Woven - Robin, John Stoker, Kira Burke, Cody Dayton

“I know this is good in hot cocoa, but chilies and chocolate in bread?” Cody asks, eyeing the dough filling John is mixing in the biggest bowl Robin could find in his kitchen. 
“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” John chuckles. “But yeah. Trust me. And Robin’s had my cookies.” He dumps in the small bowl of dried, chopped chiles that have been soaking while he works. The filling is already smelling deliciously rich, he used up the last of the really good cocoa powder from home, that’s stronger than anything he can buy in the grocery stores here. He did find local honey and used up almost half the bottle of thick amber sweetness in this recipe.
Momma says food is only as good as what you put into it. And John doesn’t plan on skimping on that, especially in something as important as their unofficially named ‘Friendship Bread’. Because that’s the sort of thing that only turns out as good as what you put in too.
“Alright, let’s see if the dough’s risen enough to start putting it all together,” He adds, opening the oven where the bread dough is rising, checking the consistency of the dough and nodding approval.
Robin hops down from where he’s been perched on the edge of the counter where he’s been watching John work and also keeping the overly curious animals out of the food. John is pretty sure the dough has some cat and dog hair in it, but he doesn’t mind. Everything has cat and dog hair when Robin is involved.
SMELLS DELICIOUS, Kira signs.
“Bitter, salty, savory, sweet,” John says. “There’s a little bit of all of them in here.” He turns out the dough onto the counter and begins to knead it, just enough to prepare for braiding.
He leans on the counter. “Momma says there should be as many strands in the braid as there will be people eating it.” He slices the dough into four chunks and then sets each one in front of Cody, Kira, and Robin before picking up his own. “Now you’re going to roll this out into a flat long rectangle, about as wide as your hand and as long as your arm.”
For a few minutes, the kitchen is silent aside from the soft swish of hands against the dough and rolled up sleeves against the edge of the counter. Once the rectangles are done, John spreads a line of the filling down the center of each and they all roll them up like tiny versions of Momma’s cinnamon rolls. Then John presses the ends of the strands together and they begin braiding.
It looks like none of the others have ever worked a four stranded braid before. There’s a good deal of confusion, missed sections, and bumping elbows, but in the end, the slightly lumpy loaf is finished, brushed with water and sprinkled with coarse salt, and ready to be baked. John slides the baking sheet into the oven and all four of them sit down at the table with a deck of cards to play 'go fish’. The cards have literal fish on them; Robin found them at a fae shop that sells handmade paper goods, and they’re slightly enchanted, the fish seem to move a little every time a card is laid down on the table.
The smell of baking, a combination of the yeasty bread, dark chocolate, honey, and chili pieces, fills the kitchen. Cody eventually bows out of the game to play with Poe on the floor with some string, since otherwise the cat is too fascinated by the fish on the cards and keeps batting everyone’s hands. Kira wins two games, easily. John is sure she knows everyone’s tells, she’s always watching them carefully. Robin wins one game as well, he’s good at keeping track of who has what cards.
Eventually, the timer on John’s phone goes off. Cell signal doesn’t work well in Rowan House, but the rest of the phone’s features still function. He checks the bread, tapping the loaf the way Momma always did, then putting it back for a few more minutes.
When it’s done, he pulls out the loaf and sets it steaming on the cutting board, then pours glasses of milk all around. He slices off chunks of the bread, placing them on plates and handing them around the table. No one seems to care that the bread is piping hot, still steaming, as they break off chunks and taste them. Robin seems completely unaffected by the heat, maybe a consequence of his fire fae side, but Kira and Cody both drink their glasses of milk dry before they’re half done. Still, they’re smiling.
John looks around the table. All together, they make something good. Their pasts wrapped up in who they are, the bittersweet moments that have made them them, and now they’re all woven up with each other’s lives to face the future.