#foxtrap madness

[mxmorel]

made a little sketchbook last weekend 🦊 based on Mating Habits of the American Red Fox by @serpercival

[serpercival]

Tell me about blorbo bleebus except I want to hear about foxtrap :D Just to shake it up a little

YAYY

credit to @trappper-johnathan for the edit

[erikraven]

Going-Out Pants

A little piece inspired by @serpercival's Foxtrap AU, featuring Cathawk. In Mating Habits, there's a few mentions of "going-out pants", where the wearer's tail is tied down to their leg in order to hide it. Considering how much a cat's tail is needed for balance, I wrote this.

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Winter, like all seasons, has its pros and cons. On the one hand, it’s easier for Hawkeye and Trapper to cover up when it’s expected that one will be swaddled in fleece, scarves, and coats when outdoors. On the other, the frozen pavement makes it difficult for Hawkeye to walk safely.

“I can’t even walk with this the way I want,” Hawkeye says, tapping his cane on the floor. “I should be swinging it behind me just as much as I lean on it, it’s a counterweight, but no, I have to pretend I have a lame knee.” He picks up a forkful of fish and slides it off the tines with his lips, keeping his fangs covered.

“Hey, at least be glad you don’t actually have one,” Trapper replies, picking at his own meal.

Hawkeye frowns, brushing Trapper’s leg with his foot. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Hawkeye draws in the sauce left on his plate with the corner of his fork. “You wanna get me drunk so I have a reason to wobble all the way home?”

Trapper grins. “It’s worked before.”

Three drinks later, Hawkeye’s breath smells of whiskey, and he’s just tipsy enough that no one will bat an eye at him swaying on his feet. Trapper lets him lean on his shoulder as they walk home, and as the crowd thins out, Hawkeye lets himself purr, pressing his cheek against Trapper’s shoulder.

“This was nice,” he mumbles. “Even with the whole…” He traces a hand along the back of Trapper’s thigh, along the ridge that’s invisible from more than a few yards away. “That.”

“Just wait til we get home,” Trapper says. “Then you’ll see how nice it can get.” He traces Hawkeye’s hidden tail in return, though his hand goes a bit higher.

“No, no, I’m tired,” Hawkeye says. “Just pet me. And I’ll pet you. How’s that sound?”

Trapper chatters softly, and Hawkeye chatters back as Trapper’s hand slips under his scarf to scratch at the back of his neck.

The snow is deep, and sections of it have been slushed and packed down by foot traffic. Trapper points ahead to a dark section of pavement. “You think we should cross the street?”

Hawkeye looks across to see a half-dozen young men coming the other way -- if they cross now, they’ll run smack into them. “No,” he says. “Just go slow.”

“Alright.” Trapper’s strides shorten substantially as they reach the icy stretch of road, and Hawkeye follows, digging the end of his cane into the ground. Bit by bit, they cross carefully, every step as measured and precise as if they were crossing a mine field.

Two-thirds of the way across, Hawkeye’s cane hits a patch of smooth, thick ice, and slides sharply. His spine aches as his reflexes try to whip his tail outward to no avail, and he hits the ground hard, landing on hands and knees.

“Trapper?” he says, breathing hard. “How bad is this area for cursed folks?”

“Not too bad,” Trapper replies, looking around as he helps Hawkeye to his feet. “But don’t let your tail out just yet, just lean on me and we’ll be fine.”

Hawkeye leans against the wall as Trapper unlocks the apartment door, and Trapper just about carries him in, dropping him on the couch. The second the door is shut, Hawkeye is stripping out of his heavy clothes, down to his long underwear. The fur on his tail has been painted onto his leg with sweat and friction, remaining flat and rumpled as he stretches and curls his tail to get some blood flow back to it.

Trapper snaps the bands off his leg, freeing his own tail, and yawns, cracking his jaw as he flashes his fangs. “Fuck, I hate that damn thing,” he says, a growl tingeing his words.

“You and me both.” Hawkeye flops down on the couch, letting his joints stretch and bend to their fullest extent in an attempt to get comfortable.

Trapper goes back to the bedroom, then returns. “Come on,” he says, dropping a brush next to Hawkeye. “Brush time. Or you’re gonna get so matted we have to shave you.”

“You shave me, I shave you,” Hawkeye says, pointing to him with the brush. Trapper flicks him on the ear, and Hawkeye swings at him with claws hidden.

