#as a piss-poor solution to an unsolvable problem

[leechjuice]

raise your hand if you want more books about people who eat each other!

[freetheshit-outofyou]

Our son Ryan (High School) has spent 2 days beating on his face against a geometry problem and he could not get it. Ryan even spent extra time with the teacher on the problem AFTER SCHOOL and she was standoffish about giving him help. My wife and I were no help, so we told him to ask his Uncle for help.

His uncle looked at it for about half a second and said the problem was unsolvable because the teacher did not give all of the information needed to create a solution.

This is why kids are suffering in school, it's not CoVID effecting their education, it is piss poor teachers who think they know better even when they are put on notice that they are wrong, but they want to hold on to the illusion that they are still right.

My Brother is a FUCKING NUCLEAR ENEINEER, one of the smartest people I have ever known, but the teacher still wanted to fight my son on why the problem could not be solved. After school she emailed the kids saying they would get full credit for the math problem because it was to hard to solve. WTF! It wasn't to hard to solve it was unsolvable.

[crab-instruments]

Lost and Found Extra 2: Silco's POV

Warnings: none, literally just L&F from Silco's point of view

Silco had a long day ahead of him. The night before, he had to make an example of those who thought they could defy him, make a fool of him, and take advantage of him. Those nights led to long days that involved cleaning up the messes. He could already imagine how the day would go, almost down to the minute.

Of course, this was before he found you on his couch, sound asleep.

The sight of someone in his office, so peaceful and blissfully unaware of the business that usually goes on within these walls dumbfounded Silco. It took him a moment to fully register that this was real, helped by the sound of a particularly loud intake of air on your part.

The door was locked. He had to use his key to get in. Nothing seemed amiss. The windows were fine. If you were after something, you did a piss poor job of escaping with it.

Though he would usually respond with callousness, your audacity left him curious. Silco strode over to you and hit your foot, jerking you awake. He watched as you blinked away sleep, coming to the realization you were not in a familiar place. Then your eyes landed on him, growing wide as your brain registered who the man in front of you was. Silco loved that expression, it never got old.

“How did you get in here?” He watched as the gears in your head turned harshly, noticing now you were hungover. Another piece that made the scene more confusing.

“I uhh I got lost.”

“You got lost.” Silco couldn’t believe that anyone besides Jinx would even think to say that to him, let alone use it as an excuse.

“Yeah. I was trying to go get a sandwich from… that one place. It’s close to here.” He watched incredulously as you started to sit up and get a better baring on your surroundings. “Wait. No, it’s not. It’s—”

“You were looking for a sandwich, got lost, and ended up in my office. That’s what you’ll have me believe?”

“In my defense, I was very drunk.” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, growing more agitated at the lack of clear answers.

“How did you get past the guards? How did you get past the lock?”

“I was… really motivated to get a sandwich.”

“So, when you didn’t find your sandwich, you decided to sleep on my office couch?”

An unmistakable amount of fear hit and radiated off of you. “I am so sorry, Mister Sir Silco. Silco Mister. Sir Mister Sir. Sil— “

“Stop.”

“Yes, Sir Mister.” He rolled his eyes. “I can pick any lock. Sometimes, when I’m black out drunk, I get into places I shouldn’t. I just had a really shitty da— “

“Any lock?” For someone vulnerable, the confidence in the statement caught his attention.

“Yeah, any lock Silco. I mean Sir. I mean—" Silco could feel no real hostility or ulterior motive from you. His interest piqued, somewhat like a cat testing gravity with an object on a table. He had a new toy.

“This just turned into a more interesting morning than I had initially thought.”

----

Every lock, puzzle, and problem Silco threw at you, you answered. He could tell you were still scared shitless, but he almost found it… adorable, if a man such as himself could use such a word, the way you focused on solving something. He intentionally gave you an unsolvable problem and was surprised when you not only pointed out the flaw but gave possible solutions outside the bounds of the problem. Smart, creative, honest, and absolutely naïve.

It was almost like magic.

Sevika walked in on the mess, reminding Silco of the work he should be doing. He couldn’t find himself to care, requesting she bring more puzzles to solve and to be amazed. Jinx arrived and became even more intrigued, offering more dangerous contraptions. You solved each one, though somehow more terrified.

Hours had gone past at this point.

“Well, I’m convinced.” Jinx looked almost stumped, ready to go back to her workshop to make more for you to decipher.

“This is really just… parlor tricks, Sir. Ma’am. Miss? A-Anyone can solve these, really. Nothing special on my part.”

Silco narrowed his eyes. Did you want to make everyone feel stupid and inferior or did you really believe that this skill was any less than remarkable? Silco couldn’t tell.

“And you can solve them while drunk?” Sevika’s voice pulled Silco out of his thoughts on your intentions.

“Arguably better, while drunk. I think, at least. I don’t remember. I can somehow get passed security drunk but not sober. Haven’t cracked that puzzle out yet.” You chuckled lightly before clearing your throat.

