Vindingrijkheid (Fabrication/Invention) is a spinoff story from Kanej Wensen, featuring Jesper starting his apprenticeship with Tij Bashnya at Toren Leder.
This takes place during and after Verbanden & Geesten. Jes begins learning how to better focus his powers, some leather crafting, and a good chunk about his mentor as well. We get a section from Tij’s POV, and see how she views her new found apprentice. We also get to see Jesper and Tij trading stories as they work on a custom order for Kaz.
CW for some discussions of past trauma, death, grief, and torture.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Kaz is trying to explain what the plan is for their new heist to Jesper. Jesper has ADHD. He’s trying to listen, really he is, but he can’t focus. Kaz is getting frustrated with Jesper, but realizes that he’s struggling and thinks of an idea to help him focus and understand the plan better. To help him visualize it.
Kaz called us together to talk about a heist he plans to make us do later this afternoon. I was a little annoyed when I’d heard this because I had had other plans. Plans which involved me, Wylan and a comfy bed. Instead I’m standing here trying my hardest to listen to Kaz’s plan and failing miserably.
I could see Kaz’s mouth moving, I could hear him but everything sounded muffled and muddled together. I was trying so hard to listen, but my mind just kept wandering! No matter how hard I try I can’t keep my attention on Kaz.
Wylan keeps drumming his fingers against a nearby table. The sound keeps catching my attention, I recognize the tune but I can’t place it. I think it was something I heard a long time ago, but I can’t remember when. I wonder if-
“Jesper.”
I snapped my head up from where it had been turned, looking at Wylan’s hands. My eyes looking wildly at Kaz from having been startled by his voice.
“Pay attention. This is important.” He said, annoyance clear in his voice. I forced myself not to scoff. If only I could pay attention. If I could figure out how to get myself to do that I’d do that in a heartbeat! I internally laugh at myself, a bitter feeling filling up inside my stomach.
I shake my head, trying to clear all the thoughts from it. I tried to bring my attention back to what was being said. Suddenly Nina started talking. “What if… climbing… die?” I couldn’t make out everyone she said but the sudden talk of death snapped my attention back like a stretched out band suddenly being let go of and snapping together. ‘Die’. That didn’t sound good. I really don’t want to die.
“Nobody is going to die. Don’t be dramatic. Besides if you do, that’s not my problem.” Kaz answered rolling his eyes.
Oh. I mentally shrug my shoulders, trusting Kaz not to let us die. If Kaz says we’re not going to die, then we’re not going to die. As the conversation moves away from death my attention starts drifting back to a noise that has been rattling in my brain since it started.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap.
I look back over at Wylan and see that he’s still drumming the tune on the table. OH! I figured out what the song was! I used to hear that tune coming from a church near where I used to live as a child. How I understood that’s what Wylan was drumming I have no idea. I start listening harder. Maybe I just wanted it to be something familiar. I suppose It’s highly possible that he’s not actually playing that tune and I just wanted to hear it. Wha-
“Jesper!” Kaz’s voice rang through out the room. I quickly look over at Kaz, my eyes wide. What had I been doing wrong? All I was doing was thinki- oh. I had been thinking instead of listening.
“Jesper, is it really too much for me to ask you to listen to the plan? I know you think you have better things you could be doing right now, but believe it or not you’re going to regret it later when you realize what I’m saying right now is important. So pay attention!”
I feel my eyes begin to water with frustration. I wish I COULD pay attention! That’s all I want! I realize I’m looking down at my feet. When did I do that? I look back up at Kaz and find that when our eyes meet I can’t bring myself to hold his gaze.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I look back over at Wylan’s fingers and back over at Kaz. Saints! I wish I could just listen! I wish I was more like other people!
Suddenly Kaz’s eyes widen. Not by much but if you knew Kaz as well as I do, you would have seen it too. He then walked over to a desk in the room that was pushed up against a wall and pulled open one of its drawers. He reached in and grabbed a paper from inside it. Then walked over to the table that Wylan had been tapping his fingers on. He gestured for everyone to gather around the table. When everyone had moved themselves towards the table Kaz signalled for me to come closer to him. Unsure of what was happening I took a weary step forward, then another, then another, until I was finally standing beside him.
I saw Kaz raise an eyebrow at me before rolling his eyes and looking down at the paper. He was scowling at the paper, as though he was trying to piece together a puzzle. Finally after a moment he stood up straight and walked back to the desk. He opened a different drawer this time and I saw that this drawer was filled with pens, pencils, highlighters and pencil crayons. I watched as Kaz’s scowl deepened as he stared at the disorganized drawer, before he picked up a handful of highlighters.
I watched in utter astonishment. What on earth did Kaz (Dirtyhands) Brekker need highlighters for? I raised an eyebrow at him in question but he ignored it. He set the highlighters on the table beside the paper.
