You've heard of There Was Only One Bed, now get ready for: There Were Only Two Beds!
3zun stop at an inn for the night after a night hunt. There's one room available, but it only has two beds. (And, to avoid the easy solution, the room is too small and cramped for anyone to sleep on the floor. Jin Guangyao could maybe fit in the gap between the beds but it would be hell on his old injuries and the other two know it.) Who shares with whom? Who sleeps alone? How do they decide?
Some possibilities I considered while trying to fall asleep:
NMJ and LXC share, JGY sleeps alone
——NMJ suggested it because he doesn’t trust JGY. He doesn’t say it in so many words, but JGY knows 😢
——LXC suggested it because he’s worried about JGY’s reputation. No-one would dare make an issue of Zewu-jun and Chifeng-zun sharing a bed, but being caught in bed with either of his sworn brothers could ruin JGY.
——JGY suggested it because his sworn brothers are pure and righteous and he is the son of a prostitute. Obviously they wouldn’t want to dirty themselves being so close to him if there's another option. He'll be the one to make the suggestion so he doesn’t have to hear either of them say it out loud.
NMJ and JGY share, LXC sleeps alone
——NMJ suggested it because he saw the look on JGY’s face and had to make sure JGY knows that NMJ doesn’t think he’s dirty.
——LXC suggested it because of his ongoing quest to matchmake Nieyao into reconciling. He's sure that a little forced intimacy can only improve their relationship!
——JGY suggested it because he wants to show er-ge that he is trying to fix things and it’s da-ge who’s being unreasonable. He assumed NMJ would refuse and earn himself a disapproving look from LXC. He has no idea what to do with himself when NMJ just goes “Yeah, OK” and gets into bed with him.
LXC and JGY share, NMJ sleeps alone
——NMJ suggested it because LXC and JGY are both smaller than he is and will fit more comfortably in one of these cramped little beds. He has no feelings whatsoever about the prospect of sharing a bed with either of them, it's just practical.
——LXC suggested it because he assumes NMJ would refuse to consider sharing with JGY and he doesn’t want a fight.
——JGY suggested it because he’s scared of NMJ. He doesn’t say it in so many words, but NMJ knows 😢
Someone figures that opportunities like this don’t come along every day and volunteers to share with whoever he thinks he has the most sexual/romantic tension with. It might be his only chance to share his beloved’s bed! Unfortunately, it’s not as romantic or as sexy as he hoped, not least because he can’t stop thinking about the other guy just a couple of feet away...
Someone doesn’t want this to be weird and volunteers to share with whoever he thinks he has the least sexual/romantic tension with. Turns out he’s mistaken about that. By the end of the night he has to confront the realisation that he’s in love with both of his sworn brothers.
Someone wants to share because he’s noticed there’s a ton of sexual/romantic tension between the other two. They’re not gonna be consummating that shit tonight if he has anything to say about it! He’s so busy worrying about his sworn brothers getting together and leaving him behind that he doesn’t notice the “😍Of course I’ll sleep with you!” and “😏You two have fun” reactions.
Someone volunteers to sleep alone because he’s noticed there’s a ton of sexual/romantic tension between the other two and he is nobly stepping aside. He won’t stand in the way of true love. The other two are like “Why’s he so eager to sleep alone? Doesn’t he love us?🥺”
Two people offer to share because they’ve done it before and it wasn’t a big deal (Nielan when they were kids, Xiyao when they were on the run, or Nieyao when they were in the army). The other person spends the whole night tormented by sexy, sexy visions of what might have happened between his sworn brothers on the multiple(!) nights they’ve spent in bed together.
The person who’s sleeping alone is jealous and horny and agonising over all the sex he might be missing out on right now.
The person who’s sleeping alone can hear the other two breathing, and he knows they’re fast asleep. He’s cold and lonely and tormented by soft, cosy visions of all the cuddles he’s definitely missing out on right now.
Somehow, they make it through the night.
The next time they have to spend the night at an inn together, the proprietor says “We have two rooms available. One has two beds, and the other has one bed.”
3zun, remembering this night, say “We’ll take the room with one bed.”
“No, that’s not … You don’t have to choose between them. You can take both rooms.”
“WE. WILL. TAKE. THE ROOM. WITH ONE BED.”
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In his 1839 travelogue Diary in America, Captain Frederick Marryat described the crowded and rustic hotels that a traveller in the United States could expect at this time, especially in remote areas far from cities and large towns. Rooms might include "three or four other beds," most of them with two people in each bed. Then, he shares an anecdote about an American friend:
A New York friend of mine travelling in an Extra with his family, told me that at a western inn he had particularly requested that he might not have a bed-fellow, and was promised that he should not. On his retiring, he found his bed already occupied, and he went down to the landlady, and expostulated. “Well,” replied she, “it’s only your own driver; I thought you wouldn’t mind him.”
A fascinating look at the attitudes around male bed-sharing in 1830s America, and an underutilized historically accurate take on "there was only one bed"! Imagine your OTP: forced to share a bed by the landlady.
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