"I'm sorry, you want me to what?!" Jervis gawks at you, dropping the half finished hat he's been working on for the past few days. His mouth hangs open, and his dark eyes are wide are saucers.

Asking Jervis to hypnotize you didn't sound like a bad idea at first, after all, he was a famous hypnotist before becoming a criminal, but his reaction is making you second guess yourself.

"You... You really want me to hypnotize you? Really truly?" He asks, over and over again, putting a hand on your forehead to try and gauge your temperature and see if this strange request is the result of some sort of fever induced weirdness.

But, it's not. You've just been so stressed with everything lately, overthinking ever little thing, that it sounds nice to just give the reins to someone else for a while.

You trust Jervis not to do anything bad while you're under, you're his Dormouse after all. And every hatter needs a dormouse.

He scans your face, searching for any form of uncertainty and, upon finding none, sighs and takes your hands in his.

"Alright. I can do it, but if you ever feel uncomfortable at all, you'll just snap right out of trance, okay? Faster than you can say 'flamingoes playing croquet'."

It's clear Jervis is astounded that you trust him this much, even as he leads you into his living room, waiting for you to sit on the couch before lighting up some incense.

Incense isn't needed, not for Jervis to do his thing at least, but he just wants you feel as at ease as possible before he sits next to you.

"Dormouse," Jervis begins, pulling his pocket watch out his coat pocket (because a gentleman's pocket watch stays by his heart). "Listen to my watch. Feel how it's ticking synchronises with your heartbeat."

You take a deep breath, the tick-tick-ticking of his pocket watch filling your mind like pleasant static, drowning out all other thoughts.

"Look into my eyes," Jervis' voice lacks the airy whimsy it normally has, he's unusually serious. "Not above them, not below them, but deep into their centre."

Jervis' brown eyes seem to get even darker, as if his pupils are expanding and swallowing his irises, but even despite that and his uncharacteristic seriousness, and your complete relaxation, a small part of you knows that you can still opt out at any time, and Jervis is going to keep his word and you're still in control even while you're not the one in control.