Rick dragged his weary carcass through the dark, rainy streets. His body ached all over from a full day of moving, boxing and shipping all sorts of cheap-ass stuff. The warehouse he worked in had two functional forklifts, and it needed four. This meant a truly unfortunate amount of heavy lifting, and Rick was basically dead on his feet at the end of every shift. He’d love nothing more than to quit his awful job, but unfortunately, he needed to pay for stuff like food and rent. Not that a single minimum wage full-time job was enough to pay for rent in this town. Not even the rent for a shitty little one bedroom apartment. Fortunately, he shared that shitty little one bedroom apartment with Corinne, and together they were just about able to get by. As luck would have it, their internet connection was just about good enough for Corinne to work remotely, because she was a freelancer, and it was literally impossible for her to be physically present at all the places she did work for. Corinne had been pretty busy lately. Which was a good thing, because it meant they were making enough that they could probably afford to actually celebrate Christmas this year. But it also meant that Corinne was almost as exhausted as him, and it was starting to take a toll. Laundry was piling up. The dishes weren’t being done. He couldn’t even remember the last time either of them had the energy to pull out the vacuum. Frankly, the apartment was starting to get kind of smelly. Not that he blamed Corinne for that. If anything, he blamed the economic realities of the world at large. But it certainly wasn't helping his mood any. As such, he cut a rather unenthusiastic figure as he dragged his feet up the stairs to the apartment he shared with Corinne. Opening the door, Rick expected to be met by a messy, dimly lit hallway that smelled faintly rank. He certainly didn’t expect to find that the hall light had been replaced and the brightly lit hallway had been so thoroughly cleaned it literally gleamed. The air smelled of lemon-scented cleaning fluid, and everything was in its proper place. In a bit of a daze, Rick looked around the apartment. The tiny kitchen was absolutely spotless, and all the dishes had been cleaned and put away. The bathroom practically sparkled, and the washer-dryer was currently working its way through what had to be the fourth laundry load of the day, given how little dirty laundry remained in the basket. The bedroom was just as thoroughly cleaned, to the point that even Rick’s small collection of anime figurines had been carefully dusted and put back into place. Finally, he made his way to the tiny space at the end of the hallway that served as the dining and living room of the awkwardly shaped residence. Here he found last remaining dirty thing in the apartment. Corinne was lying awkwardly sprawled out on the sofa, dressed in stained clothing and smelling enough of old sweat that it was obvious even over the omnipresent artificial lemon scent. Her hair had clearly been put up into a bun at some point, but most of the strands had long since escaped that attempt at structure and turned into a tangled, greasy mess. “Are you OK, Corinne?” Corinne replied with a weak whimper. Sighing softly, Rick went out into the kitchen and took a bottle of water from the fridge. He handed it to Corinne, who greedily sucked it down before slumping back onto the couch. Rick looked around the room once again, marvelling at just how clean everything was. Well, everything but Corinne. “This is amazing, sweetie. How…” “I finished one of my projects early this morning, and the other three are all waiting on feedback. So I figured I’d do a bit of cleaning until one of my clients got back to me…” “But they didn’t?” “No, they didn’t.” “Still, how the hell did you manage all this in just one day?” “Well, whenever I started something, I kept thinking ‘I better do this quick in case I get an e-mail and have to go back to work’. But I never got those emails.” “Well, colour me impressed. I don’t think our apartment has ever looked this good before.” Corinne smiled tiredly. “I accept payment in cash, direct deposit or you patting my head and telling me I’m a good girl.” Rick laughed lifted Corinne up just a bit so he could take a seat on the couch and put her head in his lap. The he started gently petting her head, trying his best to carefully untangle her hair as he went. “Good girl. You did great.” “Mmhmm. More.” “You’re my good, sweet, wonderful girl, and I’m so lucky to have you.” Corinne sighed happily as Rick kept murmuring sweetly to her, his gentle fingers massaging her aching head. She was exhausted, and dirty, and sore. But that was fine. This made it all worth it.