Chapter Text
Odette softly hummed as she looked over her checklist while the elevator doors closed before the carriage lazily lifted toward the seventh floor. She’d checked, double-checked, and quadruple-checked her supplies on the way here but- Oh, did she forget to triple-check? It didn’t matter, she was checking again anyway.
All-purpose cleaner, upholstery cleaner, stainless steel wipes, wood cleaner, and glass cleaner.. Check.
Her wooden broom, wet mop, vacuum, and feather duster.. Check.
Gloves, rags, lube, and paper towels.. Check!
..Honestly, Odette wasn’t sure why she bothered bringing anything apart from the feather duster and lube. Every time the terran found herself hired by a new sophont needing her ‘services’, it usually just ended up being a sex thing or some kind of ploy to domesticate her.
She wasn’t complaining, of course! It was part of the package, after all.
A cute terran dressed up in the prettiest maid dress she could compile shows up at your door, all dolled up and eager to please? It was practically guaranteed that every affini in a thousand-star radius would want to tear that pretty dress off of her and make her makeup run~.
..It was normally just headpats and shy flirting, though.
Odette’s train of thought faltered as the elevator doors slowly opened and revealed the floor where her next client resided. With a smile quickly making its way across the terrans face, she pushed her cleaning cart forward and practically skipped toward the apartment number on her latest ticket.
B107.. B108.. B109!
The terran slowed down in front of the large door and took it in for a moment. It was immediately evident that the tenant was an affini, given not only the large scale of the door but also the name on the ticket; Aneska Hedgenettle, Twentieth Bloom.
Odette did a quick calculation in her head as she smoothed out the hem of her dress and made sure her hair looked pretty.. Twenty blooms, that made the affini close to six thousand years old, didn’t it?
After wracking her brain for a moment, the terran realized she’d never actually met such an old affini, usually just youngblooms who still managed to be older than most of her species’ entire civilization. The terran giggled as she softly knocked on the door and got into a cute pose with her hands cupped together and on her thighs while she faced the floor in a small bow.
..It was probably about two minutes of standing like that before Odette looked up with a slightly confused expression. Perhaps she hadn’t knocked loud enough, then. The terran tried again, knocking a little louder this time before getting back into her bowing pose.
Another minute or so passed before Odette looked up with a furrowed brow and a bit of concern; did she get the wrong address? Or maybe the tenant was out on errands.
Odette tried once more, a heavier knock almost hurting her knuckles on the dense wooden door. This time, Odette was rewarded with sound from the other side of the door in the form of quiet groaning. A smile slid across the terran’s face as she realized the affini was probably just pampering their floret and hadn’t heard the first two knocks.
The maid resumed her bow as she listened to the soft shuffling noise from behind the door grow louder and louder until abruptly stopping a meter or so away. A soft, metallic swishing noise emanated from the door as it slid to the side and revealed the hab to Odette. She couldn’t actually see the interior since she was staring at the ground, but she got the idea that it was a little dark.
From past the opening of the door, Odette heard a quiet sigh and looked up to see the affini who had requested her. The terran’s smile nearly fell as she stared at the messy clump of vines and wilting leaves before her, only just barely resembling a humanoid form. The affini’s voice was a little hoarse and almost sad as it spoke, “..Oh, roots. Are you Odette, little one..? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize..”, the affini paused, moving its attention toward the terran’s cleaning cart, “..It completely slipped my mind that I requested you, petal. My hab’s a mess and I wasn’t expecting visitors..”, Aneska softly pronounced, drooping a little with each word.
Odette tilted her head slightly and peered into the affini’s hab, finding it to be, just as described; a complete mess. The terran looked up and put on the most genuine smile she could before stepping forward, “Lucky for you, I clean up messes! May I come in?”, the terran’s voice was bouncy and full of life.
Aneska was quiet for a moment, possibly mulling it over in their mind as they stared at the floor before finally giving a slow nod. Odette smiled a little wider as she stepped backward and grabbed her cart before skipping into the affini’s hab.
