Pinkgothic played:

Francisco Ahlgren and Thomas Bennett

The Conglomerate felt like a court room or execution row. Its neutral guise did nothing to assuage that impression, stubbornly refusing to make a statement either way.

He was trying to knead tension out of one hand, a futile attempt at straightening out his composure. He couldn't imagine a single way this could play out well. A numb optimism was clung to the realisation that he couldn't imagine a single way this could play out disastrously, either, as long as he defined 'disaster' as something purely fantastic like the destruction of his nation or the cancellation of military allegiance.

Europe had too much vested interest in Dark Arcadia to let it hinge on his personal failings, no matter how intense they were. That being said, his mind supplied the notion that assassination was an option, but an unlikely one.

"You."

The single word cut through the silence, gripping his spine with a fresh tension laughing at his prior efforts to dispel it. His eyes squeezed shut at the imagined pistol shot.

"You don't have even remotely enough money to compensate for the damage you've done," snarled Bennett, stood across the room as he'd appeared an instant ago, spine straight, head tilted forward in a venomous glower, thumbs tucked into his trouser pockets and arms pushed from those anchors tensely, giving him the appearance of a predator just waiting to uncoil and strike.

Francisco pressed his lips to a thin line for a moment, doing what was uncharacteristic for him: Avoiding eye-contact. For a moment, he let his gaze aimlessly meander around the room in some semblance of awkward guilt, before finally daring to look at his perceived opponent. "Yes," he admits simply, tone miserable.

"What do your special snowflake laws say about this, then?" Bennett sneered. "Are you going to wind out of this and claim sovereignty? 'Haven't signed anything, not liable, neener, neener'?"

The Archon cringed subtly. "It doesn't work that way," he explains, narrowly scraping past a tone of frantic pleading.

"Then enlighten me - how does it work?" Bennett growled. "Because I want to see something done about you. You're a liability."

It was difficult to read Bennett under the turmoil of defensive emotions that tried to crowd out his usual thoughts. So many strands of his thoughts braided into painting Bennett as a dangerous predator that had to be brought down or fled from, feral, visceral thoughts bent on self-preservation - but he tried to cling to rational analysis despite it. Bennett would hardly be speaking to him about his ideal punishment and asking for advice, however spoken in scorn, if he didn't think this could be spoken about. There was no need for this to get physical.

But he wasn't sure how to answer the question. Their basic notions about Dread were so contrary that he struggled to find the context that Europe would want to apply to him and the Arcan framework to pander to their definitions.

What was Dread to them? A possession. A tool. A machine that they could program and use as they intended. A weapon that they felt they had the right to bear.

He could accept all of those things if they weren't talking about a human being.

There was no point in trying to bring that philosophical point of contention back up, not with Bennett livid about the psychic's entrapment as he was. As much as it made him nauseous on top of his current fear and rage and grief, he was just going to have to deal, grapple with the notion and take it for granted.

"By your definitions, I suppose this is vandalism," Francisco hesitantly offered. "And then you'd be right in your observation that I am comparatively... broke." Impossibly, a nervous smile managed to manifest itself on his expression, quivering a bit on its lonesome before it broke back up.

"Yes, you can be fairly sure I have enough of a grasp of your Arcan mockery of law to comprehend that on my own, genius, my financial observation was *much* more practically minded than you're giving it credit for." Bennett glared, a twitch travelling down his left arm, venom slightly weathered by the sheer amount of words that had to be spoken. "Let's go a step further, shall we? Skip to the interesting part? You're broke, of a sort. So what then? I'm shit out of luck?"

Francisco had hoped there would be more discussion about how this had happened. He'd hoped there would be a talk about how Ian's internet use was a fault of both theirs and not of a single party - Reykjavik had pushed for contact with Ian, after all, and there had been too many reasons not to do it astrally. This, though? This was sidestepping a lot of the carefully laid out answers he'd crafted prior to his connection request. Maybe he shouldn't have specified the topic of conversation in such detail in his e-mail - it looked like Bennett was deliberately skipping a lot of the social fluff.

