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Horace had worried about Oliver. At first, it was a small, easily pushed away thing - born from Oliver's comments about overwork, from the way he pushed and pushed himself. Seeing him in the mall and the way Oliver had pushed himself up, shield close to tearing... Horace worried more. There were similarities, he thought, mentions of dreams and sleepless nights and worries that Horace had too, but had been too apprehensive to ever mention. He was nervous now, too. What if he was wrong, or if Oliver didn't want to discuss anything, or they weren't so similar after all? He shook his head. At very least, he could try to aggressively mother Oliver into feeling better.

He shifted the bag of Cheetos in his arms (the hugest one he'd been able to buy, although he carried no ice cream). With a sigh, he knocked smartly on the lifer's door. "Oliver? I got Cheetos n' stuff."

"Think fast," he said, and lobbed the bag of Cheetos at Oliver. Horace could only hope that, if Oliver missed, the erstwhile snacks would sail in some sort of magical arc and collide with the bed instead of the floor. Although if they did hit the floor, it wouldn't be so bad - Cheetos were amazing durable, unlike other chips. The Nokia of snack foods, maybe.

While Horace thought about nonsense things, he looked over Oliver carefully. He'd said he wasn't sleeping - dreams - and Horace had noticed the tiredness drawing lines in his friend's face at times. He wondered if he looked similar. It was an awkward subject to broach; how exactly was he supposed to say it? 'Hey, Oliver, you said you had trouble sleeping, me too. I dream about my boyfriend strangling me over and over and over and I dream about how the sea sounded, amplified, endless, when it lapped at the shore just beyond the cave's mouth. What do you dream about?' It was silly and so he said nothing.

Instead, he crossed the room and unceremoniously heaved himself onto Oliver's bed. His arm flopped out and he squished one of the dinosaur plushies approvingly. "When're you gonna get yourself at least a DS, Oliver? For when you can't go bother MoonMoon." MoonMoon was, of course, Finn, and every single moon hunter whom Horace felt like nicknaming. Dawson might have been FoodMoon, though, if Horace had been inclined to nickname him. Could a hunter not in moon division, but who acted like they were a moon, be rightly termed a deathstar then? That's no moon. He snorted.

"Oliver, are you just not sleeping 'cause you don't want to sleep or do you just wake up a lot?" He remember their first meeting, in the infirmary where the white pillows had looked as though they'd swallow Oliver whole.

Horace watched Oliver out of the corner of his eye, jiggling one foot. It wasn't a gesture of impatience just an idle jittery thing that likely had to do with how much caffeine he'd been consuming as of late. He stuck his hand down into the bag, carefully holding a few Cheetos between his thumb and forefinger. He loved the damn things, but hated that the powder got everywhere, like some kind of cheesy glue. At least it wasn't as bad as glitter.

When Oliver seemed to close off, Horace leaned over and bumped his shoulder into the other man's. "Do you wanna talk about it? Sometimes it helps... I think." He was silent for a moment, and rubbed his fingers together idly. "I... I dream too, you know."

"Yeah... I do. They wake me up and make me... not wanna go to sleep." He ran a hand through his hair then brought it down to make a wobbly motion. "You know." Or Horace thought Oliver knew.

"You tell me about yours, I'll tell you about mine?" His voice was a little hesitant; he'd never told anyone exactly the things he dreamed.

He sighed, feeling weariness sweep over him like a cloak. "I don't know if this is gonna help much, because brains are weird things-" Rolling his shoulders, he looked at Oliver, noting how the man's eyes darted. "But... I really think most of us here have dreams like... that. I don't think it's unnatural, although it's unpleasant, it's awful." How could they not have dreams? Every hunter had been through some sort of trauma, some worse than others.

"I think, Oliver, even if your dreams like to say differently, that you're a good hunter and you'd try to save everyone." He wondered if others talked about their dreams - there were intensely private things, but sometimes the dreams caught in his throat, trying to choke their way out. They made his hands shake and his mouth dry. Absently, he rubbed Oliver's back.

It was easy to fall into this old pattern. Horace pushed aside his own problems, focusing on those around him. It was a defense mechanism. He genuinely cared about his friends' problems, of course, i would never have worked if he didn't care. He let Oliver talk without interruption, leaning in to catch the words that his voice staggered on.

After he was done, had trailed off, Horace was silent for a second. "But, Oliver, regardless of your dreams - what actually happened?"

Horace kept up a light rubbing motion on Oliver's back, hoping the contact would help the other man somehow, keep him a little bit grounded. He let the silence hang for a little bit, not trying to soothe Oliver with meaningless words or noises. Still, he kept up the motion. Horace would be comforting later, but he though that maybe, just maybe, getting it all out might help.

"What happened, Oliver?"

His hand stretched out, almost reached to rest along those scars before Horace stopped himself. "Oliver," he said gently, but firmly. "-how many people did you save that day?"