Work Text:
“Snow golems?” Jeongguk asks, excited but puzzled.
“Snow golems.” Yoongi nods, eyes sparkling as he holds a classic red ornament in one hand and a ball of sand in the other.
It’s that time of year again, where snow covers the grey sidewalks and turns life in the city the pure world it's advertised to be. Wreaths hang merrily on streetlights, everyone is a bit nicer to their loved ones, and money flows from one entity to the next easy as water. Last winter Jeongguk had been anxiously waiting to hear back on whether he’d be accepted for an apprenticeship or not. Now he stands here, with Yoongi his mentor converted to best friend number two (Namjoon would always be best friend number one, and there would be no one who could change that as much as he might love them and woah isn’t that a big word-) in their shared workshop.
“Every year the city contracts me to provide snow golems to roam the city and play with whoever asks. It’s great for touristy areas, but also just nice for families to have fun with if they don’t have a lot of money. This year, it's you and me, which will help get this done a lot faster thank god. It’s not hard work, it just takes forever.” Yoongi points to several crates on the floor, filled to the brim with ornaments. Taehyung had been bringing them in slowly last week, shaking his head with a teasing grin when Jeongguk has asked what they were for. He’d assumed they were going to decorate the workshop or the library next door, but this was much better.
“So what are the ornaments for?” Jeongguk asks, taking the red one from Yoongi’s grasp. “And why do you have sand?”
Yoongi presses down with his thumb into the sand, making a hole in the center. He explains further to Jeongguk, who’s absently started to juggle a few of the ornaments, that not every golem has to be made with earth.
“Seasonal things like this don’t need to fully be made of dirt or clay because they don’t need to last. The magic naturally seeps out this way so there’s no real hassle. You just need to fill them with a core like a normal golem, and you set them loose into the snow. They’ll start to build up their bodies on their own.”
Yoongi hands the sand to Jeongguk after he’s been tossed another ornament, and they take a seat opposite each other at the largest workbench in the middle of the room. Jeongguk drags a crate closer to his feet.
The work really is quite simple. They pull on their golem making gloves; big thick things with palms easily able to hold two cantaloupe each. Contrary to what one might expect, it's as easy to maneuver in them as without, since they’re magic themselves and objects touching them follow the will of their wearer. Jeongguk takes his favorite fertilizer and dumps it into the open compartment on the back of his hand. When it closes he can feel the familiar pull of magic being taken from him being churned into the soil. It’s not uncomfortable anymore, but actually feels a bit relieving since his magical reservoirs have built up so much from this past year alone that sometimes it feels like he has too much.
He looks over at Yoongi and smiles when he sees gold drip slowly into his mixer. Jeongguk hadn’t really known what to expect when the first time Yoongi gave him a live demo of his creation process. It had been a few days after he’d settled into the house upstairs, still very shy to Yoongi though he’d had no problems with Taehyung. It turned out his moniker “honey boy” had been quite literal. He’d been surprised but also endeared when he saw Yoongi mix honey with his magic when creating his golem.
“Honey?” Jeongguk had whispered, the atmosphere a gentle quiet. Yoongi had kept his eyes sternly to his work, ears turning red, one hand reaching towards his neck and smearing clay there. It was expected to get messy in their line of work, so it didn’t bother either of them.
“Sweet cores make kinder golems Jeongguk-ah.” He’d said seriously, fingers moving carefully to shape the mixture as it came out the other side, let out through the palms once churned enough.
Jeongguk didn’t doubt it then, and he didn’t doubt it now. Yoongi’s golems are the kindest he’s ever come across, so he’s eager to see them take form and go off into the snow. There's a knock at the door and Taehyung, the most prevalent example of Yoongi’s quality, bounds inside with Yeontan in his arms and Pepero on his head. Jeongguk had wondered where his little frog golem had gone.
Yeontan had been an early Christmas gift to Taehyung from Jeongguk. He’d spent months designing Yeontan to be the perfect dog companion to Taehyung because he’d wanted to give back in some way for Taehyung’s open affection. Sometimes he’d look at him and see a sadness there he couldn’t begin to approach, unlike Yoongi’s where he could slowly peel it away.
Taehyung was a golem, an extraordinary one with actual sentience and perfect exterior human likeness, having a piece of Yoongi’s own soul within him. He’d been Yoongi’s project to show his mastery before a licensing council, made to give Yoongi companionship in his day to day and help keep him social since he easily lost himself and his time to work. He just hadn’t anticipated that his own loneliness would split itself, too.
