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It was what Ryland Grace would consider a quiet night aboard the Hail Mary.
No night was truly quiet, not like he was used to back on Earth, when he lived alone in a tiny apartment with only a television for company. There was always something filling the silence on the ship: the buzz of engines as they pushed them through the atmosphere, the hum of electricity as it whirred through the vessel, the trills and chirps of Rocky as he bopped up and down beside him, catching his attention every couple of minutes to ask another question or demand something else.
Maybe if he were alone, it would be a silence more akin to his old life, a silence shrouded with background noise that kept him from going insane. But he wasn't alone, not anymore, and therefore no night was truly quiet. Calm, maybe, quiet in the sense that they had nothing to do but sit and wait for sleep to take them, but never silent. Silence was somewhat impossible when you lived on a spaceship, when you lived with Rocky.
Grace slouched in his chair, his glasses resting precariously on his chin and his feet kicked up on Rocky's ball like an ottoman as he lazed. Every so often, Rocky would slam into the side of the xenonite until Grace's feet fell to the floor, telling him off for 'having his feet on his bedroom' and 'using him as a chair' when Rocky got no such luxury. Grace would simply laugh, swinging his legs back up with a smirk, and the cycle would repeat. A quiet night.
His eyes drifting shut, Grace stretched back in his chair until he was almost lying down. He wasn't necessarily tired, not any more so than usual, but with nothing to attend to, nothing to do but coast through the stars, he let himself take a moment of rest. It wasn't often he just got to do nothing anymore. Much like the fact that there was always noise, there was always something to do - switches to flick, gravity to defy, literal stars to save. Even sleeping, actual rest, was something of a process, readjusting and moving locations as he tried to get both himself and Rocky into a comfortable position. Stillness was truly a luxury, a luxury he wasn't about to waste.
If Rocky would stop knocking his damn feet down...
"Would you stop that?" Grace sighed as he opened his eyes and sat up, his back cracking loudly. He winced, one hand reaching behind him to press into his spine, and looked down at his companion with exasperated fondness. "It's not hurting you, you know? It's not like my feet are dirty."
"Feet still feet," Rocky stated, tapping on the xenonite towards Grace's fallen feet, when suddenly, he paused, seemingly noticing something new as his attention turned to his projector. Slowly, as if it were the first time Rocky had ever seen him, he tilted his carapace away from Grace, obviously wary. "Grace, what is on body, question?"
Grace looked down at himself, his eyebrow raised. He looked much the same as he had every other day he'd spent with Rocky - a t-shirt covering his torso, his yellow jumpsuit tied around his waist, his feet covered with the same socks he'd been wearing for God-knows how long (maybe Rocky was right. Maybe he shouldn't have his feet on the ball). There was nothing about him that was out of the ordinary, nothing out of place, and he'd explained the concept of clothes to Rocky some time ago. There was, seemingly, no particular reason why he should be asking. "What do you mean by that, pal?"
"Eyes on clothes! Big eyes. Scary, scary!" Rocky trilled with a panicked bounce, the fear evident in his voice. "Eyes not usually on clothes. Is creature, question? Is Grace being attacked by creature with big eyes? Where creature come from? What is creature? Rocky has never seen before!"
"Wha-?" Grace looked down at his body again, his shoulders sagging in relief when he realised what Rocky meant. Right. His Cats shirt. He guessed it probably looked a little intimidating to someone who had literally no idea what it represented - those big, beady eyes that bore into your soul with no other facial features to even it out, especially for someone like Rocky, who relied on features to detect everything and who was always so alert to danger. Seeing huge eyes on an alien was, naturally, a justified reason for concern. "Oh, no, buddy, it's okay. It's just the design. It's drawn on there."
For a moment, Grace questioned how Rocky could even see the eyes on his shirt. As far as Grace was aware, he'd never been able to see the designs on his clothes before, their flat detailing impossible to pick up through echolocation or his projector, even if it picked up the shirt itself. As his fingers trailed gently over the design, however, he realised. The eyes were raised, printed with puff paint. It was the one shirt of his that Rocky could properly see. He smiled to himself. He'd never considered that before. Amaze.
"Why eyes on shirt, question?"
This was quite possibly the last place Grace expected their 'quiet' evening to go. "It's from a musical called Cats. I brought this shirt when I went to see the show. The eyes are on the poster."
Rocky bounced again, this time in intrigue. "What is 🎵🎶🎵, question?”
Right. He'd never quite gotten around to explaining the concept of a musical. He reached over to his computer, quickly typing the word before turning back to Rocky. "It's like..." Grace smiled, chuckling to himself and shaking his head. "It's like our puppet shows, right? Except instead of objects, it's people pretending to be something else - that's acting. And instead of trying to plan a mission, they tell a story, with singing and dancing instead of words. It's something we like to watch on Earth, like a movie."