In a way, Francisco found it hard to blame him.

"...this really should be decided in a cou-"

"Don't pull this shit with me, Francisco. I'm not dragging you to Arcan court because as far as I'm concerned your entire nation might as well just made of brown-nosing dipshits who love you against all odds and there's no impartiality to glean from that - and I'm not dragging you to a European one just for you to flounce out and wiggle about going 'Not European, can't catch me!'."

Inhale. Exhale. "No," Francisco closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, the syllable leaving him somewhat tersely but with determination. "I... really do think this needs to be decided outside of this conversation, because I think we're currently skipping a lot of necessary dialogue," he explains, reining his heartbeat in, peeling his eyes back open, and staring at Bennett resolutely.

"Necessary?" Bennett chuckled darkly, unaffected by the change of pace and mood. "What kind of 'necessary dialogue' do you feel to be amiss? 'Ian needs to be treated like an autonomous person' all over again? Do you even believe that nonsense? Because if you do, allow me to point out... you don't act like you do. You had one reason and one reason alone to pry him out of Europe and that's that you were worried the breadcrumbs that fell out of the project would stop being sweeped under an Arcan rug."

The fingers that dug into Francisco's left arm slowly revealed themselves to his perception as those of his own right hand, proprioception and touch hinting at that he was applying a little too much force in tension. Normally this was the point where he found his calm and confidence and decimated the opposition, but while the urge was there, he still felt too frail to try. They'd lost Ian to the network and it was a great injustice. The rage seemed justified.

"Get your shit together, Francisco," Bennett hissed, bunching his fingers into thumbless semblances of fists, anchored against his trousers still as those were.

There were a lot of things the Archon wanted to say. They all fell short, filtered by the part of him that diagnosed them too contrarian. He didn't want this situation to escalate any further, but right now, he just felt utterly incapable of completing the train of thought he'd begun earlier, that one strand of conversation that was likely to soothe Bennett back into civil discourse.

From Thomas Bennett's perspective, the silence seemed pitiful and impenetrable, both. His thumbs popped out of his trouser pockets and one hand hinted at a sway back, driven by the urge to lash out and hit that perceivedly stubborn piece of shit until he snapped out of it.

But that wasn't going to do anyone any favours.

"Fine," Bennett deflated fractionally, dismissing whatever thoughts he felt Francisco must currently be having with a bitter glare. "Avoid the topic. Be that way. When you've snapped back out of it - allow me to *strongly* suggest you beat me to an offer on compensation."

He began the motion that would register as a disconnect command, only to be stopped half-way through by a pained tone from Francisco: "Wait."

"What?" Bennett asked, warily, worn down by the tension in the room, impatient.

"While I contest your right to claim it because I find your premise faulty, by Arcan law a vandal who cannot pay financial restitution is obliged to work until the equivalence in value has been restored by his services," Francisco explains, squeezing his eyes shut. He shouldn't be playing this game. The premise wasn't just faulty, it was laughably unethical.

Bennett burst into a brief cackle, a curt, hateful series of mocking sounds. "Slavery by another word," he responded, full of bitter amusement. "You glorious hypocrits," he commented, final word dipping into a venomous snarl.

"It really isn't," Francisco commented, bitter in the knowledge that Bennett's unflattering reaction was exactly as he had anticipated it, slouched forward by now and kneading fingertips against his forehead as if he could physically carve the forming headache out of himself.

"It really is," Bennett retorted, flatly. "I don't play your little definition game, Francisco. Words have very specific meanings. Slavery, theft, dishonour. Pick up a dictionary, study it a while. Maybe we'll actually be speaking the same language the next time we meet."

Francisco frowned. "Unlikely," he muttered, more to himself than for anyone else's benefit, numbly staring at the edge of the table between them.

"This conversation is over," Bennett announced.

This time, nothing stopped him from disconnecting.