by pebble/scifipony
Fandom: Tracker (2024)
Characters: Reenie Greene
Words: 2,344
Tags: Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Colter-Whump
Warnings: Mild descriptions of injury
Author's Notes: Originally posted to FFN and Squidgeworld on October 7th, 2025.
The cabin door swung open wildly, slamming into the wall from its momentum.
Reenie grimaced, though she didn’t have much time to worry about damaging the property. She staggered across the threshold, awkwardly trying to help support the much larger body beside her. Colter had enough of a height advantage over her, she couldn’t be sure how much support she was really providing. He didn’t seem to be complaining though.
She helped ease him down onto the couch before rushing back to close the door. The sounds of wind and thunder were muffled now, locked away outside. She let out a long breath of relief.
Turning back to the darkened room, Reenie scrambled for the light switch. She flicked it a few times. Nothing. It figured, they hadn’t been able to catch a break once so far.
“The power’s out,” she said, working her way towards the kitchenette.
“Storm probably took down some power lines,” Colter said. He waved his phone in the air to show the lack of bars on the screen. “No phone reception either.”
Reenie groaned. “Of course there isn’t.”
“Hey,” Colter said, tone softening enough to catch her attention. “We’re gonna be okay. The storm should pass in a few hours. We can get help then.”
“Your leg...”
“My leg will be fine. I’ve got it wrapped up for now and the bleeding is under control.”
Any rebuttal was cut off when Reenie slammed into the corner of the kitchen island. She let out a soft curse, curling over to grab her banged up shin.
“You okay over there?” Colter asked. The amusement in his voice was hard to miss.
“Oh, I’m fine. Didn’t need this leg anyway.”
“Here, I have a flashlight.”
Reenie sighed in exasperation. “Of course you do.”
She heard the squeak of the couch springs a moment later. In the gloom of the darkened cabin, she could just make out Colter’s silhouette moving as he attempted to stand.
“Don’t you dare move off that couch,” she threatened. “I’m not having you reopen that wound and bleed out on me.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
Despite the flippancy of his reply, she could hear the strain in his voice. Apparently his body was in agreement with Reenie that Colter should not be moving.
Working her way back over to the couch, she held out her hand for the flashlight. He dropped it into her waiting palm. It clicked on, a ridiculously bright beam cutting easily through the shadows. Colter squinted at her, motioning for her to point the flashlight lower.
“Sorry,” she huffed. “Didn’t realize it would have the wattage of a lighthouse.”
“It comes in handy when you’re trying to run through a forest in the dark,” he defended.
That was a fair point. She supposed, in his line of work, Colter probably had need of a lot of equipment that would put her own emergency kit to shame.
It didn’t take long to find a cabinet with some matches and candles. Reenie passed a couple to Colter to set up on the coffee table while she lit several more on the kitchen island. Thankfully, the small size of the cabin meant that there wasn’t as much space to have to light up.
She retrieved the first aid kit from the bathroom next. A few blankets from the bed were added to her supply pile for good measure. It wasn’t terribly cold outside yet, still being relatively early in autumn, but she didn’t want to take any chances. Colter’s insistence that he was fine would be a lot more reassuring if he wasn’t also the person who kept checking himself out of hospitals against medical advice.
“Alright,” she said, dropping her things onto the couch and taking a seat beside Colter. “Let me have a look.”
“I told you, it’s fine,” he said. “It wasn’t that deep of a cut.”
“Uh, huh. I’ll believe it when I see it.” When he looked ready to protest again, she decided it was time to play dirty. “Please, Colter. I won’t stop worrying about it until I’m sure.”
She almost felt bad at the flash of guilt and worry that crossed his face, but she justified it in her mind as being necessary for his own good. Colter could be annoyingly stubborn about looking after himself. But one of his biggest weaknesses was how much he cared the rest of them. So, if it made him accept her help, Reenie was perfectly fine with weaponizing that against him.
Angling the flashlight so it would shine on his leg, Reenie frowned at the jacket that had been haphazardly tied around it to stem the bleeding. She mentally added risk of infection to her list of concerns. For now, it was better to focus on what she could fix.
Being as gentle as possible, she unwrapped the jacket. She had to pull the material of the jeans’ leg farther apart to see the wound properly. It was definitely not as small as he kept claiming. On the other hand, it also wasn’t as bad as she’d been fearing. At least it looked manageable.
Some gauze and a water bottle helped her get the site of the wound clean. It was still oozing a bit of blood, but not as freely as it had been earlier. Now that it wasn’t covered in mud, she could see that it ran across his lower leg, from front to back. The branch that had done it must have been pretty large, considering the width of the cut.
“How big does a cut have to be before it needs stitches?” she asked, figuring that was something he would have been taught growing up.
He grunted, leaning forward to get a better look. “Bigger than that,” he said. “It just needs to be re-bandaged. I can do it.”
“What? You think I can’t handle wrapping a wound?” she shot back, though there was no heat behind it. Despite some of her earlier frustrations on that front, Colter had stopped underestimating her a while ago.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said.
“I know. Relax, though, I’ve got this.”
She pulled out some fresh gauze to press over the wound. He exhaled sharply as she did so, the first indication he’d given that the injury was more painful than he was letting on. Hopefully, she’d be able to find some pain killers once they were done. In the meantime, she found a self-adhesive bandage wrap in the kit and began wrapping it carefully around his leg, trying not to cause any more discomfort in the process. Colter did his best to keep any reactions under control, but she could tell from the tension in his frame how much it must be hurting him.
They both relaxed in relief when it was done.
