Gencio week day 1 prompt: learning languages
Note: I’ve decided to use this as an opportunity to develop my archaeology AU a bit. You don’t need to know much besides several of the characters are archaeologists, and they’re working on a large excavation over the summer. I may later decide to string everything together into a proper fic, but these are all going to be gencio-related drabbles. @gencioweek because they said the tag wasn’t working.
Jesse has been sending him the same gif of that nerd from Atlantis tripping over himself trying to flirt with that princess all day. He’d be less annoyed by it if it wasn’t so, uh, topical, at the moment.
Hanzo was nodding along to flux collapse and excitation voltage like it was anything other than word salad. Despite having crouched behind the shed for five minutes frantically googling fluxgate magnetometer and how the damn thing worked, Genji was still just sort of nodding along and hoping the conversation drifted to a topic he knew anything about.
It really didn’t help that the tech was really very attractive. Genji hadn’t been paying much attention. He and Jesse were putting the finishing touches on the grid after spending three days cutting the grass, raking up the clippings and tossing it into Ana’s pickup to use in her compost box. They’d drifted over while Winston um-ed and uh-ed his way through a meeting with Gabe and Ana, who he hadn’t seen standing anywhere near each other in close to a decade, leaving his employee to sort out the gear and field questions.
“So yeah, now that we know the fort is for sure here, we’re really excited to see if we can detect the village, any of the pioneer camps, maybe even the – what did you guys call it? I’m not really up on the terminology.” This might have been Genji’s moment to jump in, he had been neck deep in the preliminary research for this excavation for months, but he had just noticed the tech had little frogs etched on the frames of his glasses and that was taking up most of his attention.
Hanzo was side-eyeing him in the short silence, but jumped in before it became too awkward. “A factory – essentially a trading post.”
“That’s really cool,” the tech said, smiling. “Working with you guys is amazing, I never learned any of this stuff in school. It’s a lot more high-tech than Indiana Jones.” He mimed cracking a whip, and Genji could almost sense Hanzo tense up beside him, and that finally drove him to action.
“We are accepting volunteers!” he said, a little louder than he meant to be. “Just so people can get a feel for the glamorous archaeology lifestyle.”
“For real?” The tech’s eyes lit up at the suggestion, animated and vital and Genji could feel the blush creeping up his neck. “Man, that would be so cool. I’ll have to check in with the big guy and see what our schedules will be like, but I would love to check it out.”
“Lucio, let’s get started.” Winston was an absolute gorilla of a man and that he had managed to sneak up on Genji was almost more startling than suddenly hearing his deep baritone behind him. Neither Winston nor Lucio seemed to notice, but Hanzo was giving him a weird look.
“You want to come check out the machine?” Lucio asked, turning to Genji.
Genji absolutely wanted to do whatever it was Lucio wanted, but Hanzo stepped in. Still super weird about physical contact, he reached out like he was going to grab Genji’s shoulder, but instead only tapped him before pulling back. “We need to fix the screens before the rest of the techs arrive. McCree has already started.”
Genji managed a half-smile and shrugged. “Another time, then.”
“Definitely, we’ll be around.” Hanzo had to not-quite-grab-his-shoulder again to get him to stop gawking and move.