Hawkeye follows Trapper back to the bedroom, sitting down with his tail flat on the bed behind him. Trapper takes the same posture, facing the other way, and flicks his tail into Hawkeye’s lap. Hawkeye feels Trapper pick up his tail to hold it as well, and at the first tug of bristles through his fur, he purrs loud enough to feel it through the mattress.

“Oh, you do that so well, baby,” he says, running his hands over Trapper’s tail to search for mats. Trapper’s fur is a bit too long and shaggy to just brush, so Hawkeye likes to pick through for the worst spots and focus on them first, unraveling them with his claws.

Bit by bit, the bedraggled mess of orange fur smooths out and fluffs back up, and Hawkeye picks up the end of Trapper’s tail, rubbing it against his neck and cheeks. Trapper purrs, doing the same to him, before leaning against Hawkeye and marking his shoulders. They’d both showered that morning, scrubbing within an inch of their lives, and there wasn’t a bit of scent left on them. As they lie down, shoving off what’s left of their clothes, they devote the rest of the evening to fixing that.

[remyfire]

Lil Sid finally has a pair of companions to keep him company 😭💞 @serpercival You have no idea how often I keep looking at these two adorable idiots and melting into a happy puddle. Thank you so much again!!

[trappper-johnathan]

Can't and won't explain myself. [picture] [og post]

[serpercival]

holy shit happy six month anniversary to foxtrap getting conceptualized. direct result of this image btw

[serpercival]

The Fox!Trap AU - A Comprehensive Table of Contents

Right okay this series is a complete and total mess thanks to the fact that 1) there are bits written by a couple of different authors and 2) some stories take place between bits of Mating Habits. So here's a full, chronological table of contents for this thing that I'll be linking in the notes of each of the individual pieces and adding to when people inevitably write more that fits into this main canon.

Anything written by someone who wasn't originally involved in the AU is in square brackets. If you're looking for a chronological reading order:

A Beginner's Guide to Emergency Veterinary Medicine, co-written with @trappper-johnathan (archive locked)

Mating Habits of the American Red Fox (Tokyo: Chapters 1-5)

Unconventional Pest Control Solutions

Five-Star Expectations

Mating Habits of the American Red Fox (Crabapple Cove—Boston: Chapters 6-35)

Caudal Morphology

Mating Habits of the American Red Fox (San Francisco: Chapters 36-43)

Full Throttle by @trappper-johnathan (archive locked)

Mating Habits of the American Red Fox (Home: Chapters 44-49)

... out of love, a prompted ficlet

Professional Courtesy

[Head and Shoulders, Tail and Paws...], a companion piece to Professional Courtesy by @seepweed

I'd recommend reading everything in black between Beginner's Guide-Five-Star Expectations, then Mating Habits as a whole, then the rest of the black links!

Bonuses:

The Art of Fur Trapping, written well before we'd landed on one particular variation of the verse and therefore isn't canon to anything else here, but I still had a good time writing it :3

holy ghost by @mainenorth, which doesn't fit precisely with the rest of the series but was such a sweet gift and is a very fun read <3

@erikraven also has a few fics, featuring both fox!trap and cat!hawk - as of the time I'm editing this -

Two of a Kind Animal Instincts Cat Scratch Fever

Sweetgrass on the Prairie by @bbjkrss-blog, a radarhawk fic featuring cat!hawk

A couple more things:

This series absolutely could not be possible without the incredible talents of both @trappper-johnathan and @remyfire. None of these fics would have happened without their participation in building the lore and the original outline of Mating Habits. An extra special thanks to @mxmorel, who joined the crew late but has been nothing but lovely and encouraging and has been an incredible help in keeping the steam going. Please keep all three of them in mind in regards to this verse—I'm the one who has a lot of time and energy for writing on my hands, but none of this would have any structural integrity without their overwhelming help.

Finally, you, the reader, are more than welcome to write in the verse if you want! Write in the Mating Habits verse, do your own thing, use the worldbuilding and do something completely different with it (I know there's a cathawk wip out there), all of that is more than welcome. Let me know about it and add it to the Ao3 collection and I'll add it to this list!

Additional stuff that's on the docket for some day can be found here. Am I going to get through all of those? Probably not, but a guy can dream.

[serpercival]

NEW MATING HABITS!!! Chapters 33-35, Boston 12-Boston epilogue, are now up, approx. 11.5k new words. Thank you so much for your patience while I struggled with this. NEXT SECTION IS BEEJTRAP BAYBEEEEE

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