“How’s that?” she asked, sitting back to examine her handiwork.
“That should work great,” he said. “Thank you.”
“I’ll add it to my bill.” She began packing away the first aid supplies as she asked, “So, what’s our next move?”
“We should probably get a fire going,” Colter said, nodding towards the big fireplace in front of them. “It’s not too bad right now, but we don’t know how long this storm is going to keep us trapped here. And nights on this mountain can get pretty chilly this time of year.”
“Okay. That’s admittedly outside my wheelhouse, but do you think you could talk me through it?”
“Or, we could go the obvious route and have me start the fire,” he said, the sarcasm a little heavier than what Reenie felt was warranted.
“No, you’re going to stay right there.”
“Reenie, I’m fine. My leg is cut, not broken.”
“Just give me a minute. I’m sure I can figure out—”
“Reenie.”
It was the soft but firm tone behind her name that stopped her protest in its tracks. She looked over and found him watching her with such open concern in his eyes. He reached across and grabbed her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“I’m really fine,” he said. “You can stop worrying.” He hesitated slightly before adding, “And it wasn’t your fault. None of this is on you.”
Which was probably a sign of how frazzled she was feeling, that she’d let him read her that easily. Or maybe it was simply a result of how well they knew each other now. Either way, it rattled her how he could just see through her like that. Her armor was usually more impenetrable.
The truth was, they were only out in the wilderness in the first place because she’d asked Colter to help track down a lead for one of her clients. It was also her intel that had lead them on the wild goose chase through the woods at night.
The worst part, though, was that she’d been so frustrated at their failure to find anything useful that she hadn’t been paying enough attention on the hike back to the truck. One moment of inattention, and she’d planted her foot on a loose shelf of rock. Colter had reacted quicker, pulling her out of the way before the whole thing had crumbled away. He hadn’t had enough time to get himself clear, though. The panic Reenie had felt, watching him disappear over the ridge, was on a level she didn’t want to experience ever again.
Thankfully, somehow, he’d managed to land at the bottom of the ridge with relatively little damage. A few superficial scrapes and bruises, plus the cut to the leg they’d just gotten bandaged. It could have been so much worse.
That was the part her brain was having a hard time letting go of. It could easily have been much worse. And it would have been her fault.
“Hey,” he murmured, drawing her out of her thoughts. “I mean it. This isn’t on you.”
Reenie shook herself, trying to force away the morbid thoughts of what might have happened. “I know,” she lied. “I just… I’m worried, okay? You don’t exactly have the best track record of taking care of yourself.”
Colter sighed and shook his head. “Okay, let’s make a deal then. We work on building the fire together, and then I promise not to move off this couch until morning. Sound good?”
That was probably more than fair. Especially since, on some level, she understood that he was right about her worrying needlessly.
“Okay, it’s a deal.”
With them both working together, it didn’t take long at all to get the fire started. They got lucky — the cabin was already stocked with firewood and there was a box of kindling beside the hearth. Colter walked her through the steps of prepping the flue, getting the kindling started, and how to layer the logs so there was enough air getting to the fire. Reenie made sure to catalogue all the information for future use. Knowing how their lives tended to go, it seemed likely she’d need to start a fire on her own at some point.
Once the fire was going, Colter showed her how to break up the coals and when to stack in new logs. That way she could assist in keeping it burning through the night.
They retreated to the couch after the fireplace seemed to be under control. Reenie unfolded one of the blankets and draped it over them.
“You’re right,” she said. “It is getting chilly in here.”
“The fire should have things warmed back up in no time,” he said. “And it looks like we’ve got more than enough blankets here in the meantime.”
Reenie rolled her eyes at the light jab. “I wanted to be sure we were covered in case it gets really cold. And if you’re going to complain about it, I’ll keep the blankets all to myself.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t complaining.”
The fireplace was taking its time warming the air in the cabin. Reenie quickly decided that comfort was more important to her than being professional right now. She slid over, curling up along Colter’s uninjured side and pulling a second blanket over them. His body temperature always ran a little warm, making him the perfect space heater while she waited on the fire to do its job.
It was easy to hear the humor in his tone as he teased, “Getting comfy?”
“Shut up,” she murmured back, exhaustion sweeping over her now that the immediate danger was out of the way. “I dragged your ass here, it’s only fair I get some of your body heat.”
He chuckled lightly, the movement jostling Reenie a bit as she settled in. “I guess that does sound fair.”
Thunder rumbled outside again, the wind kicking up a notch. A pattering on the roof announced that the rain had finally started. Between the muted sounds of the storm and the slowly warming room, Reenie found herself drifting dangerously close to falling asleep.
Almost as if he could read her thoughts, Colter said quietly, “You can go to sleep, Reenie. I’ll keep an eye on the fire.”
“You promised,” she reminded him. “No moving until morning.”
He let out a frustrated huff, but didn’t argue the point. “Okay, then what if you go to sleep now, and I’ll wake you when we need more firewood added.”
“That actually sounds good,” Reenie agreed around a yawn. “It’s a deal.”
He dropped an arm around her shoulders, and she took the invitation to snuggle in closer for more warmth. The flickering light from the candles and fireplace danced along the walls and she watched them sleepily. Despite the less than ideal circumstances that lead them here, this was the most comfortable Reenie had felt in a while.
“Remember to wake me,” she said. “No moving.”
“I promise. Now stop being stubborn and go to sleep.”
She wanted to point out the irony of Colter calling anyone else stubborn, but her consciousness was already letting go of the waking world. Her eyes slid shut without her even realizing it.
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