Silco made eye contact with Sevika, a conversation of what to do with you passing between them without words. Sevika seemed to be just as perplexed and felt you were also as harmless as your mannerisms seemed.

“As fun as this has been, um… I have to—I have to go to work soon. I don’t think my boss will allow the ‘I was discussing locking mechanisms with Silco’ excuse, especially since I’ve used simi—I MEAN. I don’t really know the protocol here, I didn’t mean to break in—do I need to pay for the lock? I don’t think I broke it but—”

“What is your job?” Silco folded his hands together as he sat at his desk. You were too good to let go. It was as if a gift walked in and fell asleep on his couch.

“I wa-wash dishes, so it would take me a while to pay you back. My boss treats me like an idiot, and I’m indebted to him, and he hates me so I don’t know if I could get an advan—”

“I don’t want your meager wages. I want you to work for me.”

“You want me… to work for you? You need a dishwasher, Sir? Mister Silco… Sir?” Everyone must have been as exasperated as Silco when they responded with a groan. You, in turn, looked like you missed something obvious and tried to find the answer on the faces of those around you. “I don’t think my boss will give me a great recommendation for reasons already listed but I could—I’ll ask. But like I said, I’m more of an… indentured servant than an employee so I—”

“Come back here tomorrow morning. We will discuss the terms of your employment then.”

The way you spoke of your employment gave Silco pause. He normally didn’t care for things, didn’t have the time. However, it could hold the answer to your unconfident disposition. If you were as genuine as you acted, Silco had more than one motive for poaching you from your employer, though he would never admit it.

You stood up, a little too fast so you wobbled a bit, before giving an uncomfortable bow. Silco had to bite back a laugh at the awkwardness, Sevika would definitely bring that up later. “Okay Silco. Sir. Mister Silco Sir—”

“Go.”

Silco could only watch at your attempt to leave with self-respect but the sounds of you kicking the metal pieces on the ground and almost tripping made for an extremely abrupt exit.

----

“My boss said… no.”

You stood in front of Silco, looking like a scared pathetic opossum, ready to play dead or die for real, right in the same office you broke into not 24 hours earlier.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, specifically, he laughed for three minutes, and I think said something about not believing Silco would speak to me, let alone request a pathetic worm such as myself to work for him, but I’m paraphrasing.”

Your employer was becoming a pain in Silco’s ass, and he hadn’t even met him. You and your loyalty to him, asking your boss for permission to work for the crime lord, only solidified his curiosity in you. “I… appreciate your loyalty to the man, but I wasn’t asking. Sevika, if you would please bring the man to us, we can straighten this out.”

Sevika smirked, happy to do something that involved violence. Silco enjoyed indulging her in such pastimes.

“WAIT.” Silco couldn’t stop his eyebrows from raising, this was the most vocal you had been thus far. “I mean, if I could—I just—sir—ma’am—hold on a—”

“Out with it.”

“Well, you see… My boss… I work for him, and he gives me a place to sleep. I’m afraid… I’m afraid that if I were to stop working for him—”

“You would no longer have lodging?” Less about loyalty, then.

“Ye-yeah, it’s the only thing I have. Well… I guess I can’t really call it ‘mine’ if I could lose it tha—”

“How extravagant is the lodging?” You looked lost and that didn’t sit right with Silco.

“I’m sorry, could you… define extravagant? I-I mean, I know what the word means, I’m not that stupid, I think, I just…”

Silco sighed, realizing there were some puzzles you couldn’t solve, if they had people involved. “Do you think I could not provide appropriate lodging for those that I employ?”

“Oh, my go—I am so sorry, Silco, sir, I… no I just couldn’t—I thought you were joking about extravagant because it’s just a storage closet.”

“A storage closet?” Pissed. Silco was pissed now, and he had no desire to unpack the feeling of why.

“Yeah, your couch was the best sleep I had in…” you counted on your fingers before saying, “months. Sometimes I’d fall asleep in the dish soap at work. Probably why I have a problem breaking into places, now that I think about it.”

Silco felt so tired at your confession, as if he had been sleeping in a storage closet for the past three nights. When he could finally function again, he turned towards his confidant. “Sevika, remove the owner in however you see fit, put someone else in charge, find the lockpickers… closet… and bring anything you find here.” She gave a smirk before leaving.

A silence fell and if wasn’t for that silence, Silco would have missed your mumbled wish. “I hope she puts one of the chefs in charge, the younger one, she deserves it.”

Silco raised an eyebrow at your comment, amazed how you had survived this long in Zaun with your empathy still intact. “Well, I just don’t think Iris is ready for that kind of responsibility, but what do I know, I’m just the dishwasher… Or was… what am I now, exactly?”

“You work for me, where you will not be underutilized or underestimated.”

“You think I was underutilized, sir?”

Silco let out a sigh, grumbling “no confidence is just as annoying as overconfidence.”

He made a point to look at you straight in the eyes. “It’s possible you could be my greatest apprentice yet.”

----

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