“Jesper, watch.” Was all he said before he began... drawing? I looked over at the paper and saw above each of his sloppy drawings he had wrote ‘step 1, step 2, step 3’ then on the sides of his drawings he began writing vigorously. When he was finished he looked over at me expectantly. “The drawings are… nice?” I offered, unsure of what else to say. Kaz groaned in annoyance.
“You see these colours?” He asked holding up the highlighters. I stared at them for a minute before nodding. He then popped off the caps of each highlighter and pressed them to the paper, drawing a small line with each colour. “Purple,” Kaz said “is Inej.” And beside that line of colour he took a pencil and wrote her name. “You are the red.” He then wrote my name beside the red line. He proceeded to do this for everyone in the room before looking up at me, almost as if to see if I was listening. When he saw I was, he nodded, then he took the green highlighter (Nina’s colour) and highlighted a sentence beside a drawing of a girl in a sexy outfit in front of two men. The sentence above it said ‘Distract guards.’
“Nina will make an outfit that is sexually appealing and try to distract the guards with a flirtatious attitude.” Kaz said staring at me with no sign of ever looking away. It was a little unsettling. “Wylan will then come up behind them and place a bomb by the locked door. The guards won’t have anytime to stop it. Nina will then knock out the guards.” He explained, finally looking away from me and highlighting a paragraph above a picture of a boy crouched down near a large door in light blue (Wylan’s colour) with the same girl from the last picture standing in front of two men (the guards), he highlighted her role again in green.
“Now do I have to go over the entire thing or has your brain finally fished itself out of the gutter?” Kaz said glaring at me, but I knew there was no real heat in his eyes. “N- no, I’m good now.” I said quickly and watched as the tension seemed to flood out of his body. He quickly picked up the highlighters and highlighted the rest of the sentences and paragraphs different colours, then aggressively flung the paper over to me. I fumbled to catch the paper as it flipped and twisted in the air.
As I straightened the paper and read over everything I realized I actually understood what it was saying. I actually understand the plan! I feel as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulder. I can understand this! It isn’t hard to read! My eyes aren’t becoming blurry as I lose focus, this is SO easy to understand! It doesn’t feel like work, not the way listening had felt.
I look up and see Kaz staring at me. I smile at him in thanks. The corner of his mouth twists upwards for a second before quickly turning into a frown as Kaz looks away, refusing to look at me. I feel warmth spread all through my chest at the realization that he helped me. That he wanted to help me. I stare down at the paper in my hands. Yes, the drawings on it were hideous and the handwriting was rushed, but I know that this isn’t something I will ever throw out.
Later in the day when I go back home I find some tape and hold the paper in my left hand against the wall, while my right hand taped the corners of the paper. When I’m finished I take a step back.
Sometimes Jesper’s brain just moves too fast and he can’t keep track and when that happens he does one of two things.
1) he goes to Wylan and paces around while Wylan plays his flute and eventually he gets all the nervous energy out
Or
2) he walks down to the slat and he just rants at Kaz while he works and Kaz listens and hums along and replies and by the time jesper’s done, he’s always feeling much better
i love both of these.
sometimes you just need to pace sporadically and shake your hands around while listening to music and other times you just gotta talk talk talk talk yk <3
If you want to, could you write some ADHD jesper and autistic Kaz being brain cousins? Just headcanons? If not no problem (and no worries if it takes a while)
YES ALWAYS!
Jesper stims much more loudly(?) than Kaz; whether it's fiddling with his guns, pacing, or something else. Kaz keeps his stimming more quiet.
They both collect objects for the other to use as stim toys. Jesper definitely has gotten Kaz some sort of guitar pick to do that knuckle running thing with and Kaz always gets Jesper rubber-like things to smash between his palms.
They both have impulsives/compulsions, Jesper's being relating to gambling/cards and Kaz's being towards violence and they help each other control them. Kaz pretends to get really annoyed when Jesper starts gambling, but he understands it and just wants to help if he can. Jesper has physically held Kaz back from a fight at one point (and on a few occasions has turned around and punched the bastard himself).
I think Kaz has a lot of pockets and will randomly pull out one of the rubber-like stim toys and give it to Jesper when Jesper gets visibly antsy.
Jesper is really good at picking up when Kaz is getting overstimulated and is very good at redirecting attention so Kaz can get away from things for a few minutes.
They are the definition of the "too much energy" and "no energy" meme, to be honest.
Jesper hyperfixates on puzzles, which are Kaz's special interest, so they end up infodumping about it to each other a lot. If Kaz is particularly stumped on something, he almost always goes to Jesper.
I’ve been seeing people talk about how the fandom stereotypes Jesper as dumb and I don’t think people talk about how he went to college and is actually the most educated of the Dregs? Like sure, he’s impulsive and Random!XD, but that’s just him being an adhd mess(tm)
like give me adhd!jesper and wylan helping each other study and getting lost in libraries please and thank you, give me jesper actually keeping up with Wylan’s Nerd Shit better than everyone else, give me learning disability solidarity but also wylan and jesper bonding over science and math
