I’m bad at being good.

I had been working with Sugar and Yelena on getting my own Goblin poison into a little more useful form. Goblin poison is magic, and by magic, I mean goblins are designed to kill immortals. We are designed to kill things which have spent more power and intelligence on survival than most nations will collectively own between their rise and fall.

Sure, being a fairy came with lots of downsides. We can’t lie. We can’t enter a home with a threshold (a magical way of saying enough love powered relationships existed to attract a house fairy, and the jealous little bastards locked the rest of us out without invitation. We had a real problem with iron, luckily, humanity left the iron age when they figured out how much better steel is, and made it even safer when they figured our rust was bad and switched to stainless or externally treated steel. Honestly, can’t thank you enough for getting out of the iron age. We aren’t great with sunlight, fairy has shades of twilight but no sun, and she doesn’t like us much. Yes, the sun is a she, and she isn’t fond of us. Those who know why don’t talk to goblins. But there are upsides to being a goblin.

As the Unseelie Fey (dark fairies, winter fairies, things that go bump in the night), we are all about endings. We are about decay and death, we are about corruption as much as predation.

We gave you cheese, and booze. We give you psychedelics of all kinds. Honestly outside of goth culture people have no idea how much humanity owes to the forces of darkness and corruption. Decay, corruption, or as those who have a goal in mind call it, fermentation, give you everything from pickles to pilsner, from wine to whiskey. We give you sourdough bread and miso soup, we give you cheese and you leave out offerings for the other bastards. You wonder why we don’t get a little bitter about it? What did the light elves ever do for you? Seduce your knights and maidens? Check. Rob your babies and leave behind changelings? Check. Raise the rivers and seas to blot out your cities and towns? Check. But we just kill a few of you for hunting in our forests, and suddenly we are the bad guys. I goblin could weep. We are the bad guys, but honestly you have no idea how much restraint we spent trying to be at least not shitty enough neighbors to be worth hunting down when you had cold iron woven into mail, and crappy pot iron blades in every hand.

Fairy is fair though, they gave goblins venom in our claws and fangs. Venom we can control and tailor into whatever we want. Your average goblin is all about finding new and better ways to paralyze someone, inflict pain beyond measure as their nerve endings dissolve (that one isn’t about torture, it is about sorcerers. You don’t want those guys to be able to think at all), clot the blood in their veins so their heart stops, stop their nerves from firing so they cannot breathe and suffocate like a fish out of water. Honestly, the classics are really something.

Then Yelena happened. Yelena was smuggled in from France as a Ukrainian war refugee, what she didn’t know is that she was smuggled by a group run by the Russian mob, and she and her sisters were sold into the street sex trade. I inherited her when I killed Tony the Pimp and handed his operation over to Sugar as we set about getting the girls and boys off the street, and those who wanted out of the life, out of the life.

Yelena had the healing bug. She had first aid training as a girl and became our go to healer. She had been taking courses with fake ID at at the local college and was well on her way to covering her pre-med requirements. What she lacked was a legal ID to be in the country, and that was my problem to fix.

My other problem was Yelena figuring out that I was basically a walking pharmacopeia that just had to be beaten with a stick until I produced the drugs she wanted. I turned to Sugar for sympathy, which worked until I mentioned that she should be thankful I never tried to seduce anyone with the Unseelie happy drugs.

Now both of them are on my case. Case in point. Yelena is feeding me heroin, and my job is to let my body react by producing the fairy equivalent of Naloxone, the anti-opiate drug. Her thought is that what my body learned from fixing up Felipe was in my body now, and I should be able to produce it on demand. Her demand.

Turns out she was right. I am now being milked like a snake for my venom so that she can have vials of magical goblin anti-narcotic that will not only pull an overdose back from the brink of death, but also cure them of the physical nervous system addiction to the drugs. It won’t help the mental part, but the body will no longer crave the stuff. Goblin poisons are the best.

Sugar on the other hand got me on the whole Goblin Happy drug comment and pinned me down about what she should be thankful I never used.

