Work Text:
It should've been hard. Staring the corruption of her husband in the face—outlasting the rampaging remnants of the man she loved.
In some aspects, it was wretched.
In others... well.
John Doe had the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel.
It was hard to think anything less when Chance and Guest ran circles around him, overloading his decision-making skills and leaving him running back and forth, barely making scratches.
Harder still when earlier in the round, he'd dropped Jane's trail to chase after Noob while they were downing a soda, only to lose them, too.
Sometimes John was clever with his spikes, and traps. Other times, he showed up like he'd forgotten how to hunt.
It bordered on cute, watching her corrupted husband bumble around semi-harmlessly. At a distance, it was almost easy to ignore the corruption branching out of him. And sweet, too, to see the other survivors keeping their weapons at bay.
These days, Jane was noticing a pattern.
Every time she tried to reach John—really reach him—he made more mistakes in matches. Hesitating, freezing, you name it.
Then he'd return.. like this on the next.
Like someone pressed a reset button on him.
Well, not someone. Jane knew exactly what to suspect for her theory.
But the entity could go screw itself.
For this match, right now, she recognized John. Her John.
The malice was gone from his expression, every past grudge wiped for a blank slate, and in its place was the frustrated smile he always wore when a challenge presented itself.
He was treating it like one of his little projects, figuring out how to get to the others. Failing, but smiling.
John always was a hopeless optimist about his failures, approaching mistakes with enthusiasm.
It was probably menacing to the others—John Doe, suddenly bumbling around again and baring his teeth in a grin every time a distraction made him switch targets.
But to Jane, it was a relief.
A blaring, neon sign that John wasn't gone, just buried. And that Jane was a threat to the Entity's control over him.
She knew she'd have to play it safe for a while.
Who knew when the Entity would get tired of reseting John? Builderman forbid it suddenly bar her from the matches.
But that'd be fine.
As Jane folded her arms over the window carved into the wall, she watched the scene unfold. John bouncing between the two sentinels without a scratch left on any of them, looking more like a game of chicken than a death game.
She painted his smile in her mind and let it uncover old memories.
For now, for this match, John was just.. John.
Harmless, curious, and hers.