Yeontan was as perfect looking. He couldn’t be distinguished from any other dog, but he was much more similar in need with Taehyung as a golem, and there was the fact that they could intercommunicate being a great bonus. Jeongguk hadn’t put a piece of his soul within, simply because he wasn’t ready for that type of magic yet. He wanted to save that for his second gift to Taehyung later, when he too would make a human-like golem to prove mastery to a council. But that golem would be for Taehyung instead of himself.
“I’m taking Namjoon with me for my shift at Jin’s, I’m just making sure he didn’t have plans with you beforehand. Oooh are you finally starting this year’s batch?” Taehyung bounced on his heels, wanting to come closer and peek, but Yoongi had set barriers in the room on the floor with chalk. Taehyung had a tendency of hurting himself on accident by playing with tools or being too nosy for his own good.
“Hm? Oh no, it’s alright! He told me he wanted to explore around on his own today since I’d be down here with Yoongi. Hi Tannie!” Jeongguk waved, giggling when Yeontan let out a yip, tail wagging at the attention.
“Are you going to sleepover there again, Tae?” Yoongi asked, picking up another ornament and popping the top off. Once he filled it to about three quarters of the way, he said a quick charm under his breath for the honey to harden around the sides, leaving a gooey center, so it wouldn’t spill out. He popped the top back on, and place the new golem core into an empty crate by his own feet.
“Mm, yeah since Hobi won’t be home ‘til tomorrow from his trip. Sucks that he’s stuck in Gwangju from the weather. I don’t know if Namjoon will though?” Taehyung pulled down on Yeontan’s beanie, a matching one on his own head. They also wore matching sweaters and Jeongguk couldn’t really tell if the designs were reindeer silhouettes or lobsters. Knowing Jin, the answer would change every time someone asked.
“Okay, that’s fine but don’t take the car take the bike. I’m gonna need it tomorrow to bring all these babies to the park.” Taehyung pulled a face.
“You better not pull an all-nighter again Min Yoongi! And you-” he pointed to Jeongguk, “don’t enable him. You need to watch out for yourself too.” He cocked one hip to the side, waiting for a yes. Jeongguk hid a smile because they all knew how wrapped up the two could get in their craft when alone together so Jeongguk wouldn’t be much use to stop himself or Yoongi in all honesty. But he didn’t like to upset Taehyung or worry him, so he nodded his head.
“Goodbye mother, have a good shift at work.” Yoongi rolled his eyes. Taehyung dramatically blew kisses while throwing a “Thank you baby, but you better listen to what I said!" as he walked out.
The rest of the day was spent working. At some point Pepero, Jeongguk’s golem in the shape of a small frog, had turned on the speaker system for them to listen to music. They talked over it when they felt their eyes needed a break, fingers sore from the repetitive motions, but they didn’t stop for long, going well into the night as Taehyung had warned them not to. It would be fine, they’d brave the consequences later.
It was comfortable, all these long hours spent. The workshop was their second home, a safe space Jeongguk could sink into. The only expectation here he had was to learn and create from that learning. Golem making came to be Jeongguk’s favorite thing for two reasons; he loved art and he loved helping others. He had applied for apprenticeship because he wanted to really learn more about this career, to dive right ahead into it. He wasn’t terribly good at studying things he wasn’t interested in, and figured he could gather any book he wanted from the national magical library, the Golden Index, as long as he was in town.
He had applied to be Yoongi’s apprentice for his admiration in Yoongi’s designs for the city that he had seen when going through articles online as well as the fact that he’d been conveniently in Seoul. It had been the best decision he could have made. Not only is Yoongi the best mentor he could have had, but Yoongi is a great person.
He inspires Jeongguk to try new things with his work and with talking to others, makes Jeongguk feel at home down to his soul with how he cares. Never tries to impose on his space, they can be together in silence if they want to and do often. Yoongi understands his need to let out his thoughts in clay, too. Jeongguk never stood a chance, it was easy to fall for someone like that.
It's early in the witching hour that they're all done, dark as the bottom of the sea outside. It feels like it too, with exhaustion putting pressure on Jeongguk’s shoulders. The golem cores glow brightly, luminescent fish for the snow to swallow up. They make three trips to the car to load it up, Yoongi taking two crates stacked at a time, Jeongguk three.
“How do you still have the energy for that?” Yoongi pants, arms braced against the last crate.
