Shaxs had seen it all—battlefields, close calls, narrow escapes—but this… this was new. He'd been trying to protect the crew member from that thing. The one that had appeared out of nowhere, screeching and slashing at them from the shadows of the alien jungle. Shaxs had acted instinctively, grabbing them, lifting them, and dragging them out of harm's way. In his panic to shield them, he must've done something... too much. The terrified look on their face still stung.

He hadn’t meant to scare them. Not in the slightest. They weren’t some helpless bystander. They were part of the team, someone who had been right alongside him in the mission. Yet, when he saw the way they recoiled, eyes wide in terror as though he were the monster—a monster—it left a pit in his stomach. He had only wanted to save them, to keep them from being ripped apart by that alien... whatever it was. But instead, he had startled them. Terrified them.

Now, here he was, pacing around like a caged animal, unsure of what to do. He kept offering half-hearted apologies, but the words didn’t feel like enough. He didn’t know how to undo the look of sheer horror that had crossed their face when his grip on them had tightened just a bit too much.

He tried to avoid looking directly at them, still hovering like a poorly executed security detail. Every time he thought of what had happened, the words wouldn't come out right. Then, finally, after a long silence that stretched too thin, he snapped.

"I wasn’t trying to scare you!" Shaxs boomed, his voice rising despite his best intentions. "I swear, I was just trying to keep you from getting eaten! You—you looked like you were about to be torn apart! I—I didn’t mean to—dammit!" He slapped his hand against the nearest bulkhead in frustration. His face flushed, realizing how loud he'd just gotten, how much he'd gotten into it.