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Most anaesthetics aren’t largely effective on Javik, knocking him out for surgery is out of the question. They’re doing part of this the old fashioned way, numbing gel washing down a general painkiller and four haughty stoic eyes yelling to get on with it already. Or no that’s not yelling or his eyes. That’s the touch telepathy amplifying in a feedback loop.
If she had the time Liara would like to study it, but there’s a war outside the Normandy. Javik hasn’t been stingy with how many samples she’s allowed to take either, so even though he lies blatantly about the empire she still has un-corrupted research samples, and Shepard enforces enough breaks she can work on them without much guilt.
Javik complains less in her lab, at least when he’s playing specimen. Less doesn’t mean none, he attempts to start telling her to hurry and she kicks the adjustment lever on the examination cot hard enough to lower it all at once. He shuts up so he doesn’t bite his tongue off. She flicks her omnitool on, connecting with her borrowed bronchoscope’s camera and casting the view screen away from her hand. Dr Chakwas had offered to help, Liara’s training and experience wasn’t meant so much for healthy live subjects as bioarcheological examinations and field repair. Javik would vanish if anyone else tried, her hands where steady and it was admittedly nice to spend time with the Prothean when he wasn’t burying under a superiority complex only half façade.
The thin latex of her gloves hasn’t been enough to block out the faint impressions of communication. Her hypothesis that it’s a combination of her own abilities resting more in hand and mind and his being evenly spread through his skin remains sadly speculation. Still, Liara tilts his head back and dismisses the anxiety/hospital stench/safety impressions he’ll pretend he isn’t projecting.
The tube is flexible, not as narrow as it could be, originally designed for wider human throats but his breath puffs warm against her wrist.
Initial external scans had made him look more like the one-and-a-half lung set up of Asari, he’d known enough anatomy to scoff and proclaim the Prothean three lung structure was superior. A glimpse at the screen proves that at least hadn’t been lying about the number.
Javik tries to say something, the hum of it sounds curious. It’s unintelligible beyond that, his tongue weighed down, she’s pokes him in the cheek whenever he tries to shut his mouth and the tube is past his vocal cords.
Liara distracted by manoeuvring a sharp pair of forceps into position over a suitably thin divide between two lobar bronchi falls into her old habit of guessing what people mean.
“If it’s ‘Dr T’soni when will you be finished’ you’re asking then I want six samples, two from each lung. If it’s ‘Dr T’soni what are you going to do with it’ then I want to analyze the atmospheric requirements you actually have.”
She snaps her wrist and the wire back, her words could be biting if she tried but in tone Liara is only playful. Javik rolls all four of his eyes, something he definitely picked up from the crew. It takes a moment away from the tube to deposit this chunk of flesh in one of her neatly labeled Petri dishes and thread the clamp back down. Javik still can’t talk but he gestures one handed, at the tubes and then in the sign of something small.
Liara assumes it’s something along the lines of ‘are you sure that’s a large enough sample size you primitive’.
“It’s the necessary minimum, it isn’t comfortable.”
Javik shrugs one stiff shoulder.
“Still, this can’t be enjoyable. Better to do as little damage as possible- oh.”
The vague sense of presence he has, the aura that something is there and it feels displeased/disdain/distant/other snaps shut after the faint impression of well, enjoyment.
He’s very pointedly not moving anymore, staring at nothing. An embarrassed statue. Liara drops the cap on her current dish and goes right to fixing the perfectly intact wire, staring at him while she pretends to fiddle.
“Karin doesn’t need the lab for another few hours. It’d be a shame to not investigate things thoroughly.”
If he’d like to leave it wouldn’t be subtle. He’s stormed out of enough places in both petty and real anger. Javik stops appearing to be petrified, no more movement than that.
Even invisible beneath her mask Liara can’t help but smile bright eyed, quickly nudging the dishes into three more distinctive groups.
“Twelve is a nice even number don’t you think?”