Fairy seduction, the elves get the kind of glamour that makes panties melt and codpieces rip, they have a beauty that is beyond human, beyond mortal, beyond reason. They can get blowjobs from nuns and have a Spanish Inquisition torturer dropping his trousers and ready for rogering faster than you can say “we are the nice ones”.

Goblins get corruption. Specifically, we read the pheromones of any creature with a sex drive, which isn’t all of you. Some are immune, because they have zero rocks to get off. Nature is a spectrum, and without any sort of shadow in you, we are left with nothing to shape. For most of you though, we read your scent, find your need, and our body will make a venom that turns our kiss (or other fluids, unseelie are really all in on the corruption thing) into a command for your body to release a storm of every happy horny hormone in your body. If you can burn, you will burn. If you can desire, you will find every dark desire you ever even casually thought of suddenly rising up in your brain and telling your body exactly how much of what you are demanding. We as your humble goblin of the evening are more than happy to deliver. Don’t get me wrong, what we do isn’t what the elves do. Ours isn’t illusion. While it is in no way fair to our partners, what we do is real, what you feel is real, and we will blow your mind so wide open that you will never be the same again. This is good, because we look like a nightmare and given even a second of working thought, you would take up that cold iron fire poker and give us to the cold iron death. We don’t fudge your memories, that isn’t our magic. The Jedi mind raping thing is the light elves. You will remember everything you did, and how much you enjoyed it. Honestly, I think that is what made us the bad guys in the fairy tales. It was easier to hate us that to imagine you actually wanted, asked for, and enjoyed what we shared.

Lovers in the night, hunted monsters in the daytime. Totally not fair. Freaking elves get away with everything. I thought this was a perfectly good cautionary tale. Sugar thought it was a human resource.

“You have to start helping out on dates.” Sugar told me.

I was milking anti-narcotic venom into a vial for Yelena when Sugar hit me with this so I made a somewhat incoherent objection (Yelena’s hand and a vial being jammed in my mouth).

“Listen, that whole aphrodisiac thing, the whole irresistible goblin love drug thing, you have to share it with us. It is the least you can do.” Sugar concluded. I tried to open my mouth to argue, and Yelena put a second vial on my other canine, leaving me to growl as Yelena smacked my head to remind me to get with the venoming.

“When I finally had my mouth returned to my control, and could object. Yelena was looking on with interest. “What kind of irresistible goblin love drug?” Yelena asked.

I shrugged and answered Yelena honestly. Her medical education was something I was forced to work with my parents and a local law firm to make happen. Anything related to medicine I shared with her in the hopes I could help make her more effective. I had, unique, medical needs, so keeping goblin biology secrets from my health staff was just stupid.

“I taste your pheromones on the air, and produce a venom that turns my kiss or other bodily gifts into a catlyst to maximize your bodies ability to be stimulated, to maximize your own internal drives and desires at the same time it boosts by several times the pleasure that such activities create in your own body. Like a nitro kit for your libido.” I said honestly, having parsed the how and the why of it when I began to get more conscious control over what my body naturally did.

Yelena looked intrigued. “Is it addictive?” She asked.

I grinned. “Not physically, but once you go goblin.......” I wiggled my eyebrows and got smacked by both of the girls.

Sugar had zero romance in her soul, and a keen business sense. She also had zero respect for my boundaries, and even less fear. I loved her for it, but she could be scary.

“Listen, to be an escort you have to give something that no streetwalker can. Sure any of us can fake enjoying a date, but actually enjoying a date makes the date feel like they actually are a freaking star, and their biggest sex organ, their ego, will never forget that date. They will pay through the nose to experience that again. They will also not be a danger, as they won’t react badly if they underperform as again, their ego is the biggest single threat if it gets bruised.” Sugar had me there.

I blinked. When she put it that way, I owed them my protection. If a little make out session pre date could keep them safe, then I was compelled to do it. Goblin King, its not a name, it’s a freaking job description.