It wasn't something Grace expected to miss as much as he did, but as he explained the concept to Rocky, a nagging feeling of bitter nostalgia and lingering sadness settled in his chest. It wasn't like he was a frequent theatre goer, at least, he didn't think so. He went to the shows put on by his students, even helped out a couple of times, always brought a program and far too much from the concession stand in an effort to support their critically under-funded arts program. He sat in the front row, maybe shed a tear, and cheered as loudly as he could when they took their bows, proudly telling each student how well they did when they next came into his class.
And when the shows that interested him landed in one of San Francisco's local theatres on their regional tours, he'd go, seeing everything from Cats to Hamilton. It wasn't like he sought them out; he wasn't signed up to any kind of mailing list, but it was something to do on a Friday night, a nice night out that he could do by himself without looking like a totally pathetic loner. Some people just liked going to the theatre alone. That was a thing.
Sure, maybe he had a binder of Playbills on his coffee table. And maybe he had enough merchanise shirts that they filled out a semi-decent chunk of his wardrobe back home, apparently enough so that one of them landed on the Hail Mary with him (they were easy, okay? And school-appropriate). And, okay. Maybe he was a theatre goer...
Something that he'd now never experience again. Just another thing from the human world that was slipping through his fingers, taken from him before he had a chance to realise he'd miss it.
Rocky nodded, vocalising happily the way he did whenever he discovered new information about his friend. "Grace like musical called Cats, question?"
Shaking the existential crisis (about musical theatre of all things) from his head, Grace smiled smally at the thought of galloping dancers in skin-tight cat suits. It was such a ludicrous concept, he acknowledged that, and maybe back home he'd even consider his fondness towards it a guilty pleasure, something he'd be too embarrassed to admit to - even to Carl. But with Rocky, he didn't feel that way. Maybe it was because his Rock had no concept of what was shameful and what wasn't, at least not by human standards, didn't have the knowledge of guilty pleasures or why they were something one kept hidden. But even if he did, Grace had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't care anyway. Aboard Hail Mary, at the ends of the Milky Way, there was no room for secrets. Not ones as stupid as liking the musical Cats anyway.
"Yeah, yeah. Cats is pretty good. They made a movie version recently, which was really bad but the stage show is good. The songs are good."
"People sing songs about cat animals. Is weird."
Grace laughed, his head thrown back. "Yeah, I guess it is kinda weird when you put it that way."
Rocky chirped and, without warning, began rolling the ball in the direction of the projection deck, narrowly avoiding running over Grace's foot as he did so. "Show Rocky Cats." It wasn't a question; it was somewhat of a demand, his voice the Eridian equivalent of puppy dog eyes - the tone knew he Grace could never refuse (the tone he used when he really wanted something). "Show Rocky Cats song. Rocky want to see."
"You want to listen to a Cats song?"
"Yes! Yes, yes, yes. Rocky listen to Grace Cats song." Without looking back to see whether Grace was following him, Rocky always knew he was, he wheeled further into the projection room, coming to a stop in the middle of the bridge. He curled around himself and turned to Grace expectantly, like a child waiting for story time. "Grace play Rocky Cats song."
Grace followed wordlessly, flopping down beside him. He pulled out his computer, searching the video drive until he found what he was looking for. They'd really thought of everything when they'd sent him up, including creating a video software akin to YouTube - a seemingly endless stream of movies and videos at the tap of a button. Clicking play on the 1998 recorded version of Cats, which, if he looked deep into his memory, he was sure he had on DVD as a child, he turned to Rocky. "You comfy, bud?"
"Yes."
"Okay, well, this is called Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats. It's the first song in the show."
It had been a long time since Grace had listened to Cats, longer since he'd watched it - recording or otherwise - and even he had to admit he jolted a little when the first of the cats appeared onscreen, the unsightly costume up close catching him off guard. But Rocky trilled frantically, his voice high with alarm as he jumped away from his projector, rolling the ball closer to Grace's side until they were practically touching. "What is that, question?"
Grace looked down at him, resting his hand on the top of his enclosure in a way he hoped would be comforting. "What's what, pal?"
"Fuzzy creature things!" Rocky pointed at the screens, his fingers shaking. He was at full alert, his limbs stiff as he stood tall in a desperate attempt to be threatening. Ironically, a bit like a startled cat, Grace thought. "Scary! Scary, scary!"
"It's alright, pal. Those are the actors." He could understand the fear; the costumes weren't for the faint of heart, especially in such high definition, but he couldn't help but find his outburst a little amusing. "The people who dance in the show."
