greatamazingfeelingsboy

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daniel arlington

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Sunday mornings are a good, quiet time to go for a run. He's even got a halfway decent route mapped out. He jogs from Candlewood, straight down Mulholland, and once he hits the park entrance, he grabs a path and runs. He alternates his speed as he goes, and occasionally even dodges into the trees to get some different terrain under his feet.

He's slowed again to a jog when he feels familiar emotions, and he slows, then follows them to their source. Daniel Arlington is jogging ahead of him, and Caleb picks up his speed to catch up.

"Oh, hey," he says. He's smiling, because even as he draws closer he can feel that something's different. Daniel isn't upset or disappointed. He's happy. He's delighted, under the focus that usually comes with running for exercise's sake.

It's a far cry from how he'd looked when he'd approached Daniel that day in the museum. Caleb is wearing jogging sweats and a hoodie, face pink from the chill, but his eyes are lit up, grin growing the longer he's standing next to him.

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"It's more than Yale," he says, automatic in his loyalty to the town itself. His birth certificate may be from New York, but all he's ever cared to know and the only place he's ever truly loved is New Haven. Lethe would have sent him anywhere in the world, given him opportunities and open doors--and according to Alex, they hadn't waited until graduation--but in the end, Darlington knows he'll always return to where he's meant to be.

"But in this instance, you're not exactly wrong." They pass another pair of joggers and Darlington waits until they're out of earshot again before he continues. "Does your...version of Yale, and god, if that's not weird to say, does it include the senior societies? Skull and Bones is the most well-known of them, to their delight, but there's others."

That's something Adam would know, Caleb thinks. He wouldn't even need to think about it. He and Annabelle had gone to Yale together so many times, so they could tour the campus. She'd wanted Adam to fall in love with the place, and she'd succeeded. Unfortunately, most of Adam's rambling about it had fallen on... mostly deaf ears where Caleb's concerned. He'd loved listening to Adam talk, loved feeling his excitement, his enthusiasm, but... he'd definitely tuned out the finer details more than once.

"I have no idea," he admits.

If he'd had even a passing familiarity with them, it might have eased the way a bit, but Darlington can hardly judge him for the lack of it. "No matter," he says, then takes a breath, getting ready to explain. "As with any school, there's lots of traditions and organizations, clubs and groups and all of that. For the most part, they all operate with their own rules and aren't really Lethe's concern. But the Ancient Eight are different. They're the oldest societies on campus, the ones with generations of alumni, many of whom are or have been extremely powerful in their chosen fields. Presidents and CEOs, actors and writers, even a journalist or two."

He glances over at Caleb, checking to make sure he's following along. "The question of where that power comes from has fueled conspiracy theories and conjecture from almost the first day of their existence, but the reality of it, at least in my world, is that each has access to a nexus, some source of magical power that allows them to conduct the rites for their particular types of magic."

Caleb isn't sure he's following along, but he nods just the same. "So, what, are they, like... using the magic to get ahead? Isn't that, like, cheating?"

There's an indignant note to the question Caleb asks, a bit of naiveté that Darlington can't help finding quietly amusing--even as he respects the kid all the more for it. He'd have made a challenging, if worthwhile, Dante. Much like the one Darlington had been given. "Call it cheating, or luck, or privilege, as you wish. Much worse has been said about them, and they're all still here."

"Hm," Caleb says with a little bit of a frown. He thinks about how his ability doesn't shut off when he's on the field with the team, how he can tell when someone's getting nervous, and knows they're about to make a risky play. But that's not really cheating, is it? It's not like he knows what play they're going to make, just that he should pay extra attention.

That's totally not the same thing, he decides.

"I guess the people at the top are there for a reason," he says. "Still kinda shitty, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's still shitty," he agrees, that rare profanity--well-earned, in this case--hanging in the air for a moment. "Lethe, the organization Alex and I belong to, or belonged, now, was founded to mitigate that, as much as possible. We monitor the rites of the other eight societies, making sure nobody's unduly harmed, whether they're students or residents of the town."

Darlington likes to think they've succeeded, that he's succeeded, for the most part. There had been hiccups and errors along the way, things Lethe had needed to smooth over with funds or promises or even threats, but they'd learned from each and that's what mattered more.