“Can you make it so whatever you use also affects their dates?” Yelena asked. Sugar looked shocked, but I was nodding. I mean, Unseelie fey were about wild debauchery. We do wholesale slaughter in war, but orgies are kind of the natural end point of any of our parties. Not for nothing do the legends go on, and on, and on about our temptations. We freaking deliver! Of course, once envenomed, the one so blessed would be tainted with that venom in every excretion until the sun blasted away all of our lovely corruption. I kid you not, the sun does not love us. Seriously unhappy with us and all our magics.

“Sure.” I shrugged. “Once you get charged up, you are good until the sun’s light touches your skin. The sun really will undo it all though, so it's not like permanent. Also, it won’t make you enjoy something you don’t. It fires you up, but you are still you. It will just turn up to ten something that was only maybe a two or three to you and will blast up to a hundred what would have been a natural ten on you already.”

That was when they both pinned me to the wall.

“Show us, NOW!” Sugar demanded.

“For science!” Yelena demanded.

For the next hour, Sugar, Yelena and I did what they called “Rigorous testing”. Then the others got called in to make sure the whole, transmittable by the envenomed was true. More rigorous testing was involved. Sugar and Tomas argued me into agreeing it was unfair that only the girls would get protected, so I was forced to test it on the boys and the in betweens to see if they would enjoy the same benefits. It turns out the answer was yes. More rigours testing was involved.

I don’t think it was all about science. I am being oppressed! Exploited? When I was a high school boy, this would have seemed like a fantasy. Somehow it’s a little more alarming when it is sprung on you for real.

I woke up under a pile of limbs, holding a very cute looking lizard girl. It turns out she had some body issues involving the whole mutated into a reptile thing, and fears about her biting someone if she ever dared date. First, we found out she would not be driven to bite someone if making love. That was a fear some idiot hurling abuse at her had apparently gotten into her head. Then we found out that she could bite me safely, and that seemed to really go a long way towards making her feel better about things. Her venom was deadly, but to me it was like a shot of adrenaline, just added spice to things.

I maybe got a whole half hour of sleep when someone’s phone went off in an alarm. Sugar didn’t bother getting up from her place in the pile. She put her foot into my arse and poked.

“Get up, you have to see the lawyer now for Yelena.” Sugar demanded.

“Five more minutes.” I demanded, I mean, I was the boss, the king, the inhuman murder machine, the terror of the whole neighborhood.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Sugar and Yelena combined dainty feet and shoved my ass out of my own bed and onto the floor.

“And shower first!” Sugar said. “You smell like you just crawled out of an orgy.”

Low giggling went around the room, as everyone else got to sleep in. Tony the Pimp’s foot ball field sized bed was entirely covered by everyone else who got to sleep in, as I, their freaking Goblin King had to do a morning meeting with a law firm that Karen (the Punisher’s version of a damsel in distress) had recommended.

Trying to be a good guy sucked. I flinched at memories of last night. Bad phrasing. Let's not think about it. Definite shower, then walk to Hell’s Kitchen for a meeting with Nelson and Murdoch.

I was met by a heavy-set blonde man whose face honestly reminded me of a golden retriever puppy, all innocence and eagerness, but his grip was firm, and his voice was confident. “Mr Condon? I’m Foggy Nelson, if you will come with me, my partner Matt is waiting for us in the conference room. Just a quick note, my partner is visually impaired, but probably a better lawyer than I am.” His voice was neutral, but his eyes were watching me for a reaction. I could spot a test.

“Not a problem. I have a client who needs some matters about the legality of her entry cleared so she can apply for medical school, we were told by Karen Page that you were the only law firm in New York city that she would trust with Yelena’s fate. She has been through a lot to get here, if the firm that Karen trusts is Foggy and Nelson, then I could care less if you were cave trolls. Yelena needs the best, and I am told you are it.” I didn’t care. I mean, I wasn’t even human. What did I care if Matt Murdoch is blind? I mean, I got my ass kicked by a blind man a few weeks ago, its not like I am going to look down on a blind lawyer as disabled after that ass kicking.

Foggy opened the door to the office where a well built very still white man with hair matching his dark shades sat behind the desk. “Will Yelena be joining us soon?” Foggy asked.

