If he does that when I hold him, I would think he is being "huggy" too, the thing that kinda makes me suspicious is the fact that Oliver gets often nervous around Cris. He usually gets like this when Cris is thumping about or making sudden quick moves, and Cris is very gentle when he picks up Oliver. I really want Oliver to loosen up around Cris more and if being picked up frightens him even more, we really need to refrain from doing so unless necessary.
He was never partial to be picked up to begin with. He hates being suspended in the air in general, on vet trips and such he is perfectly calm inside the car but he wails his head off while being carried on the way to/from the car in his cage, even if I hold the cage in my arms instead of letting it dangle. I sort of trained him to feel more comfortable being held in arms, it worked for a while but as I said, I am afraid I am getting too small a "vessel" for his comfort. He is much more comfortable sitting on my lap, but as the picture below shows, he does the head burying also on the lap of Cris.
As Gill pointed out at these moment he does look like he is trying to avoid eye contacts with him, which is not an encouraging sign.
I will have him loosen his grip a little to allow him an escape if necessary next time and see what happens...