"It doesn't correct the imbalance completely, but if it's kept someone safe who otherwise wouldn't have been, that's enough for me."

"Is that how you guys met?" Caleb asks, glancing over at him. "You and Alex, I mean. In that... whatever, Leafy place."

"It is." He doesn't correct Caleb's pronunciation outright, but Darlington's certain he can feel the effort it takes to hold himself back from doing so. "Every three years, Lethe selects an incoming freshman to serve as Dante." He tilts his head a bit to the side, knowing that's likely to mean nothing to Caleb, depending what Alex had told him already. "They're...I call them our offices, Alex prefers code names. The senior representative, me, is always Virgil. Alex, as the new first year, was Dante."

The path narrows again, and this time Darlington cuts ahead, waiting to continue speaking until they're running side by side again. "Usually, there's a vetting process. The Virgil makes a few selections out of the files on the incoming class, which are presented to the Lethe board for a vote. With Alex, it was a decision made out of my hands. A unanimous choice."

Uncertain whether Alex has shared her own ability with Caleb, Darlington doesn't say why.

"It's because of the grays, isn't it," he says, when he knows no one is going to overhear them. "She can see them, in full color, and no one's ever done that before. So Lethe just... what, bypassed the usual steps, and picked her?"

He thinks he gets it, but it still seems a little unfair — to Alex, mostly, though if Daniel, as a Virgil, was supposed to pick someone, then it also makes it a little unfair to him, as well, doesn't it?

"Also, what's with the Dante's Inferno shit? Is Lethe trying to say that the world is Hell and we're just trying to get through it?"

"Never took you for a cynic, Michaels," he says, though the comparison is--obviously--more than apt. "Each society has their own particular traditions in naming given offices. It happens that, at least for the Dante and Virgil roles, Lethe's happens to be Inferno, and fairly tame, considering. You should hear some of the ones Skull and Bones came up with." Darlington shrugs. "Frankly, I've always enjoyed the irony in the fact that we're the ones who force the rest of them to remember, while being named for a river of forgetfulness."

The rest of what Caleb's asked takes a little more thought, finding the best place to begin and the right balance of how much to say. That he already knows about the Grays, though, comes as no small relief. "It is, and she can," he says after a moment. "The only person I've ever met who can see them in full color. I envied her so much, when I first heard." Even now, there's still a faint tendril of that envy present, a lingering wish to be just as extraordinary, despite the cost that's become all too clear to him. "There was an opportunity there, and Lethe took it."

There's more to the story, far more, but much of that is Alex's to tell.

"Did she even want in?" Caleb asks.

He knows Alex never felt like she belonged at Yale, whether because of her ink, or her past, or whatever else. But she'd never really told him about the Lethe stuff. Had she wanted to be involved? Had she been given a choice? Or had she been voluntold, forced into an ultimatum that left her feeling like she'd had no choice at all?

The question is sharp and insightful, of the type he would've expected to hear from Alex, and somehow that makes it all the more difficult to answer. Had the opportunity been presented to her in any other way, at any other time, he doesn't know that she'd have accepted it; Lethe and Sandow had needed to come when she'd already lost everything she'd known in the world and when she was in danger of losing far, far more. They had tracked her for years, their radar picking up a CPS complaint here or a school psychologist's evaluation there, but they hadn't come until they needed her--and when she had no other way out.

"Alex is the only one who can really answer that," he says at last. "I'd like to think she wanted to come, that she wanted...something different than she'd had in California. But I also know how convincing Lethe can be." Darlington lets out a harder huff of breath. "I won't say they made me the same offer, but I was given a similar one."

He shakes his head with a little frown. "Creepy," he says succinctly. He looks over at him for a moment, then back to the path. "I dunno, it just sounds like some sci-fi thriller bullshit, like... here's an offer you literally can't refuse. Sounds like bullshit."

There's nothing incorrect about what Caleb says, but even so Darlington bristles just the faintest bit; his loyalty to Lethe, even here, still as strong as ever. "Sometimes you don't want to refuse," he says, his eyes still on the path in front of them. "Even if you're aware you can't. Sometimes it's the thing you've been looking for your whole life."

"Whoa, hey," Caleb says, hands raising innocently. "Look, I didn't mean you, I just. It's objectively kinda creepy, okay?"