I answered with a laugh “She is coming with Karen, I just came first to make sure Immigration wasn’t waiting in the office to lock her up.”

Foggy gestured me to sit, and I pushed my senses through the office. There was no one else here. There was, oddly, a weird ward on the place that stopped magical scrying. I didn’t recognize it specifically. Mediterranean definitely. Greek maybe, or one of the Islands. I wonder if they knew someone warded their offices against magical scrying? Maybe it was standard. This was Hell’s Kitchen. Maybe the hell thing was closer to literal. I took out my phone and texted the girls that it was clear to come.

Foggy walked me through the refugee application process. Explaining that to make sure we didn’t have a close encounter with ICE, the immigration thugs, the best way was to get Yelena out of the country, and make a refugee under the special case rules for Ukrainian refugees from the Russian invasion, to allow her to enter legally, get legal standing to be an official student and eventually become a landed immigrant and licenced doctor able to practice openly in the US when her studies were done. Foggy was animated, clearly a man that enjoyed his work, cared about helping the little people who fell through the cracks. His partner was weirding me out though. His stillness was that of a predator. Not a helpless blind man, a still predator ready to pounce. I was full on faking being relaxed. What the hell is his issue?

I could hear Karen ushering Yelena through the office. She sounded like she knew it well. They were laughing and relaxed. I’m glad somebody was. I was half way to freaked out, my instincts were screaming THREAT, but there was no one but the blind guy, the soft looking guy, Karen and Yelena in the whole damned building.

Foggy began to talk about the subject I was waiting for. “Now as for the matter of fees, Karen shared with me a bit of Yelena’s background. I am so terribly sorry her first experience of America was so traumatic. We are willing to do the work for a nominal fee, mostly to cover our own filing costs. As a friend of Karen, we will provide our services pro-bono.”

They guy was no shit exactly what he looked like. A genuinely good guy. He was smart, clearly well trained, yet he was working in this shithole office for scraps of what any of the big offices would pay just to get a hold of him. He wasn’t rich, he didn’t smell like he came from rich. He just was a good guy who would rather help people than get rich. I smiled, and this time it was genuine. My glamour only hid the fangs, I legitimately did like this guy.

I took out two bundles of cash, and put them on the table. They were 10k each.

“That won’t be necessary” I said. I had a business card. Nick Condon, Thorne Confidential Asset Recovery. I put it on top of the cash.

“Thorne Confidential Asset Recovery was responsible for recovering a number of people from the sex traffickers that were holding them. In the process, a large number of the assets that they had taken criminal possession of were returned to their rightful owners. Said owners expressed their gratitude with a percentage of the recovered assets value, and directed me to use it to help those individuals who had suffered at the hands of said traffickers.”

Karen and Yelena were sitting down and shaking hands with Foggy. Matt reached over and took a bundle of the cash and held it to his face.

“This reeks of blood. Did you kill its owners in the vault, or did this come right off the corpses? I imagine it wasn’t hard to get defenseless girls like Yelena to fall in line after seeing brutality like that?” Matt said, his voice cold and hard as hammered iron. What the actual fuck? I offer to pay for something he offered to provide free, and the BLIND GUY is picking a fight?

“Mathew, can we have a word?” Foggy said, in a false light tone betraying his rising stress.

“Mat! What the fuck is wrong with you!” Karen shouted, hand slamming down on the table.

The blind lawyer ignored everyone, and continued to speak. “Foggy, why don’t you and Karen take Yelena into your office and lock the door. Assure her that she is safe here and Mr Condon here will be unable to harm her further. I will deal with Mr Condon.”

Yelena reached out and wrapped both hands around my bicep, clinging to me as the safe happy meeting looked to drop into he pot. Foggy looked about ready to panic. Only Karen wasn’t frozen in fear.

Karen was pissed.

“Matt Murdock, the man without TACT.” She said, glaring at Matt as if he could see the fury in her eyes. He flinched from her tone, but the room was a heartbeat away from violence and everyone knew it. Karen just did not care.