To say the affini’s hab was a mess would be a sizeable understatement. Even in the moody light that Aneska had chosen, Odette could clearly see dropped leaves and flowers littering the floor along with various papers, large bowls, and even the occasional couch cushion. Still, Odette kept a smile on her face as she rolled her cart in, even as it tossed and shook over fallen branches and vines.
When the terran had made it toward what she assumed was the middle of the living room, she slowed her cart and let go before clasping her hands together and loudly exclaiming, “Lights to hab standard, pretty please!”, she added a touch of honey to her words as she spoke to the hab’s AI assistant. Within a second, the lights brightened accompanied by a happy chirp from the ceiling, “Of course, petal~!”, the hab’s AI said softly.
Odette looked back to Aneska and nearly dropped her smile again. The light revealed just how poorly the affini had clearly been treating themselves, with dried-out vines and brittle-looking leaves making up the majority of their thin body. Odette couldn’t see even one of the flowers from the floor on the affini, meaning they’d likely all fallen off. Still, the terran kept a smile on her face as she spoke, “May I use your compiler, ma’am?”, Odette remembered that the affini had asked for that title on their request ticket.
Aneska was still looking at the floor as they softly nodded, clearly ashamed that a terran was cleaning up their mess. Odette made a show of hopping over to the compiler, making sure that her dress bounced a few times as she did in hopes of entertaining the affini as she worked. The terran quickly tapped in a few characters and was just as quickly rewarded with a box of large trash bags.
As Odette made her way back to her cart, Aneska quietly shuffled over to the couch in the middle of the living room. It wasn’t uncommon for Odette’s clients to sit down as they watched her, but Aneska wasn’t watching. The affini quietly sat on the couch without so much as looking at Odette, again likely ashamed.
The terran’s smile turned a little more sympathetic as she knelt down and began to use one of the bags to collect some of the dead leaves. The first bag was filled before Odette had even made it around the perimeter of her cart, the second and third bags not doing much better. Still, Odette carried on for what must have been at least an hour of collecting dead plant life and occasionally changing out her gloves once her current pair wore down.
Odette made sure she was still putting on a bit of a show after she noticed Aneska’s eyes occasionally steal little glances at her.
The terran let out a heavy breath as she hauled the fourteenth bag into the compiler and watched it turn into sparkling lights. Odette then turned around and looked at her work so far, finding the hab to still be pretty messy but less so than when she started. The terran smiled and skipped back to her cart before pulling out her broom to begin sweeping up any smaller debris she hadn’t picked up. As Odette began to sweep the hab, she began to softly hum a melody in time with her sweeps, an action which had been called ‘adorable’ by several of her previous clients..
Aneska was still quiet.
That didn’t bother the terran, though. She continued to sweep until she’d collected a large pile of dust, broken leaves, twigs, and flowers to be swept into her dustpan and decompiled. The terran worked through the living room, the kitchen, a seemingly unused bathroom, and what appeared to be Aneska’s bedroom.
Though, to call it a bedroom was a little misleading. It seemed to be more like an indoor garden filled with plants from corners of galaxies that Odette had never even heard of. It also appeared to be the only room that had mostly avoided the mess that the rest of the hab had devolved into.. Which was actually more worrying as Odette considered why exactly the bedroom seemed unused. Perhaps Aneska was sleeping in their living room?
Odette swiftly lost her train of thought as a quiet sound came from behind her as she swept a part of Aneska’s bedroom. The terran turned to face the door and put on her biggest smile as she saw the affini nearly hiding behind the doorframe before quietly speaking, “I-I’m sorry.. I just.. Do you want a snack, little one? Maybe a drink, at least?”, Aneska quietly asked.
Odette giggled as she leaned her broom against a nearby wall and skipped over, making sure to stop and bow as she got close, “That sounds lovely! I could probably use the break, anyway.”, the terran happily agreed as she followed the shy affini out of their bedroom and toward the kitchen.
