Chapter Text
As a natural host, Jervis was delighted to have a guest. Very few people visited him nowadays and it was starting to affect him. After all, he was fantastic company. People should be knocking at his door everyday to have tea with the Mad Hatter.
Which is why he was more than thrilled when one was dragged to his door. Sure, the man was horribly rude but that’s because it was the start of Spring. March always made the little rabbits itching for a fight and all he needed was a good cup of tea and a gentle hand. Well, maybe not. The first time he tried to offer some comfort to his new friend he received a swift chomp that left his knuckles bleeding and the rabbit with the new name.
“Nasty Jabberwocky,” Jervis wrapped his hand with scraps of fabric out of fear that he would be left in isolation once again if anyone noticed his wound, “Wonderland won’t be so wonderful if you try to eat your friends!”
To his disappointment he received no apology for the rude behavior, but had learned his lesson from this violence. His new friend was probably just hungry and he was being a terrible host by not offering him anything. Jervis knew he had to right this terrible wrong quickly.
He pushed a metal tin between him and his guest the next time he tried to close the distance between them. It was a small offering as well as a shield in the case of another attack.
“I wanted some tea to go with these,” Jervis said without hearing himself talk, his attention immediately drawn to the boney fingers of the beast who did not reach for his throat but touched the tin's edge instead.
“How did you get these in here?” Jervis’s words were finally cut off by Jabberwock's. He had flipped the top off and was now delicately shifting through the stacks of cookies with interest. This made Jervis feel floaty with joy as he felt like he did something right.
“The biscuits?” He asked, ”Oh it’s easy when you have friends-“
“We are not friends,” the beast snarled only after he took a treat and snapped the tin shut, “you are a criminally insane party favor for the children whose school you’re not allowed within 2,000 feet of!”
“Now that is just plain mean, I've never performed at children's parties. I’m a hypnotist not a clown.”
“That is not the point I am trying to make here.”
“And I've never hurt a child! You-you-you are just spreading lies like everyone else outside,” he didn’t know where the rumors that he was looking for a new Alice came from, but they’ve been getting increasingly common and increasingly annoying, “they’re wrong and you’re wrong too. We are friends because we are here together.”
“Get it through your skull, Tetch,” he spat the name out with disdain, “A madman such as yourself deserves to be locked away for his entire life. From my short time here, I've already gathered a list of everything wrong with you that could wrap around this fucking asylum ten times over! The doctors here are kidding themselves if they think they can pull you out of whatever fantasy world you're living in!”
Jervis shrank back when he recognized the golden ring around the Jabberwock’s pupils as the maddening stare of a hare that had been caught in a steel trap; desperate for escape.
“You’re here too,” Jervis returned to his side of the cell with his box of goodies and curled up onto the sheets until his knees tucked beneath his chin.
“A mistake, I do not belong here. Not as a patient.”
“Ha!” Jervis hid his face when the Jaberwock brought that angry glare back to him, but it did not curb his amusement, “we’re all mad here. I’m mad, you’re mad.”
He mocked Jervis's accent with poor pronunciation, "you must be, or you wouldn't come here," he quoted back, "Oh, don't recite children’s poetry to me, it only makes you sound more suspicious.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t act like a child,” but in the same manner he stuck his tongue out and blew raspberries until the beast turned his back to bang his fists angrily at the door.
“Any cell, I will take any cell just get me out of here!” He begged once he got a guard to appear, “please, I will even share a room with Nygma if you can get me out of here.”
The guard was willing to listen but to Jervis’s delight the response his guest received was not a good one, “Well, the only one we got is with the Joker. You want to go splitsies with him?”
It was only after a moment of silence that a soft, “no,” could be heard and the guard left them alone for the time being.
“Good choice, now that one is truly indubitably insane,” pleased as punch that his guest would not be leaving him, Jervis hid his biscuits away and fetched his personal copy of Alice in Wonderland to pass the time until bed. He had accepted that the Jabberwock might bite him again if he continued poking fun at his misery but considered it a small victory when he heard the snap of a stale cookie between sharp teeth.