"No, I know you didn't," he says, wincing a little at his defensive reaction. This deep in his own thoughts, he'd essentially forgotten what Caleb could do, the things he could glean even without meaning to.

Darlington sighs, shaking his head. "Even as much as I owe them, you're not wrong."

Caleb watches him surreptitiously, making sure not to take his eyes of the path for too long, so he doesn't trip over anything. He takes in the protective feelings Daniel projects like brambles, the apologetic ones that brush against Caleb's arms like a gentle fog. There's a lot of conflicting emotions coming from him, but he's sincere when he agrees that Caleb isn't wrong.

"That doesn't mean you're not allowed to feel the way you feel," he reasons. "You kinda had a good experience, right? So, of course you're not gonna want to see the, like, less charitable sides of it. That's, like... my friend Michael. He's been super awesome to me, right, and he's letting me rent his old apartment, and he got me a job, and shit. But if I found out that he'd been really terrible to someone, I'd feel at least as conflicted as you do."

They're close enough in age, and Darlington knows it, but all the same he marvels once more at how...prescient Caleb is, in a way he doesn't think he had been in his final year of high school. He'd had other concerns, to be sure; other things pulling his attention and consuming his time, but his maturity had taken a far different form.

"I told you before how Lethe had failed Alex," he says after a moment. "And not just this last year, not just as my Dante. Before then too, which is only something I came to think about, at least in that particular form, in getting to know her." He thinks about their argument after the Aurelian ritual, before the wine and the smashed crockery, the sudden realization he'd had that she'd been chased to this very point by forces beyond her control. "They'd been aware of her, of what she could do, almost her entire life. Monitoring her, or at least...keeping tabs. They could have helped her. But they didn't."

It reminds Caleb so much of the AM, what he knows of it, at least, that his stomach twists sickly. He's removed enough from it, now, that it doesn't immediately send him into a panic. But he still feels a cold sweat on the back of his neck, and he breathes out a slow, shaky breath.

"Because they wanted her in that position," he reasons. "To hear the offer she couldn't refuse. That's fucking dark, Dude."

"Something like that," he says, thinking of so many pieces that he hadn't quite put together yet: Scroll & Key's waning power; the fact that this year had been a funding year, and doubly important because of it; the few entries he'd made in the Albemarle Book as he chased a theory he still wasn't sure was a valid one. Things were in flux, in a way that even Darlington hadn't understood with all his knowledge and all his devotion, and then came Alex--a girl with more power than, perhaps, even she knew.

He hears the shudder in Caleb's breath, an edge to it that's more than just exertion, and he glances over. "Hey," he says, nodding towards a cutaway in the path a few paces ahead, in case he wants to pull aside. "Are you...? You don't need to tell me, if you don't want to, but we can stop a moment."

"I-I'm okay," Caleb assures quickly. "Let's just keep going." He stares at the path ahead, steadfastly not acknowledging Daniels traffic cone concern. "We— Can we change the subject?" he asks when his heart rate doesn't slow from the near-panic he feels. He really, really doesn't want to have a meltdown in the middle of a running trail.

He'd spooked him somehow, without even meaning to, and while there's regret that now mingles with the concern he's still feeling, Darlington tries to exude a little more calm than anything else. It may not work, may not lead Caleb back to a more even place, but it's what he can do for the moment. "Yeah," he says, and they pass the cutaway without pausing. "We'll keep going."

It takes a minute or two to think of a question that's anodyne enough, something that has little chance of reinvoking whatever had triggered Caleb's panic in the first place. "What else do you like to do?" he asks. "Other than football or running, that is."

That's better. That's easier. Caleb takes another breath before falling back into the rhythm of his running. "Um, you ever heard of Harry Potter?" he asks. "My sister and I played Quidditch a lot, back home."

He almost laughs. Of course he's heard of Harry Potter, obsessed as he's always been with those kinds of stories, even after coming to understand magic as something a little deeper and darker than a schoolboy fantasy. Even so, he remembers being young, devouring each book beneath the covers of his narrow bed at Black Elm--in his tower room, so like something at Hogwarts anyway--and the impulse to laugh is replaced with something softer and just as genuine.

"I've definitely heard of Harry Potter," he says. "Never actually played Quidditch, though."