A pause as Chu-e blinks at the other. It was always odd to have someone barge in.

"It's nice to see you too, Tough Guy." Chu-e says, tilts his head and batting his eyelashes. There is not venom in his tone but there is heat, a soft mocking of how straight to business that Gunner Graves was. But he goes back to his cookies, sifting a fine white powder into a large bowl.

"Sugar, butter, flour, eggs, vanilla.... those over there have brown sugar and chocolate, too."

Stopping what he's doing, Chu-e gives a coy grin.

"The cookies are clean, cross my heart." He even makes the motion to cross over his heart like a good boy would.

"But this?" He dips his pinkie into the white powder he had been sifting. Holds it up for the other to see. "Pure cocaine. Miss Goode is going to have a 'Goode' time. Get it?"

A smirk as he quickly licks the powder off, turning to wash his hands.

(It was not, in fact, cocaine. It was powdered sugar.)

"I like baking."

It was the simplest answer and came the quickest. Even in Rocket had taken to feeding others when he could. Bringing lunches to Cillian Quinn, brewing tea for mint frost and Lulu Flint, cookies for declan walsh and oscar clayton, brownies for bryan delarosa and priam conrad. Plus many, many more culinary concoctions to other public events, bags loaded down with food to share. Food was love. Food was a connection.

"It just means more when you get the flour under your own nails, you know?"

He punctuates this by adding water the 'cocaine', stirring until a simple white frosting is made.

"Want to help me decorate them? I'll pay you in cookies."

Gunner Graves

Chu-e had mostly expected Gunner Graves to not give him any help with the cookies. The man seemed averse to anything that was fun; and Chu-e didn't even know him that well. So he had started to mix colors and other various little things before the other was even done speaking.

Chu-e has to pause when he realizes what Gunner said.

He drops the bowl in his hand on the table with a thud. (It was shatterproof, so it was fiiiiine) A few drops of pink icing splatter on the counter. Chu-e holds his hand on his chest, as if scandalized, an overblown and exaggerated expression of shock on his face.

"Sir, was that a joke? I didn't think you could do that!"

He lets that hang in the air for a second before relaxing again, going back his silly little tasks as if he wasn't just being a drama queen. But Chu-e is smiling now, just a bit. Not the same kind of polite and hollow smile he always gave but one with some amount of warmth, even if tiny.

"Don't be too cute like that or I might start hitting on you. I'm sure neither of us want that." Was what he finally said in his normal voice, chuckling.

One of the cookies on the table had been half filled in the resemble a Skitty's face.

"I figured as much." Chu-e sighs. "This better not be an excuse to try my cookies without any work."

Yet he turns, opening up a small container. It's filled with cookies; these aren't like the Skitty one he had been filling up. They were stained glass cookies. Various shapes, from hearts to stars to simple pokemon faces. Chu-e picks one up and crunches into it, then sits it down next to Gunner Graves.

Seems he'd been at this for a while.

"I used the same base for everything. Me 'n Eris Halla plan on love bombing the neighbors." He hums. The crystal sugar crunches between his teeth. "They're really good; I picked up most of the ingredients from a farmer's market down the road."

Chu-e would continue to ramble about the process of cooking. But Gunner, in his experience, should notice something off. It was a very subtle smell... one that Chu-e likely hadn't noticed with his nose already full of vanilla extract.

These cookies were poisoned. The batter was poisoned as well. All of them were.

Chu-e wiped crumbs off his finger and grabbed another cookie to chow down. One that was also poisoned.

Chu-e yelped when Gunner Graves grabbed him. If it hadn't been for crystal reinforced bones, the other man could have easily broken something. He doesn't fight when he's dragged to the sink, more bewildered than anything.

"Wai- poison? What the fuck! I just wasted all that sugar!" Was moaned out; that more a worry than whatever the hell was running through his blood.

Picking one of the still cooling cookies up with his free hand, Chu-e crumbled it up and brought it to his nose.

"I'll be fine." Is spat out, annoyed. He tosses the cookie into the sink and turns it on to wash chocolate off his hand.

"You know what my role in Rocket was, right? This'll just give me the shits later."

Tugging himself free of the other, Chu-e grabbed for the piles and piles of cookies- and started to fling them into the trash. A scowl darkened his brow as he did so.

The cookies all gone, delicate work from hours shattered and broken in the can, Chu-e starts to tear the stuff from his cabinets as Gunner Graves is still speaking. There is a raw fury there.

Crystal claws flex from his fingers like a cat's, ripping bags and boxes open as he throws them away. An unintended side effect.

"If fuckin Eris Halla had gotten one of these I swear to fuckin..." Chu-e's voice lowers as he mutters dark promises.

The first question Gunner asks is ignored until a packed lunch, the washable bento and all, is thrown away. The lid pops open, revealing rice shaped like Shinx and Luxray heads inside.

"I don't fucking know, Gunner!" Chu-e snaps, whirling on the other man. "Do you know how many lives I've fucked up just be fucking existing?!"

Hands are slammed down on the counter. Chu-e grits his teeth, crystal shimmering and wracking over his skin in ripples. Shaking shoulders and closed eyes are followed by deep breath. Gray tears gather in the corners of his eyes.

"I..." A sniff. Chu-e wipes his cheek on the back of his hand. "I'm sorry, man. You didn't... what if I didn't notice and I killed her, you know? Like, what would I do? What would be the point of anything?"