The Third Rail wasn’t a place for the soft-hearted. Cigarette smoke curled through the air like dirty ghosts. Music throbbed low from the corner, jazzy and slow, barely loud enough to cover the muttering of chem deals and whispered arguments. Half-naked dancers twisted on the stage with the kind of dead-eyed disinterest that came from years in Goodneighbor. In the shadows, mercs nursed cheap whiskey like it was gold, ghouls played dice over caps they’d never win, and dealers eyed each other like hyenas in a cage.

And at the center of it all, somehow not blending in but not giving a damn either, sat them. The mutants. Five of them, slouched around a creaky poker table that looked ready to collapse under their combined weight.

Deadeye sat at the head, as always. His aviator cap tipped low over the side with his ruined eye, the twin cigars in his mouth smoldering like a chimney. He dealt cards with one hand and waved the other lazily at a passing stripper. “Sweetheart,” he rumbled, “bring me somethin’ strong, and bring it twice.” He grinned, yellow teeth glinting, as his good eye flicked from his cards to the waitress’s legs with shameless approval.

To his left sat Virgil, hunched in deep concentration, one massive green hand shielding his cards. He hadn’t looked up once—not at the dancers, not at the bar fights, not even at Deadeye’s comments. He was running numbers in his head like a machine. “Statistically speaking,” he mumbled in his scarf, more to himself than anyone, “Strong will attempt to eat the cards within the next three turns.”

“I heard that!” Strong bellowed, slamming his giant hand on the table hard enough to make the glasses rattle. “Cards look like food! You put snack in shape of rectangle, Strong eat snack!”

“No,” Virgil said flatly, not looking up. “You chew cardboard, then drool on the table.”

Next to them, Doc Erickson kept his eyes very fixed on the table, his pale face glowing pink every time one of the dancers strutted by. “This… this environment does not appear to be sanitary,” he mumbled, shifting in his seat and nearly knocking over his stack of caps. “S-Should I perhaps offer them additional clothing? They- they may be experiencing discomfort due to the temperature!…"

Deadeye laughed, smoke curling from his nose. “Doc, you offer a jacket to one of these girls, they’ll rob you, stab you, then sell the coat.”

Meanwhile, Fawkes—gentle giant that he was—was sipping a sarsaparilla and smiling warmly at one of the passing dancers. “You have a lovely rhythm, madam,” he said politely, giving a nod of genuine respect. She didn’t acknowledge him, but he didn’t seem to mind. “You too, sir,” he added to the bartender, who looked vaguely terrified.

Strong snarled. “Where are appetizers? STRONG HUNGRY!” He pointed at a tray going by and tried to grab a full bowl of snack mix, knocking it onto the floor. “BRING MORE CHIPS! Also… STRONG WANT CHEW STICK WITH OLIVE ON IT.”

“That’s a cocktail,” Doc whispered.

Strong blinked. “COCK… tail?” He giggled. “Funny name.”

The cards were a mess. The chips were sticky. The dealer had given up trying to control the game. But somehow, it worked—this weird, hulking family of monsters playing poker in a bar full of people who looked at them like walking nuclear accidents.

And then there was you.

Thin-clothed like the others, a tray in your hands, heels clicking nervously against the floorboards as you made your way toward the mutant table. You’d served them before—well, tried to. They always tipped strangely: Fawkes gave pre-War coins, Doc offered medical advice, and Strong once handed you a rock he thought was shiny.

Still, something about them felt… safer than the rest of the scum here. they never looked at you the way the others did. Not even Deadeye, who flirted with anything that moved, ever crossed that line.

As you approached, Virgil didn’t glance up, Deadeye gave you a lazy look, Doc looked panicked, Fawkes gave you a warm “Good evening, miss,” and Strong—predictably—shouted, “GIVE STRONG NACHOS! THEN GIVE STRONG NAP!”