“Foggy, take Yelena to your office and begin walking her through the process. I will give you a shout when I have pulled Matt’s head out of his ass.” Karen said in a voice of honey and barbed wire.

“Foggy!” Matt ordered.

“Foggy!” Karen countered.

“Yelena!” Foggy smiled sweetly. “I have something strong and alcoholic in my office, and I totally should not be drinking it. Would you like to save me from drinking alone while we let Karen beat some sense into my partner?” I nodded to Yelena, and she let Foggy lead her out of the office.

The second the door closed, the table was thrown against the wall and a blind lawyer moved to get between me and Karen. I moved to get between him and Karen. Karen moved to draw a familiar pink Hello Kitty Glock from her handbag and pointed it at the printer in the back of the room where the office mainframe nestled.

“Karen, you don’t know who he is. What he is. He is a killer. He isn’t even human.” Matt said, and his voice wasn’t quiet anymore. It was a harsh rasp of barely contained rage and threat. I freaking know that voice.

“I know he’s a killer. He killed a bunch of people right in front of me. People who were planning on killing me in front of Frank Castle, who is also a client, and a killer. For that matter, I am a killer. Did you forget that, mister I solve every problem with brutal beatings?” Karen raged.

“You are him. You are Daredevil.” I swore, the penny finally dropping. No wonder he was hostile. He always saw through my glamour. He always knew what I was. I backed up, taking Karen out of the direct line, making him choose between her and me. He turned, tracking me.

“Mat Murdoch, if you hit that goblin I will shoot your printer. You know how long it took us to find you a braille printer? If you hit him, I will kill your printer. I swear to God.” Karen threatened him. I was the Goblin King, he was Daredevil and Karen was the one delivering threats. Fuck but I love New York!

I began to laugh. Karen took one hand off her pistol to slap me in the back of the shoulder, but her sight picture remained filled with the printer.

Matt held himself at the point of attack, I could hear the trigger start to pull, and Matt finally held up both hands in surrender before it quite hit the break point and executed the only braille computer printer in Hell’s Kitchen.

I let the laugher boom out, and Foggy stuck his head back in. He saw Matt and I standing facing each other, Karen pointing a hot pink Hello Kitty Glock at the printer. He grinned and asked “So, we are through the briefing, are we ready to sit down and go over the details? I have half a bottle left!”

Karen cleared and safed her weapon, before stowing it in her purse. “Bring glasses for me and you two. Those two idiots are on a time out. They get no booze.”

Matt flipped the table back upright and I set the chairs in place around it again. We sat down to go through the process of how to smuggle her out of the country, to prepare to enter it legally and permanently. The way Karen and Foggy were laughing and drinking as if this was a normal day at the office told me more about how fucked up her previous life was, and how cool Foggy was than it did about the stability of Daredevil, the blind LAWYER of Hell’s Kitchen.

Foggy was asking if I was prepared to put Yelena up for months if necessary for the Refugee entry claim to go through. He was right, the cost of putting someone up for months in which they are not allowed to legally work was daunting. Or should be.

I dismissed the concern with a wave. “Not a problem. She will be staying with my parents. She is going to have food, transportation and spending money until she is able to come back and go to school here legally.”

Karen shot me a look of amusement, Foggy of approval, and Matt, of deep suspicion.

“How are we to know that she is really going to be staying with your parents. And what exactly are your parents, you aren’t even human. How do we know you aren’t just selling her into the same hell of sexual slavery on the other side of the border.” Matt asked, his voice calm and reasonable as a falling guillotine blade.

Yelena had just about enough of the tension. “You could ask them. He talks to them every week on video, I have been talking to them for weeks now. Karen is right, pull your head out of your ass lawyer man” Yelena’s accent was thick enough to let me know she had been drinking shot for shot with Foggy, who did not seem to believe in mixer in his whiskey.

Karen smiled. “I can meet goblin mom?”

I turned to her and begged her, “Does Frank have to put up with this?”

