Sno was going to be Avi’s Second in his wedding to Johann. It was a choice that was beyond automatic. It was almost instinctual. They’d been best friends since the Academy. Of fucking course she was going to be the next best thing to the Best Man. It also, kind’a-sort’a, solved the problem of what they were going to wear to the ceremony.

It also presented a heavy problem.

As Avi’s Second, it was Sno’s duty to run the Stag Night. The Bachelor Party. The last hurrah before a life of domestic bliss. Him, her, and the boys on a pretty standard evening of drunken revelry, pranks, and possibly a stripper. Sno knew about the theory, but…

That was pretty much all she knew.

She was his partner. He loved her like a sister. But gods damn it, Sno had all the social capability of a house brick.

“Hey, pard’. I can get my mother to jump out of a cake.”

Case in point. “What?”

“Family discount. Mom jumps out of a cake, does a few dirty dances, everyone has fun and we have like, a hundred spare for more booze.” She looked up from the clipboard. “It’s win-win.”

She was genuine. Sweet Fantasy Jesus, she was genuine. “It’s. Your. Mother.”

“Yes?”

“That’s fifteen levels of inappropriate.”

“Weird. ‘Cause twenty of the guys have her pinups in their lockers, and–”

Avi put his fingers in his ears and started humming. He only stopped when she stopped talking.

“It’s cool,” said Sno. “I’ve known she’s been doing this for years and she has like three ready-to-steal-’em babysitters for the twins and–”

“Your mother had twins?” Avi panicked. “You have baby sibs?”

“She found ‘em by a dumpster and is in the middle of upcycling them. Chill.”

“Wait. Stop. Someone abandoned twins by a dumpster…”

“No, they were kind’a living there themselves. You remember the Taaco case out by Tre Llew-Ddion?”

“Those twins?” Oh, this was not good. Orphaned at three, shuffled between assorted asshole family members and shitty foster homes for a year. Runaways who dropped off the map at five. A chain of suspicious fires, horrible accommodations, peculiar deaths, and murders most foul. And now they resurfaced in the illegal care of an internet stripper who was also his partner’s mother. “This couldn’t get any worse if the kids were boosting cars, Sno.”

“Believe it or not, mom’s cleaned up her act since she had me in her seventies. She’s… she’s actually better care and providing more of a stable environment than anywhere official. I’ve checked.”

“Your mother. Who played Busty Juggs in Tug Rats.”

“Yeah?”

“A better care provider.”

“She doesn’t do any hinky stuff when the kids are home. Gods. She’s a train wreck, not a monster.” Sno started ticking off the checklist on her fingers. “The apartment’s clean. Her studio’s always locked, the kids have proper food, good clothes, and they’re going to school. She makes sure they have good babysitters when she’s livestreaming. They’re even seeing some doctors about the malnutrition and parasites they picked up both on the street and via official channels. She’s… she’s actually being a halfway decent foster parent.”

Avi forced the conversation back on track. “And you want her to jump out of a cake for my Stag party.”

“The kids need books. They’re voracious readers.”

*

Of course a couple of the guys dressed up in SWAT gear to haul him away from his apartment. That was pretty much SOP for a City Watch Stag Nite. Instead of the come-along wagon, there was a party bus and Sno had stocked it with Redcheek cider. Avi’s favourite booze, besides the microbrews he made himself.

The party music was fairly typical. Nothing overtly offensive even though little of it was his particular jam. He could dance to it - more and more as he imbibed - and have a modicum of fun.

Then they arrived at the bar that was the actual party venue. A bar that had a stage with poles on it and a suspiciously huge cake.

She didn’t, Avi begged the universe. Please, gods, tell me she did not…

“Oh no,” said Sno with blatantly fake sincerity. “They delivered the wedding cake early and to the wrong address…”

Just then, half a dozen nuns entered the bar.

“Whoah, whoah, hey. This is a private party, ladies. Sisters.”

“Oh we won’t be here long,” singsonged the lead nun. “We’re gathering funds for orphaned and abandoned children. Just a five minute song and dance and we’ll be on our way.”

Waitasecond… since when do nuns wear heels? Avi had just enough time to ponder that before some heavy Eighties synth started pounding out of some small but powerful speakers. Bananarama’s Venus started pounding and a well-endowed figure burst forth from the cake.

Sno’s mom did not jump out of the cake. The stripper in the cake was none other than Hornee D'Lite, a Tiefling co-star in Tug Rats and regular feature in the local brand of direct-to-disk porno.

No. Sno’s mom was the lead nun. She had managed to gather together the entire fucking cast of Tug Rats for a one-night-only live performance.

This could not have got more mortifying if Sno had been trying. That was the regrettable part. Sno had honestly been trying to make this a night to remember.

Well… she wasn’t wrong…