“I don't, I'm doing this out of sheer spite for this mortal body.” Jeongguk deadpans. Yoongi cackles, everything a bit funnier at four am, closing the trunk. Soon they're off to the biggest park close by, snow slowly falling.
There's a thick fresh blanket of it on the ground when they get there. Jeongguk whoops in the car, and somehow (it's easy honestly) goads Yoongi into illegally creeping onto the grass so they can just dump the cores out. When they get out and pop the trunk open again, they each take an edge of the topmost crate and tip it over together.
The reaction is instantaneous: the ornaments tremble all over, once they touch the ground. Burying themselves beneath the white like glittering seeds, they gather the snow around themselves, layer by layer. Figures solidify, glowing in their centers, and emerge. They all look different by taking to one of the intents Jeongguk had when he was casting the cores. He'd wanted them all to be individual for the kids to have fun playing with them (it’d be useful for teams he thought), and as he called for one to come back he tested to see if his other intent had taken hold.
A little polar bear snow golem waddled back up to him and offered its hand. Jeongguk took it with a smile, Yoongi watching on silently. It felt like normal snow, cool and the odd combination of soft yet brittle. After holding on for a few minutes, pointing out his favorite looking characters of the bunch to Yoongi while they tipped more crates, his hand felt fine.
“Good, looks like they can't give frostbite, that counts as a win to me.” Yoongi muttered as Jeongguk let go of the polar bear.
“You're gonna make a lot of kids happy this winter, buddy.” he smiled at the golem, it smiling back, center glowing brighter for a moment before it waddled off into the morning.
When they’re tipping the last crate, Yoongi held back a couple of the last ones.
“Hyung?” Jeongguk asked, getting suspicious as Yoongi’s dead-eyed stare turns into something gleaming and sharp. Jeongguk won’t admit to a single soul he kind of liked it.
“Jeongguk-ah, wouldn’t you say a reward is well deserved from our good and timely efforts?” Yoongi said, lips quirking up.
“And what did you have in mind? Besides immediately crashing out in the doorway and waking up to Taehyung kicking us over.”
“Well there’s certainly that,” Yoongi snorted, ”but I was also thinking we deserve to have first dibs at play time.” He knocked over the golems into the snow and shouted a command as they emerged. “Snowball fight, even teams.”
Jeongguk grinned something fierce as a rabbit, dog, a tear drop-shape headed figure, and a koala stood beside him in a line. On Yoongi’s side there was a horse, a heart-shaped one, an alpaca, and what seems to be a tiny army of…cookies (?) surrounding a floating core. That one must have had too many unclear thoughts while they were filling it, and Jeongguk was about to ask if maybe they should take it back home for fixing when one of the tiny figures launches another of its kin right at his face. He can hear the golems and Yoongi laugh as it slid down his face, reforming once touching the ground and running back to its previous place.
“Oh, Yoongi. That was cute, but please prepare to die.”
It turns to chaos in the dark.
Jeongguk waves at the koala, taking off at a run, and an ear pops off to end up in his hand. It’s the perfect size to earn a shriek from Yoongi as he shoves it down the front of his shirt. All of them scatter, some of the golems building forts and others preparing snowballs for the others to fire. They make up names for the golems on the fly, somehow remembering all 8 of them, but considering two are nearly the same its not so difficult.
Cooky&Shooky, the rabbit and lead vessel for the cookie army golem respectively, are the prime example but they had a weird quirk. It seemed that no matter what, they wouldn’t fire snowballs at each other though they had no problem going after the other golems or Yoongi and Jeongguk especially. Jeongguk swears that Shooky is aiming to kill him with those watermelon sized snowballs he lobs straight for his face with RJ’s help. Something feels strange about all of the golems, something familiar, until he realizes there was a moment he spaced out thinking of his friends and their holiday plans while he was filling up these last ones. (He doesn’t know how to feel when he realizes the cookie army might just be his feelings for Yoongi- scattered into manageable sweet sweet pieces on their own and entirely overwhelming all gathered together. Shooky even has a little tooth that pokes out when he laughs. He doesn’t even try to dodge Tata’s snowball, hoping the cold will knock him away from crying. It works.)
