he's found a name. Hoyt. Warren Charles Hoyt. Prefers Charles. He got kicked out of medical school in Atlanta for fucking with a corpse. Actually, if Moore's investigation is true, he was practicing his butchery on cadavers up to six months before he was slated to finish medical school and start his residency.

They're lucky he got the boot or else they'd be looking at a fucking doctor and probably a respected member of the community rather than the deviant they're after now. That, at least, makes it a little bit easier.

They start to look for him and Jane isn't that hopeful that they'll find him. They'll have better luck keeping close tabs on Catherine Cordell and hoping that he'll come back to finish the job that his apparent partner in Savannah never succeeded in completing.

Jane tells Moore privately that it was a nice piece of detective work, figuring out the connection between the dead killer and Hoyt. She respects him on a personal level, she hates his public choices.

This whole situation's fucked.

Everything's shot to hell when Cordell is taken. The clock starts and they don't know what to do, where to go. Jane tries to remain calm and resolute, but it scares her shitless, watching as Maura and the rest of them down in the lab scurry around, trying to make sense of absolutely no evidence.

Jane's hoping for a miracle, a walk off homer at the bottom of the ninth to win the game without extras. They've found some dirt that's dissimilar to the local fare on the concrete of Cordell's garage bay and they're hoping that getting a profile will at least limit their search radius. She doesn't think that Hoyt has taken Cordell outside the city. This is his comfort zone now.

Jane Rizzoli is fucking good at her job, but this guy scares her shitless.

x

They've caught a lead. The dirt samples have come back to an area near where Jane lives. She heads over into the residential neighborhood as soon as Maura tells her to be careful and kisses her cheek. She doesn't say she will be. Jane can't make promises like that.

Maura is everything Jane has ever wanted and then some, but there are promises, unspoken words between them, that cannot be said. The only promise is 'I love you.' Jane likes to think that Maura's made a second, more personal promise of, 'I won't label you,' but she'll never ask about it. Maura doesn't mention how fucked up Jane is unless Jane brings it up first. It's her way of being respectful, Jane thinks.

She really wishes that Maura would bring it up.

There's so much she still wants to tell Maura about herself. They've shared so much, but Jane can't ever find the words to thank Maura for being the only one who understands.

She's called Korsak for back-up but the seventy-two hour window is drawing to a close and this is more about revenge and finishing what he started for Hoyt anyway. The shrinks and profilers that have come in to consult on this case are pretty sure that he's already killed Catherine Cordell, but Jane isn't willing to give up.

Not yet, not ever.

Jane doesn't know what she's looking for. The houses all look the same. They're relics: built in the seventies in a push to expand Boston outwards and into the surrounding area. Jane grew up in a neighborhood similar to this; she knows that these houses are old enough to have deep cellars that hide more secrets than their worth and attics with little ventilation and better insulation than anyone could possibly need.

Basically, it's a fucking needle in a haystack.

Jane scans the street, looking up and down, swallowing and desperately searching for anything that might clue her in as to where she's going. They've all seen pictures of this Hoyt guy now. He's fucking creepy looking, but the picture's dated. Jane doesn't dare bring it out and start canvasing. She doesn't want to spook him.

She parks the cruiser a street over and undoes the clip on her gun. She's left the safety off the past few days; she's too paranoid and afraid of this guy already. She's not taking any chances. She radios to dispatch that she's going to do a walking patrol of the street and tries to school herself into being completely neutral.

The street is deserted, it's the middle of the day. Jane takes note of gardening projects and of how many people haven't collected their mail yet. No one needs a citation for not cutting their grass, that's good. She usually ends up writing at least one of them on these trips.

In the distance, she sees an older-model Chevy (though it could be Ford) blue pick-up pull into a driveway. It doesn't have Massachusetts tags and Jane squints, wishing her vision was better. It looks like a Georgia plate.

Her pace quickens.

A tall man with a head of grey hair climbs out of the cap and grabs a bag brandishing the CVS logo from the truck bed and heads into the back yard. From a distance, Jane can't be sure if it's Hoyt. She wants to say that it is, but years of academy training have taught her that it's a bad idea to assume anything.

There's a groan of metal grinding against metal and Jane pauses on the edge of the property, texting Korsak (hopefully he can figure it out) the license plate number to see if it does belong to Hoyt. She can see the bulkhead of a cellar entrance standing open and she can't help herself. It's in plain sight; she doesn't need a warrant to go speak to the guy.

There's a story already forming in her mind about how and why she's in the area, and Jane is already I prepared to spring into action if necessary.

She knocks on the bulkhead and doesn't see anyone. "Hello?" she calls into the gloom. The smell of the basement rises up and burns her nostrils and Jane wants to back away. She's not allergic to mold and mildew, but this basement smells of it something horrid.

No response. Jane pulls out her gun and steps into the blackness.

As her eyes adjust to the dim, Jane squints, everything is so dark. She sees a woman, bound on the floor and a two-by-four swinging upwards into her face.

She sees no more.