When he gets home, she doesn't hug him. He doesn't hug her. It's different to their relieved reunions, she hadn't wanted him to go in the first place and she... she looks so different: warpaint and more braids and even her clothing is different now.
She looks him over and he lets her, watching her face as she examines every inch of him that she can see. He almost quips, asks if she wants him to strip so she can do a full exam, but he can see the intensity in her eyes so he doesn't.
He's still wearing that stupid uniform. He wants to tear it off. He wants her to tear it off and free him from everything he did.
Her lips quirk. He raises an eyebrow. "Go on," he says. "Have at it."
She steps a little closer. "You're clean."
He didn't expect that. He holds back a wince at the memory of how hegot clean, but he somehow finds her amusement... fun. It's innocent, something he hasn't seen in her for a while. "What?" He tries to be gruff, he does. "I'm covered in blood."
"Yeah but no dirt. No more stink!" Another couple of steps. "Are those freckles? Do you have freckles? I totally forgot you had freckles. It's been so long since I've seen your freckles."
"Octavia," he says, amused and tired.
"I hate to think how grimy the rest of you was."
He reaches out, brushes a thumb under her eye and the pad of it comes back pitch black. "You can talk."
"It's makeup," she says and raises an eyebrow.
"It's like you smeared charcoal across your eyes," he says, rubbing his fingers to his thumb.
She glances away, cheeks tinting red.
"It's charcoal?" He thinks he should be less amused by this, should take into account how badly she wants to be a grounder, should be sympathetic and not play her up, but he needs a laugh and she started it. "You rubbed charcoal on your eyes?"
"I liked how Lexa's-" She huffs. "They think it looks great!"
"Well yeah," he says, "but have you seen their fashion sense? It's not all there."
Her lips twitch a little and she's trying so hard to be indignant, but then her arms are around him and he's pulling her close, lifting her partially off the ground to hug her tight. "I'm so glad you're okay."
"Me too," he teases but oh, god, he is, he's so glad he's okay, he didn't think he was going to make it back and he was scared, damnit.
She slides her hand to the back of his neck, fingers in his hair and buries her face in his shoulder. "I don't care what Clarke says. You're not going onany more suicide missions."
"It wasn't really a suicide mission." It was, it was. "It was more of a... possible trauma mission!"
She smacks him on the shoulder and he makes a noise of pain. She draws away and stares at him. "You're hurt."
"It's nothing," he says, rubbing at his arm.
"You're hurt," she repeats and grabs him by the hand, hauling him for a tent. "I have some grounder ointments. We're gonna deal with that right now."
"O-"
"DO YOU WANT ME TO CALL CLARKE."
His eyes widen and he blinks at her a bunch of times then wanders in her wake. "Not particularly," he says and lets her lead him away.