mint frost, amazingly, doesn't seem that deterred by his enthusiasm. This, for a long time, will be the closest that the other will see of the real Calem. The Calem that wasn't a carefully crafted version of what people wanted him to be. His passion was real. His opinions were real. Art was the only link he had between who he really was and what he had to be. It was the only thing keeping his even mildly human.

Calem listens to Mint's opinion on the piece the same way he would listen to another high value critic. A pleasure only few got, not that Mint was aware.

"I do agree, it is on the nose. I think the technical skill in mixing the two mediums so seamlessly makes up for it, though." Calem accepts the leaning, finding the smile on his face sits there more naturally than usual.

"I greatly enjoy art. It is such a precise skill that can inspire so many emotions. Do you enjoy art, Mint?"

The question is dolled back.

Calem doesn't flinch. In his pocket, out of sight, his hand tightens. Just a moment, the leather of his glove creaking, before relaxing. The brief memory flickers under the surface. His mother laying on the bathroom floor. Blood under his nails. Father's voice a snarl. Tears coating his cheeks and screams thick in his throat as a rhythmic snap echoes.

The intrusive childhood memories are pushed away. Outside, Calem is just fine. Nothing has changed.

"Only when I was a child." Calem seems almost sheepish as he answers. "No talent for any crafts. So, I will just enjoy the work of those with more skill." Content to brush past this conversation, no doubt as much as mint frost was, Calem tried to wrap a sly arm around the other. Rest on Mint's hip, so he could guide him to the next piece.

"This one is by... ah, yes, luciano fisk." There is a small frown as Calem eyes the piece up and down. This was one of the sculptures sent by Father to pad out the collection here until he got more stable artists to sponsor on his own. "Have you heard of the Fisk family, Mint?" If Mint could dig claws into old wounds and not know it, so could Calem.

"They're very... unusual in the art field. A whole family dedicated to art. Tops of the field, some would say. Yet... is it not odd for every one of their brood to do art? Different mediums, no less?" He glances back at the piece in question, a small shrug. "I find most of the work they do quite... hollow. Impressive and popular, yes, but it lacks something I can't quite put a finger on."

In that regard, Calem was unusual for a critic. Most of the rest of the art world, even his own Father, fell all over themselves for the Fisk family's art of all kinds.

A small shake of the head.

"There was one I was interested in vaguely, once upon a time. Potential was there for something deeper, but it always felt stifled." And that particular artist hadn't made anything in a long time.

But, Calem wasn't here to chat about the Fisk family. mint frost proposes a interesting question to him.

"Well...." There is that temptation to lie. Calem could talk about art and all it's merits for hours. Even from things he didn't like. While this particular marble piece of luciano fisk's was not his favorite, any good critic could point out what worked about it as well as what didn't. It would be so easy to pick out a piece he thought that Mint might like and talk it up.

Some how he didn't want that. Not this time.

"The things here are all lovely in their own way." Is what he finally answered with, pausing to glance over at the other. "But my absolute favorite piece is back in my home. It makes all of this-" A brief motion around them. "Look cheap and commercial."

"It's beautiful." Calem thinks of the piece hanging in his living room. The very showpiece of his home; the whole decor of his living room was selected to make the painting stand out.

mint frost's hand is more than welcome. Calem's face softens as he tangles his fingers with the other's, squeezes his hand gently.

"If you'd be willing." There is a slight flush there, as if what Calem is asking is clandestine. "I don't make it a habit of taking pretty men home with me." A truth and a lie. Calem never took his partners home with him- they got hotel rooms and other impersonal spaces.

There is a soft acceptance. Calem feels like a predator dragging his hunt back to his den. We chance the scene.

His penthouse is on the top floor. In the fancy part of Lilycove, the rich part of Lilycove. His key-card slides through the locks to get inside the building and gold filigreed elevator brings them up top. It's quiet this evening between them. A lock in the door plus a pin code to enter his place- something mint frost would need to remember in the future. If he ever came over again.

The soft tinkle of running water greets them when the door is open. It smells like lemons and chocolate undercut with something clean. It's blue, lots of blue, paired with dark colored browns and the occasional cream. His place is huge inside, just the living room alone. A waterfall is used as a wall, failing to hide the stairs behind that lead up to his room. Even in the darkness it shines with the lights of the city outside.

A massive window overlooks the city proper and the ocean.

Calem steps inside and turns up the lights- having a dimmer rather than a switch. It makes a hung hoop decoration above shine and cast off small specks of rainbow light from the crystals it's studded with.

"Please, have a seat anywhere you like." is offered, kindly, and Calem moves over to a small bar half hidden along the indent of a wall. "Would you like something to drink?" Many rich and expensive alcohols sit behind him- but there is a mid sized fridge full of non alcoholic as well should Mint choose that.

"The painting is there." He nods his head to a wall with a large television. Calem presses a button and the wall shifts, hiding the television inside and revealing the piece of art in question.

It's not fully finished which may be seen as unusual. A field of sunflowers. No name on the canvas. From where Calem stands, he leans on the bar and sighs.

"Isn't it lovely? I got it as a gift. No name, no idea who created it. Not even finished... but its breathtaking. The melancholy is palpable when you look at it."

For what it's worth, Calem doesn't notice.

He's a man who prides himself on reading people. On forcing them to tell him secrets. Yet here in his home he had let his guard down. mint frost could do anything to him he wanted. Work the redhead like putty in his hands as long as that painting is out.

So Calem fetches a crystal glass and puts perfectly clear ice cubes inside. Sparkling water is poured from a tap. A bottle of strawberry is grabbed from the fridge for himself; to be polite since Mint didn't want alcohol. Coming from behind the bar, he smiles sweetly at Mint and sets the glasses down on his table, under coasters of course. Yet when he sits his eyes inevitably find their way back to the art piece.

He has no idea that Mint is watching him so closely.

Mint would be able to see how his face softens. The person that Calem could have been, that Mint doesn't know doesn't really exist, shows for a moment. A soft look of vulnerability.

"The man claimed it was a Fisk, but I've never seen anything like this come from any of them." Calem sounds like he still doesn't believe it. "Also no records of a piece like this. The art world is tight knit in it's own way. This wouldn't have went under the radar from such a famous family." Even here Mint couldn't escape that name.

"I'm still not sure what she thought she would gain by lying to me with her gift. I only kept it because... well..." He makes a vague motion at the piece with his glass.

"When I look at it... it feels fuzzy, like a dream you wake up from and you want so badly to go back to. You can see the desperation in each stroke. This lovely scene is haunted by something." For a moment, just a moment, the smile he always kept thins. Calem's eyes, fixated still on the painting, seem to be elsewhere. "It's a cheery facade to hide misery underneath. It's a final plea for something to change. This painting is so faceted that... well, it's a shame I don't know who made it."

Calem glances back over to Mint, finally, pulled from whatever trance he had been in. He gives a small and sheepish smile, as if embarrassed.

"Sorry if I'm boring you."