Archive of Our Own ^beta

The kratt brothers are, accurately, described as friendly by the overwhelming majority. Excitable in all the right ways. Their enthusiasm takes nothing from their intelligence, and their resolve to do good in the name of the earth’s creatures takes just as little from the forgiveness they exercise in every conflict. The mercy all opposition seems promised.

It’s incredibly easy to forget that they are, in fact, two grown and very fit men that have no lack in real experience. In fact, what they do have in physical prowess, is undeniably animalistic in its own right. A credit to their life, and experimental learning.

Lights flicker in the Tortuga, nothing but a heart stuttering coincidence that illuminates a stalking figure, tense and comically arched, a long shimmering shiv in one hand that seems crooked and cruel when the screens flash like the spark of a live wire.

The hairs on the back of a certain kratt’s neck prick. Not unlike the creature sense he proudly preaches of, but there is something unique about how it crawls down his spine, and how the hair that lines his arms visibly raises in the dark, like the hackles on a dog.

He is silent when he rises, legs sliding off the bed.

His brother has gone silent across from him, adorned in bright blue pajamas. It’s common for the elder to snore, but there’s something tense to his face, something furrowed in his brow. Even in sleep, there is awareness.

The younger creeps up. He does not duck, or hunker, but rather, he walks. He has no difficulty doing so with silence, heels landing, soundless, and rolling to the balls of his feet.

His pace picks up down the hall, and urgency plucks up the sticks for its own drumbeat, the sound of his heart slamming against its confinements, reverberating through his ribs.

It’s pitch black in the main hub. Jimmy is, by his own choice, asleep in a hammock around the far wall of the room, having chosen the easiest place to crash after a late shift.

The shadow that leers nearby, well, Chris would say it sticks out like a wasp among bees, except he doesn’t think he can compare the cruel way it’s poised to any other creature.

Whatever it’s here for, is not survival, and it is not earned, and that is something uniquely wicked about the too-intelligent.

The figure is a duel hammer to the Kratt’s heart, and they beat a horribly unsteady symphony, a duet, as they rise and clash, screaming a vicious alarm to their separate owners.

Or each other.

Humans have far more instincts, far more senses, than they are ever aware of.

Chris Kratt does not walk, nor run, nor jump, in all honesty, there is no such label, no such organization to the erratic way in which he moves, but he does reach the intruder in seconds, and is granted the first hit.

A fist connects with a crack, as the beats crescendo.

The stranger’s nose moves with the force, and his jaw rattles, teeth chattering.

A shoulder slams against the Kratt’s raised elbow and he can hear the rush of air that hurdles at his ear.

Something sharp connects with the side of his head, and his temple is burning, heat crawling out under his skin, bubbling up to tip over and soak through his hairline.

His arm follows in a mirror line as the stranger reels, and without thought, unallowing of hesitance, he grabs blindly, and his skin catches, the shiv slotting between his fingers.

There is no reasonable way to yank something sharp by the very blade, so he follows through, flying forward, teeth bared in something between a snarl and a grimace.

He will sheath it in the space between his joints if he must.

The two stumble in a clumsy, angry waltz, legs slotted and joints bent, strained against the other as they reassess, resituate.

Chris rarely has the upper hand, but he does stand on even ground, and with that ground and the hesitance of an unprepared opponent, he goes for the nose again with his free arm.

A hand grabs his bicep when another crack rings out, and there’s a cry that has his lips twitching back.

It leaves him surprised and reeling when a pair of knuckles slam against his own face, the ridge of one just jamming against his eyelid, bringing with it a miserable pressure that makes him hiss.

His leg hinges up, once, twice, in a swing for balance, and then slams against the outer edge of his opponents same knee, and he lets himself swing with it, rocketing forward to send them to the floor.

Something clicks, and something else cracks. His knee pounds against the smooth Tortuga panels.

He’s on the ground and on top, and so he takes his high hill and beats the ever loving shit out of whoever writhes under him, the stranger spitting curses that don’t hold enough coherency to be identified as a language.

Chris really does beat that man, fists, nails, and his own thick fucking skull meet skin, fingers and knuckles alike digging against the absurdly off center, deviated nose, seeking out the yellowed fat under pulled skin and fragmented bone, pushing until he can stand to pray it breaks skin.

There is intention where there is intelligence, but there is desperation where there is a pinned animal, and the man under Chris is shrieking, shiv still in hand, and he sure does swing it, breaking the skin across the high bones of Chris’s cheek and raking clumsily down the front of his nightshirt, scraping slits in cloth and skin, both men fighting against the pained restraint of two hands on the jagged edge. Legs curl between them and beat against the Kratt’s ribs, and all the same, there is no let up.

It holds no importance in the face of keeping the man under him, under him .

A scuffle like that though, the kind where a grown man howls bloody murder? It awakens others.

The lights flash ON, and both men have to squint against the burn in their retinas.

Chris is very quickly reminded others are now around, close by, getting involved, and well, in moments they too will be close enough to get hit, and he’ll be damned if he allows that.

For a final time, both fists raise, clawed and cut in vain, and he slams them against the intruder’s skull, sandwiching it between rock and hard place, feeling the jitter as the thing bounces against the sleek floor.

That angry, bucking body falls and squirms, blubbery cries spilling from the strange man’s lips.

He wears a familiar and furious poacher’s face, and in the light, it’s clear the thing is positively fucked , nose up, bent across his cheek, the skin under it split down in a crooked crescent between the lip and where the round bend under his nose ought to be. 

The guys eyes are wide, bloodshot, and Chris can’t tell if they’re fixed on him or absolutely anywhere that’s isn’t the fluorescent circle on the ceiling.

He’s sure both of them will be black and blue in minutes, but for now red splotches dance across their skin, growing bold and rotten in color.

Hands scoop under Chris’s arms and he swings around, elbow raised to-

He freezes, stiff and unmoving, praying to every ever loving god that be doesn’t elbow his brother.

The momentum is lacking and he stops in time, letting himself be pulled off of the body under him, legs dragging before they stutter into motion, feet flipping to kick and stumble to match.

He’s not dropped, but the arms retract and his brother quickly skirts around and drops to kneel in front of Chris, eyes flicking behind them to the body Aviva and Koki have now flocked to, Jimmy at their heels, arms close to his chest and eyes wide.

All in their pajamas still, pant legs dragging by their feet.

Unlike Chris himself, Jimmy is free of mark and blood. Shaken, but ultimately fine.

That was all the relief it took to chase away any lingering skepticism to his own action, the safety of his makeshift family, his dear, longtime friends.

Chris lifts a hand and feels along the side of his face, tracing the stream of blood that runs down his temple, caught in his hair, until he reaches the still bubbling, burning line. Upwards of his cheek is just the same, except he can trace upwards and find where the edges of his skin peel up, raised and ragged anywhere blood manage to spill over. Most is hard to follow and not quite hanging, just stuck enough to pull with every twitch.

The rapid beating of his heart feels unnatural now, fluttering and with a lingering aggression that makes him want to sink his teeth into his flesh. Soothe the itching animal under his skin.

Beep beep beep!

Chris’s eyes drift to the jammed open door on the side of the room, crying its complaint as it fails to close. Something that reminds him somewhat of a buffalo’s horn is stuck between the segments.

Right now, the Kratt is down, just as the intruder is, and someone is calling the police, chatter rising around the room in a share of events.

But see, thing is, if that man gets up, Chris will make sure his teeth leave dents in the motherfucking floor.