Playing Nice

He frowned at the things in his hands. They fuzzed around the edges when he moved, but that was because they were holograms, not real cards. Not that he'd ever held real cards to compare them to, but he found them to be disturbingly transparent. He still found it hard to believe that the 'bot sitting opposite of him couldn't see the faces of the cards as well as he could. Sometimes, the subtleties of technology completely passed him by.

"Are ya gonna stare at 'em all day, or ya gonna play?" His opponent lounged in a chair, studying his own cards intently. The fuzor's lack of hands made holding them difficult, but he enjoyed the game too much to let that faze him. Feet up on the table and confidence written in every line of his body, Quickstrike prompted his fellow player impatiently. "Mah shift's over soon."

"So? I've never known that to make a difference in when you play," Rampage snorted. Then he sighed and laid his cards down flat, pointing at two of them. "I was merely wondering if these were supposed to be identical."

"Slaggit!"

The crab watched, unaccountably amused, as Quickstrike proceeded to lose his temper. This was a common occurrence, but today the fuzor's ire was directed entirely toward someone not in the room, or even in the base. Tarantulas hadn't even been SEEN for days, much less heard from. Now strangely-accented curses were being directed toward the spider and his meddling ways, which had resulted in half the systems in the Predacon base's computer spontaneously developing program errors. Megatron's list of invectives had been far more creative than Quickstrike's, but as the fuzor bent over the computer and began painstakingly searching for the corrupt data on his favorite card game, Rampage couldn't decide who hated the spider more.

The crab didn't care what the spider had done, really. He leaned back in his chair and watched the fuzor work. Quickstrike didn't seem to notice that his life was in peril just by being in the same room as the base's resident psychopath, but that might have been because he thought Megatron had Rampage under control. Or maybe living around Inferno, yet another base psycho, had immunized him to the danger. Or maybe, and Rampage thought this the most likely reason, Quickstrike wasn't capable of holding onto fear. No matter what Rampage was like on the battlefield or how many times the crab threatened to maim him, a moment later the cowboy 'bot was hitching a ride on his tank mode, as enthusiastically trying to kill Maximals as ever. Fear happened, and then it disappeared as if it had never been. Everyone in the base knew that only the spark-box stood between Rampage and their destruction, but still Quickstrike persisted in treating him like…like a drinking buddy, or something.

It bemused Rampage. He couldn't figure the slagging fuzor's mind out, and as annoying as he often found the 'bot, he couldn't argue that Quickstrike was probably the only one on the planet who could get away with slapping him on the back without losing an arm. Depth Charge at least knew enough to be wary around him, even if the raybot didn't fear him anymore. Quickstrike was afraid of him for about three seconds at a time, if that. It was weird. Rampage had never met someone who responded to a threat with an invitation to play cards. He hadn't known how to deal with it when he'd first met the fuzor, but he was used to it by now. It was even kind of…nice.

So he watched Quickstrike turn back to the table, planning out how he'd kill the fuzor when he had the chance. Megatron couldn't keep him enslaved forever, after all, and he would kill again.

In the meantime, they'd play cards.

.

.

I wanted to take a look at how Quickstrike deals with the crab. He never seems to show any lasting fear toward him, does he? And they seem to fight well together. Er...as well as any Predacons do, anyway. And if Quickstrike tries to pal around with everybody, then how does Rampage deal with it? I keep getting this picture of Rampage looking completely taken aback as he's dragged around like a reluctant puppy by Quickstrike, who wants to play cards.

"But...But...I'm a killer!"

"Cool. Let's play cards."