Erik was about as easy to irritate as a soft-skinned baby seal, it had to be said, but about this--he was more just at loose ends. It had been a long time since anyone had trusted him, and it was a hard feeling to hold onto - or even to want to hold on to - without something like a potential future full of atrocity to fray it.
So he was quiet - or silent, quiet had a more peaceful tone to it - cutting up and spearing a piece of chicken with cornered precision (Erik actually ate 'square meals' in just about every literal sense possible) before he folded his hands on the table in front of him.
"It's my guilt to feel," he said eventually, although he wasn't a person who was practiced in feeling guilty it was just easier than splitting hairs of what could someday be. That was as bad as might-have-beens, which was pretty good evidence of one of Erik's more significant blind spots. He'd convinced himself the only thing he felt for his mother's death was anger; what he had forgotten (or suppressed) was what was left once the rage of destroying everything around him had ebbed away. "Whether I deserve it or not. I'm a grown man, Raven, and I grew out of protecting my feelings a very long time ago. You'd do well to do the same."