"Why do they look like that, question?"
Grace laughed silently, shaking his head. He kinda wished he knew the answer to that one himself. "Those are their costumes, the clothes they wear so they can look like something else. Kinda like my spacesuit, except theirs is to make them look like a cat."
For a moment, Rocky considered the answer, watching the projector cautiously as the actors continued to dance around. Slowly, he softened and, though still weary, sat back down, tucking his limbs back under his carapace. "Rocky do not like people in fuzzy creature suits."
This time, Grace laughed out loud. "Yeah, well, be thankful I'm not showing you the newer movie."
"Is worse, question?"
"Is worse. Statement."
Grace turned his attention back to the screen as the song continued to play around them. The cats surrounded them from all angles, leaping and twirling as it grew in intensity, and he quickly found himself engrossed, watching in wonder. It was almost like being in the audience, he realised as his memory flashed, when the actors filled the auditorium and danced through the seats. For a moment, it almost felt like he was there. In the seats of the Golden Gate Theatre, the music pounding in his ears as his eyes tried to keep up, following whichever dancer happened to be in front of him.
The song drew to a close, and with it, Grace's fantasy. No longer was he in the seats of the Golden Gate Theatre. He was back in the familiar projection room. Reaching over to pause the film, he looked at Rocky expectantly. "So, what do you think?"
Rocky thought for a moment. "Cats weird. Grace like weird things on Earth."
"Gee, thanks, Rock." He rolled his eyes, feeling oddly dejected. Realistically, it shouldn't matter to him what Rocky thought of Cats. Cats wasn't that important to him (right?), and it wasn't like he was the one performing. There was no real reason for his mood to turn, but still, he couldn't help but feel a wave of disappointment spreading through him. Maybe guilty pleasures did still exist on the Hail Mary. "You know, I don't make fun of the things you like."
Silence fell over the two of them as Grace stared blankly at the frozen screen, deflated. It wasn't the first time Rocky had questioned his interests; it wasn't the first time he'd shot them down, either, but for some reason, this time stung a little more. Maybe it was the initial excitement of finally wearing something Rocky could see without Grace having to alter it that got them there, finally having something tangible he could show him and share about his life back home. Maybe it was the vulnerability of sharing his guilty pleasure, something he'd never shared with another human before. Maybe it was the realisation that he'd never witness live arts again, would never see another show with his own eyes, something he had almost grown to take for granted in all the years he'd been going to the theatre, that was souring his mood, not Rocky's disinterest in the song.
Or maybe he just really liked Cats. A lot more than he thought he did, apparently.
Eventually, Rocky looked up at Grace. He clicked once, twice, almost apologetic. "Grace really like Cats musical, question?"
"Yeah, I guess I do." Grace shook his head at himself. "I mean, I have the shirt."
Rocky hummed. "Grace show Rocky rest of Cats musical, question?"
Grace turned to Rocky, his eyes wide. That was truly the last thing he had expected him to say. He was gearing up to spend the rest of the night pretending he didn't care, finding some hidden corner of the Hail Mary to sulk in as he childishly avoided Rocky until he couldn't any longer, or until he got over his ridiculous butt hurt - whatever came first. But now... "You want to watch the rest?"
"Yes."
"But why? I thought you didn't like it?"
"Rocky does not like. Fuzzy cat creatures are scary, song noises are weird. But Grace like it. Rocky will like it too." He said it like it was obvious, the clearest thing in the galaxy. That everything Grace liked, Rocky would inevitably end up liking too, even if he shot it down, not because he genuinely enjoyed them, but because he loved Grace, and his enjoyment was enough to keep him happy. That's just how they operated.
Warmth filled Grace's chest, and he smiled. Reaching to wrap an arm around his ball, he leaned his body weight fully against it, the closest thing to a half-hug he could get. Slouching against Rocky much like he had been in his own chair earlier, Grace reached for the computer again, the mouse hovering over the play button. God, he loved his Rock. "Thanks, pal. You're the best."
They sat like that until the recording was over, their shoulders touching as Grace watched the screen and Rocky his projector. Every so often, Rocky would ask a question, and Grace would shush him, barely managing to tear his eyes away from the show as he explained the plot as best he could remember. As it went on, Rocky seemed to grow more interested, at the very least more content to sit there, less afraid, and by the time Memory played, he was silent, staring with rapt attention (something for which Grace was thankful. Rocky didn't need to see the tears in his eyes).
And as the credits rolled, Rocky turned back to Grace, tapping lightly where the ball touched his shoulder. "Grace sing song from Cats musical for Rocky, question?"
"Absolutely not."