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Taking the pirate ship to Valencia seems like a good idea at the time.
There’s the prospect of sleeping in a bed rather than on the ground, of not being at the mercy of the weather, and not having to share a space with several other people.
In retrospect, Galavant thinks he probably should have given all of this much more thought.
*
It isn’t until they’ve already set sail that they realize the pirate ship only has two cabins, and that one of them belongs to the Pirate King.
“It’s not like we need more cabins. Don’t really have a lot of guests,” he says, shrugging. “You can have the other one, though. Should be enough room in there for all of you.”
There is definitely not enough room. The cabin is small and the bed in the corner looks big enough for only one person.
“We could share?” Sid asks, hesitantly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Galavant says. “There’s only enough room for one of us.”
Sid eyes the bed skeptically. “Are you sure?”
“Sid, you might have a small, compact body, but we’re not both going to fit.”
“Not really sure if that’s a compliment or an insult,” Sid says.
“We could take turns,” Isabella suggests. She picks up a blanket that looks like it’s seen better days and wrinkles her nose as she shakes out the dust motes. “That’s a reasonable compromise.”
“Or, since I’m the hero, I could take the bed,” Galavant says. Isabella and Sid turn to glare at him - almost in unison which is, quite honestly, a bit scary - and he holds up his hands in defeat. “Kidding. Of course we can take turns. That’s what I was going to suggest.”
*
It was not what he was going to suggest.
Isabella seems to realize this, which somehow ends up with her taking the cabin for the night while he and Sid bunk with the rest of the crew.
“I said I would share!” he protests as Isabella pushes them out of the cabin.
Isabella rolls her eyes. “Yes, I’m ever so grateful for your generosity.”
“So much for sleeping in a bed again,” Sid mumbles.
“You’ll have your turn tomorrow,” she says, patting Sid on the arm sympathetically. “I’m sure the sleeping quarters below deck are very nice.”
"You haven’t been on many pirate ships, have you?” Galavant asks. “They’re not exactly known for being ‘nice’.”
“I’m sure you’ve slept in worse places,” she says, trying to shut the door, a suspiciously shifty look on her face.
Galavant isn’t having any of it, and he puts his hand out to stop her from closing the door. “Not the point,” he says.
“She is right, though,” Sid says. “Several dungeons come to mind. All those campsites with the rocks poking up into my back. Oh, and that forest that smelled like dragon dung. That one was bad.”
Galavant frowns. “Not something I want to remember, Sid.”
Sid looks like he’s about to launch into a speech - or what passes for a speech with Sid (he does have a way of rambling on about the most ridiculous things sometimes) - so Galavant cuts him off before he can get started and says, “The point is, why can’t we share the cabin?”
“Because I have things to do. Alone. Secret things. Girl things.” A guilty look passes across her face as she twists her hands together and tries to inch back behind the door. “And I need alone time. To think about things. Normal things, of course. Nothing you need to worry about.”
Galavant stares. “You’re babbling.”
“Totally babbling,” Sid agrees.
“I am not!” she protests. She throws a blanket at them and moves to close the door. “I just have a lot on my mind. Besides, I thought heroes were supposed to let princesses sleep in the bed. You’ll be fine below deck.”
*
The thing is, Galavant doesn’t really mind bunking with the rest of the pirate crew.
It’s just that he’s gotten used to the sound of Isabella’s snores and the way Sid curls into him on cold nights. And he almost enjoys the way Isabella steals all the blankets and Sid is impossible to wake up in the mornings.
Not that he'll ever admit it out loud. Such feelings aren’t becoming of a great hero, after all.
*
As it turns out, not only is it crowded below decks, but there aren’t any spare hammocks. It isn’t until that moment that Galavant realizes he had been seriously overestimating the amount of space on the ship. He swears it looked larger when it was stuck atop the hill.
“It smells like someone died down here,” Sid says.
“Oi!” one of the pirates yells, “that hurts.”
“Sorry,” Sid says guiltily, and then, leaning close, whispers, “it really does smell awful down here.”
“At least it’s period appropriate,” Galavant says. He sniffs and then wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Though you might be right about someone dying down here.”
“The upper deck it is,” Sid says, sighing.
So much for sleeping inside, alone, and in a bed, Galavant thinks.
*
Naturally, it rains that night.
*
“Isabella,” he bellows, pounding on the cabin door. “Open up!”
Sid stands behind him, wet and shivering, looking utterly miserable. Even Galavant feels bad for him, and that’s not an emotion he’s used to having. He thinks he must be growing as a person.
“Isabella, I swear to--”
His rant is interrupted by Isabella throwing open the door, her expression murderous. It quickly changes to confusion, then concern.
“Why are you all wet?”
“It’s raining,” Sid says, teeth chattering.
“We’re sleeping in the cabin.” Galavant pushes past her and starts stripping off his wet clothes.
To his surprise, she doesn’t protest, just shakes out some of the blankets and hands him one. He tries not to feel put out that she chooses to fuss over Sid, wrapping one of the blankets around him.
“What happened to sleeping below decks?” she asks.
“Too crowded,” he says at the same time that Sid says, “Too smelly.”
“It felt like they were going to burst into another pirate shanty at any minute,” Galavant adds.
“And there were no hammocks left,” Sid says.
“For a hero, you’re oddly delicate,” Isabella says dryly. “On that point, I still get the bed tonight.”
“But--”
“No.”
Which is how he ends up sleeping on the floor of the cabin, damp and cold and miserable.
*
He wakes sometime during the night and finds that Sid has made his way over and is now stuck to his side, mumbling nonsense in his sleep. He’s clutching him as if he intends to never let go.
“Sid, get off,” he grumbles. For his small size, Sid gives off an amazing amount of heat and while Galavant is quite comfortable, he doesn’t really want to get caught cuddling his squire. “Come on, wake up.”