Karen shook her head quickly. “If Frank’s mom was still alive I don’t think he would have gone quite as far off the rails as he did, now grab the laptop behind Foggy and make the call!”

The meeting was the sort of humiliation that some people join gameshows or hire dominatrix to provide. I have no urge for either, but thanks to this video call, I know exactly how both would feel.

“Mom, there is Yelena’s legal team here, so please no last names okay?”

Mom was looking very Mom, she had an apple stylus behind her ear, her big framed glasses on her head, and Dad’s favorite Montreal Canadiens jersey on.

“Jareth honey, hello. Hi Yelena, you ready for the big move? Can you introduce me to your friends?” Mom burbled happily, as mom always did when I showed any signs of being social at all.

“Hi babusya!” Yelena said waving happily with her refilled glass of whiskey. Babusya is Ukranian for grandmother and what every one of my people had taken to calling mom on our video calls.

“Hi goblin mom! You raised a sweet boy. Mostly.” Karen said, waving happily, watching Matt go a shade similar to his Daredevil suit.

I began the introductions before things went farther off rails. “Mom, you know Yelena of course, and this is Karen, she is a friend I met in my other job. She has been super helpful in showing me how to help Yelena. This smiling fellow to my left is Foggy Nelson, he is the main attorney that will be helping Yelena through the whole immigration nightmare. To my right is Matt. He is Foggy’s partner, but he and I met in another capacity once and he is a bit…..” I trailed off, and mom’s happy soft look turned hard and cold.

“Nice to meet you Foggy, I can see Yelena is in good hands. Karen so nice to meet you! Jareth told me so much about you, and your special friend. I am so glad that Jareth is making other friends in the business. I was a little worried he would have a hard time finding friends in New York. It has such a reputation.”

Karen turned and gave me a long look. “Oh I like goblin mom. She is cool. Why can’t you be cool Matt?”

Matt sounded like a priest speaking to sinners when he replied softly. “Because murder is wrong Karen.”

Karen bared her teeth, those who had never seen predators threaten might have called it a smile. Her voice was so sweet honey would be shamed as she asked softly. “So, how is Electra these days. I saw her jumping from the roof of your building just last week. What were you doing with her Matt, praying?”

Matt sighed, Foggy looked confused, Karen’s fang baring transitioned into an actual smile as Matt lowered his head and raised his hands in surrender.

Foggy and Karen exchanged contact information with mom. As they chatted, I rose and retired to a corner of the room where a certain blind lawyer joined me. Funny thing about blind people. They don’t have to look at you for you to feel their attention and focus. It is flat out creepy.

“This changes nothing. If I see Goblin King killing again, I will stop him.” Daredevil threatened me.

Massaging my forehead to delay the headache I felt coming on, I sighed. “Look Matt Murdoch, attorney at law, I am here at Nelson and Murdoch because my FRIEND Karen said you were the people to turn to when I needed to get Yelena help. She came here as a refugee, only to find herself sex trafficked by the Russian mob. I want to help her to come here legally, to help her get to her dream of becoming a doctor and helping people. Everyone in the room, everyone on the call EXCEPT YOU is here for one thing only, to help Yelena. If you have such a hard on for me that you can’t do your damned job, recuse yourself from this case and I will gladly take you out back and beat your blind ass until you can see Yelena and not your fucking ego is why were supposed to be here.”

Matt’s head snapped back as if I had punched his lights out. I checked my fists. Nope, not guilty. I guess it was just his Catholic conscience catching up to his conduct and giving a small spanking. He sighed. He walked over to Yelena and took her hands in his. He smiled at her and said in the soft voice that Karen got from him, not the rasp I got. “Miss Yelena, Foggy and I will make sure that you will be coming home soon, with the legal right to study and live here. Rest assured, Nelson and Murdoch are on your side.” I could see everyone in the room relax a notch as Matt Murdoch stopped playing Daredevil and started being the hero Hell’s Kitchen needed.

I’m bad at being good. When I try, things tend to go sideways. Matt Murdoch is good at being good. He just sucks at being an asshole.

It’s enough to make a grown goblin cry.