<span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">With a low utter of gratitude for the compliment paid to his home, Mikkel closed up behind Quinn and followed him inside, pausing just short of the sofa to watch him take in his surroundings. Just as Quinn spent a few long moments admiring the decor, so too did Mikkel spend a few long moments admiring him in turn, from the gentle lavender tone of his shirt to the way it complemented his complexion. The surgeon was a man who appreciated beautiful things, and his companion that evening certainly fit the bill.<br/>
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"A fine sense of smell, I see," Mikkel noted. "I'll save you the struggle and tell you it's venison. And for that, I believe I have just the thing." <br/>
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So said, he moved into the adjacent kitchen. A wide archway stood between the two rooms and with the expansive point of entry, it made easy work of entertaining guests lingering behind in the living room. Such allowed him to reach a below-counter wine rack without losing sight of Quinn, who had stayed behind to examine the first room. From the rack, he selected one of his go-to bottles for red meat - a Belle Gios pinot with enough in the way of rich, velvety notes to pair well with the venison. He poured two glasses and met Quinn under the arch, offering him one of the pair.<br/>
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Prompted for a small tour, Mikkel needed only a moment's thought before nodding his consent. "Of course. Not at all due to the flattery, of course, but because if I was to confine you to any room in my home, it would not be this one."<br/>
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With a free hand, he went for the lower section of Quinn's back, pressing only slightly in a bid to guide him forward, past the living area and into a wide hall flanked by a handful of rooms. Some doors remained closed - guest room, guest bathroom, storage - though Mikkel still mentioned their function as they passed. Others sat open, namely his study, a warmly decorated room lined with shelves, anchored in the center by an antique desk. At the back sat a tall window, in front of which sat a chessboard, the pieces arranged in such a way that it appeared a game was still in progress.<br/>
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Mikkel moved them past a set of carpeted stairs that would lead to the upper level, which housed the main bedrooms, an office, and access to the attic. But though he imagined he wouldn't mind for Quinn to see the bedroom, he had other plans first. "I did promise you something interesting, no? In here," he gestured to a door in the middle of the downstairs hall, which opened to yield his private workspace. Not a workspace for his medical occupation, no, but one for that which kept him occupied in his free time.<br/>
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At the far side of the room sat a workbench, which with the curtains drawn in the daytime would sit bathed in afternoon sunlight. Unlike the rest of his home, this particular room was by far the most simply decorated, accented not with art or books or vases, but handheld power tools, metal implements, and industrial trade steel shelves housing various plastic containers, each meticulously marked with its contents. At first glance, it looked not unlike a wood carver's studio, but rather than wooden planks, near the bench sat a neat row of off-white materials - cylindrical, bisected, their insides hollowed out, no wider than the average sink pipe. Cradling his wine glass, Mikkel bid his younger companion inside to have a better look.<br/>
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"I took up wood carving in my youth," he noted, moving inside after Quinn, "until medical school swallowed all my free time. When studying my specialty and opening a rib cage for the first time, it occurred to me that bone might be a more challenging medium." Stepping over to the workbench, he plucked one of the bisected bones from the surface, holding it just below eye level. "Every so often, I'll do a bit of deer hunting. This one," he peered into the hollow, tubiform material, "is from a trip I took upstate last week. I've not yet decided what to do with its bones, but its meat is downstairs in the oven as we speak."</span>