It’s not until he manages to untangle himself that he realizes Isabella is awake and has been watching them with something of a wistful expression. He means to ask her about it, but he can hear the music swelling outside the cabin and by the time he finishes a rousing, heroic musical number, he’s pretty much forgotten about it.
*
They take turns sharing the bed after that. It works out fairly well, though it isn’t until Galavant has the bed to himself and wakes up to Sid and Isabella cuddling on the floor that he understands Isabella's wistful look from the other morning.
*
Isabella approaches him during mealtime a few days later, her expression nervous.
“You know,” Isabella says, “sharing might not be a bad idea.”
Galavant looks down at his plate of food and frowns. “I thought you already ate.”
“What? I’m not -- no. I wasn’t talking about that.”
“In that case, if this is about the trail mix, I already gave you all of it. It’s not my fault if you’ve eaten it already,” he says, even though it’s not exactly the truth. He has another bag hidden away, but he’s keeping that in case of an emergency.
She stares at him. “It’s not about the trail mix, Galavant.”
“Oh.”
He tunes her out at that point. He knows it’s a bad habit - one he’s trying to get better at, he swears - so when she prods him in the shoulder and asks his opinion, he shrugs and said, “Sure? Sounds good.”
“You weren’t even listening, were you?” she states.
“No, not at all.”
“I cannot--” she starts, before letting out an aggravated sigh. “Fine. Forget it.”
He watches her walk away for a second before a thought comes to him and he yells after her, “What was it you wanted to share?”
*
Halfway through the journey and Galavant is pretty sure that sleeping one night in a bed and two on the floor is taking its toll. He’s also pretty sure that he has a huge bruise forming on his backside. Somehow, the floor of the cabin is less comfortable than sleeping on the floor of a forest.
He also finds it annoyingly aggravating that he sleeps better when he’s cuddled up against Sid or Isabella.
It’s all very problematic.
Sid has the bed that night, and he’s sprawled across it, sleeping peacefully. Galavant hates him a little. Meanwhile, Galavant is trying his best not to give in and wrap himself around Isabella as they curl together on the floor. She'd given a very long, rambling, and convoluted reason as to why it was okay for her to cuddle with Sid, but why she and Galavant needed to sleep back to back. He's still trying to parse out what she meant by it all.
“We should share the bed,” he whispers.
The only response he gets is Isabella snoring and rolling away from him, taking all the blankets with her.
*
There’s another storm the next night, one that rages against the window of the cabin and fills the room with cold air. Galavant wakes halfway through the night, shivering and cold, to find Sid nowhere in sight. And then he catches him sprawled across the narrow bed, cuddled up against Isabella. They look disgusting peaceful and content wrapped up in each other.
“Oh, come on,” he says. “That’s not fair.”
He tries to go back to sleep, but after what feels like an eternity of staring up at the ceiling, he picks up the threadbare blanket and hauls himself into the bed. There’s definitely not enough room for all of them in there - Isabella is practically squashed up against the wall and he’s precariously hanging off the side of the bed - but it beats sleeping on the floor.
He wakes up first the next morning and takes a moment to revel in the warmth of the bed and the sense of comfort he takes from waking up tangled with Isabella and Sid, before scrambling out of bed and pretending like nothing happened.
He does take great pleasure in guilting Sid for abandoning him on the floor, though.
(He waits for Sid and Isabella to fall asleep, of course, before wrapping himself around whichever one is closest to the edge. He always makes sure he’s out of the bed before either of them wake up because he’s not really ready to admit that he prefers cuddling with them to sleeping by himself. He doesn’t think he could live it down.
He’s not really ready to admit that he prefers cuddling with them to sleeping by himself. He doesn’t think he could live it down.)
*
It continues to storm, and there’s one day where it gets so bad that Galavant and Sid are forced to help the rest of the pirates on deck. They’re both soaked to the bone by the time Isabella corrals them into the cabin.
“Don’t even think of going back out there,” she says. “You’ll catch your death and then where will we be? You need to be alive when we reach Valencia. Obviously. Wouldn’t want you dead.”
“I’m so cold I feel like I might die,” Sid says, wrapping a blanket around himself.
Isabella watches them both with worried eyes as they shiver and attempt to make themselves warm. She opens her mouth a few times as if readying herself to say something before finally blurting out, “I think you should take the bed tonight. Both of you.”
“I think you should take the bed tonight.”
Galavant looks at her, surprised. “But it’s your turn.”
“Yes. I’m saying both of you should sleep in the bed. With me. You know. Sharing body heat. Keeping warm. Something like that.”
“You’re babbling again, princess,” he says offhandedly, before realizing what she just said. “Wait. What?”
“Well, it’s not like we haven’t been sharing the past few nights. Don’t give me that look, I know you’ve been sneaking into the bed each night. You too, Sid,” she says, raising an eyebrow at their attempts to protest. “And you both need to stay warm. Honestly, I tried suggesting this days ago.”
And well, it’s as reasonable an excuse as any, and one that he really can't disagree with once he's beneath the sheets, warm and content. It’s awkward at first, until Sid tangles their legs together and Isabella drapes an arm over his back.
“Warm enough?” she says, curled up against his side.
Sid snuffles happily into his pillow. “This is the best idea anyone’s ever had.”
“Pretty good idea,” he admits, though he's still a bit annoyed it took them so long to come up with it.
Though later, when Isabella is snoring on one side and Sid is sprawled on his other side, Galavant admits that he can’t think of anything better than sharing the bed with them. He doesn’t even balk at the idea of admitting this to anyone.
Maybe, he thinks, such feelings aren’t so unbecoming of a hero. It’ll certainly make the future songs sung about him infinitely more interesting.