Odette crawled atop one of the bar stools in the kitchen as Aneska quickly compiled something and placed it in front of the terran with shaky vines. The maid looked up and smiled before tilting her head forward; a pretty standard way of requesting head pats, she’d found. Aneska hesitated for a moment before they inevitably gave Odette a quick rub on her head and then seemingly fled back to the couch. The terran held a giggle in as she began to snack on the bowl of grapes and juice box that the affini had provided.
After finishing up her snack, Odette hopped down from her stool and decompiled the trash before returning to her duties. The sweeping probably only took twenty minutes all told, not counting the terran’s short snack break. With the final dustpan of debris decompiled, Odette set her sights on mopping the floors to pick up any final bits of dust or broken leaves that she’d missed.
Aneska seemed to get a little braver as time went on, evolving from little looks whenever they could manage to avoid Odette’s gaze to casually staring at the terran as she worked. Odette obviously knew that the affini was staring, which she used to great effect when she began to give the affini more of a show. Occasionally, the terran would wiggle her hips a little, do a little spin, or hum a bit louder. Each time Odette did any of those things, she could hear the affini’s dry leaves shutter a little, and once she even heard Aneska quietly giggle!
After a while, the terran finished mopping and looked around the hab once more. The floors may have been quite clean now, but there was still work to be done. The countertops definitely needed to be sprayed and wiped down, the various furniture pieces needed cleaning, and she’d finish up with a good dusting!
With a plan in her mind, Odette got to work with the first task ahead of herself; the countertops. Luckily, it appeared that Aneska didn’t seem to cook much as there was no food debris to be seen, but there was still a layer of muck to be sprayed and wiped away. The bathroom, as Odette had originally suspected, didn’t appear to be used much either, as the only thing to be wiped up ended up being dust.
Odette cleaned the tables and chairs with wood cleaner and dried them with rags, leaving them clean and glossy. When it came to the couch, Odette did have to temporarily relocate the affini so that she could properly vacuum off any debris before spraying the entire thing with upholstery cleaner..
It took the whole bottle since affini furniture is, of course, gigantic.
The terran spent the next few minutes on the couch blotting out any problem spots and drying the rest with rags. Once she was finished, Odette motioned Aneska to sit back down and took no small amount of pleasure in watching the affini lavish in the clean couch.
Odette hopped down and skipped back over to her cart to collect the last tool she’d need; her trusty feather duster! Admittedly, there were more effective ways to dust and Odette knew it, but she wasn’t going to wear a maid dress and not flaunt a feather duster!
Feather duster in hand, the terran went to work dusting any remaining surfaces while humming the tune that had been in her head for the last couple of hours as she’d worked. Normally, this would be around the time that Odette would feel vines slip beneath her dress and rip it apart.. Or at least when her client would pull the terran into their lap for mind-numbing scritches and pets for a few hours until their time ran out and Odette went about her day.
Instead, Aneska continued to shyly watch the terran dust the hab while occasionally looking a little ashamed. Odette rolled her eyes and giggled, wondering how a whole species of these disasters defeated the Accord.
“All done~!”, Odette announced as she returned from her cart for the last time. The affini almost looked surprised that the terran was finished, but they put a good amount of effort into forming a cohesive smile, “..Thank you, petal. I truly wish I could have made this a little more exciting for you, but perhaps another time?”, Aneska softly lamented.
Odette smiled, “That would be nice..”, the terran slowed down for a moment before looking up, “..I’m going to call a caseworker I know, okay? Will you talk to xem?”, Odette quietly asked. Aneska looked like they wanted to be shocked, but more than anything they looked acceptant, “..Yes, I can do that.. Thank you, petal.”, they quietly said.
Odette smiled and climbed onto the couch before slowly crawling into Aneska’s lap. Despite the dried-out vines and wilted leaves, the affini was still soft and a little warm to the touch. Odette pulled out her tablet and typed something out for a moment before closing it again and leaning further into Aneska. The terran wrapped her arms around Aneska, eventually feeling the affini return the hug that lasted until a knock resounded from the door.
Odette’s Independent Cleaning Services had yet another satisfied customer.