Oh, man. He knows he should be frightened that he's in over his head, maybe, especially as he's not sure he knows the right thing to say, but one thing Eric has always been good at is interacting with other people. His book smarts might be suffering terribly, sorry Mr. Feeny, but his emotional intelligence is fortunately doing quite well. He might not know the right things to say about what happened to him in the past, but he's gonna try to help him now.

"Hey," he says in a soft, quiet voice. "I get it. I understand. You don't have to be sorry."

The little thing munching at his fingers, whispering at him. Eric isn't entirely sure he can get close enough to it to snatch it away, but he keeps his hands up and placating for now. He's done his best to bandage them up with pieces of his shirt.

"It was doing that to me, too. I didn't like that part very much."