Jeongguk is high on adrenaline and joy. Frost sticks to his lashes as he looks for Yoongi, spotting him occasionally as they run deeper into the edge of the park’s field where there are trees. His heart feels so full, every time he catches a glance. Reddened cheeks, a maraschino cherry nose, lips always in one of those wide wide grins that make Yoongi look like the cherub he is. His collar is a bit stretched from Jeongguk grabbing it, melting snow glittering on his collar bones. His long sleeves are soaked at the tips, from him wrapping his hands in them to hold the snowballs. They hadn’t expected to be out long at all, so the cold creeps in when they stop moving.
He loops back around, gunning for one of Mang’s forts to get anyone there, when there’s a cry behind him and Yoongi jumps out from behind a tree with shooky and the fam on his shoulders. He gets a faceful of snow, feels more snowballs hit his chest and shoulders. The attack surprises him enough to lose his balance, Yoongi lost in his own momentum, so they clash together onto the floor. Jeongguk pulls Yoongi on top of him to take the brunt of it, breath pushed from him by the weight. The golems scamper off, crowing in their victory.
“Oh my god,” Yoongi laughs. He eases up his weight by putting his hands on either side of Jeongguk’s head , but doesn’t fully get up. He’s laughing too hard, and once Jeongguk can breathe, he starts laughing too. What in the world were they doing?
Yoongi’s face is so close to Jeongguk’s, breath warm against the bridge of his nose, across the apples of his cheeks. Jeongguk wonders if he glitters in the fading moonlight the way Yoongi glitters in his heart. Yoongi holds his stare as he calms down, errant giggles slipping out once in a while. Something starts to shift, and Jeongguk is tired in more ways than one.
“What, what is it?” He murmurs, eyes finally flicking away. Daringly, because its five in the morning and no one was around, because things were always easier in the dark, because even if he messes up somewhere he knows Yoongi will still stay by his side as a friend, because Yoongi is helping him grow, Jeongguk suavely scoops his palm beneath on of Yoongi’s and intertwines their hands.
“You look cold.” He says. He expects Yoongi to fluster, to take his hand away, call Jeongguk out for being greasy maybe but. Instead he stares at their hands, visibly processing what’s happening. His tongue pokes out, swipes across the corner of his lip. He watches Jeongguk watch him.
“Yeah? Maybe I am cold.” Yoongi says, leaning closer. Jeongguk stays still, hoping.
“We should fix that, wouldn’t want my hyung getting sick during the holidays.”
“Aren’t you cold too? Wouldn’t want my dongsaeng catching anything either.”
“Hyung.” Jeongguk whispers, they’re almost mouth to mouth.
“Yes Jeongguk-ah?”
“Please stop being lame and kiss me.” He whines and Yoongi grins, their mouths chapped against each other from the cold, but neither really mind. Yoongi reaches for Jeongguk’s jaw, fingers gentle against the bone. Jeongguk flutters his eyes closed, whines again as he feels lips against his cheek. A giggle in his ear but then- then they connect. Their mouths press together in the beginning of winter, dry and warm, calming their hearts down from their game.
They kiss for what feels like forever, long enough that the sky starts to lighten. The sun will soon rise, but Jeongguk considers it running late. There’s a light show happening in his belly, light pouring from his mouth to Yoongi’s, making them shine from the inside out. They part with heavy breaths, smiling into each other.
“We should talk about this when we get home.” Yoongi says.
“Yeah we should, but sleep first? Please?” Jeongguk presses his face into Yoongi’s collar bones, melting where he remembers they sparkled at him. Somewhere along the line, Yoongi’s long fingers ended up tangled in the front of his hair, pulling his bangs. They card through the strands lazily now.
“Of course, Guk-ah. First we should actually go home though, and get warm.” Yoongi pulls him away, presses a kiss to each cheek, before they both get up and make their way back to the car. The golems are still there, in the field, but had stopped their battle once the two had been gone over half an hour. Jeongguk is grateful Yoongi had already put timer spells on the cores before they’d been filled. As they pass through, they say goodbye to the golems, and the golems cheer and bid them farewell back.
Home is empty when they get back. Of course it is, it’s dawn, and Taehyung won’t leave Jin’s until he’s made them all breakfast and Hoseok is home which will be in the afternoon. Plenty of time to sleep, then.
Jeongguk’s kicking off his shoes at the door, when Yoongi takes his hand again. He’s tilted his head towards the left; Jeongguk’s is on the right side.
“Come cuddle with me?” Yoongi asks, and why would Jeongguk say no to anything at this point?
They have a lot to talk about later, about how this relationship will affect them working together and time for being them between projects but- Jeongguk isn’t worried. There’s time, they’ll figure it out.