"Really?" he says, his tone one of polite interest, masking the more honest spike of curiosity beneath that Darlington's aware Caleb's likely to pick up. He lets out a short, considering hum, glancing over at the other nearby joggers before he continues, more quietly than before. "There's a logic to it. Caffeine's a stimulant even for the most mundane of us, so I can only imagine." If he was home, if he had access to the library at Il Bastone and the stored knowledge of all the Lethe delegates who'd come before, he might have continued in this vein for a while, positing theories and bombarding Caleb with questions, but he makes himself halt if only for the moment--and with no small amount of effort.

With the way Darlington smiles at Caleb's question, the other young man wouldn't need any preternatural ability at all to figure out the answer. There's happiness and relief there, a shade of arousal (that he does his best to suppress for Caleb's sake), a few lingering traces of the regret at his own stupidity that had kept him and Alex apart, all before he even says a word.

"I have a sense I know what you mean by things," he says, stretching out his other leg before he glances back over at Caleb. "To which the answer is yes. Better than okay, if that doesn't sound too absurd."