The King's Favourite

Chapter 1

AN: This is a quick faux-Medieval story about a pampered courtier. Warnings/themes include mild denial and very, very mild m/m intimacy. Sorry for any typos; this was written on a phone. Hope it's as enjoyable to read as it was to write!

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It is no small feat; being the King's favourite. Christopher would know it better than most, seeing as that's precisely what he is.

It starts easily enough, because everything always does. He'd been invited to court by calling a favour with one acquaintance or another, hoping for a small glimpse at the splendour of it all, but once he'd caught His Majesty's eye, he had been done for. A King is not to be rebuffed and either way, why would he? So that he can go home to a meagre domain and far too many mouths to feed? Absolutely not. As his parents's fifth son, this is the best lot in life he can hope for. It's certainly miles better than becoming a knight or a monk, none of which he would be very suited for - as minor nobility, he'd never been one to hold himself back from earthly delights of all sorts and he's never really been big on excessive, pointless movement.

It's just that, well, after a few months at the capital - and at the King's side to be spoilt and pampered - his lack of fondness for restraint or physical activity is rather starting to show.

He thinks about it as he dons a billowy white shirt and breeches that need to be tied a little more aggressively so that they don't slide under the beginnings of a belly that he's harbouring, forming a thick roll of fat pooling around the edges of said breeches. He thinks about it when the shirt in question starts to drape a little over that same belly after dinner and he has to sweettalk his way into several new ones to keep the illusion of broad shoulders that aren't accompanied by a broader middle. He thinks about it when he absently swallows morsels offered by his King's fingers, pressed into his greasy lips for him to chew on mindlessly, consuming the monarch's affection until his stomach aches. He thinks about it when his breeches need an upgrade too after it had become impossible for the overtaxed fabric to keep stretching thinner and thinner over his plump arse and round, eye-catching thighs.

Most of all, he thinks about it when his King demands his favourite's attention in the bedchamber and with every night, his modest belly seems to hang lower and lower between their bodies, his fat completely out of his body's control as it wobbles lightly with each harsher movement. It's the oddest sensation. It's also the most natural result imaginable to the life he leads. For better or for worse, the King seems to enjoy it far too much, and so the feedings - born out of love, of course - continue on.

By the time Christopher's family comes to visit in the capital, he would no longer be called lithe and could definitely be called thick, if not heavy, and the constant pushing of food is no longer an issue - if anything, he mechanically shoves more in his mouth even when his royal lover is distracted by conversation, his greedy belly unused to being empty for even a moment. No amounts of clever draping of his clothes can hide the paunch he's growing, so he no longer bothers, to the relief of the court. The King's closest inner circle tends to dictate the fashions, and the higher layers of society are prone to indulgence anyway; plenty of them are far heftier than he is and now that it's more acceptable to let gluttony roam free, there's not quite as much tight lacing and sucking in plump guts as there had once been. Christopher makes sure to send his family home with all the food they can carry in an unspoken answer to the many questions in their eyes at seeing their son and brother getting more and more obviously overfed by the week, and returns to his usual daily schedule, happy to be free of judgement and bathed in adoration as he's used to.

But no, he reflects; being a favourite is certainly not easy. There's so much work for him to be doing - he has to attend meetings that require far too much walking around the castle and his beautiful clothing is a little damp over his back by the time he reaches his destination, the front of his jackets straining as his (modest!) belly tries to fight its way out and sags precariously downwards. There's horses to be ridden in the rare absence of a carriage or a litter and getting on their backs is a strange amount of hassle compared to before, the animals themselves slower than he's used to. There's his opulent jewellery growing tighter around his neck and wrists and fingers, needing to be resized so that it doesn't cut off his blood flow. There's the constant hunger gnawing at him, born out of boredom and idleness, any time he's not at a table - a rarer and rarer occasion.

It's all worth it, of course, when the King passes him by and pats the buoyant mass of belly attached to his middle, making it ripple like a disturbed lake's surface, and kisses his increasingly visible cheeks. No matter how full he gets these days - and, given how stretched out his appetite has made his stomach, that's not a frequent occasion - his gut never feels hard on the surface. It couldn't possibly; not with the layers of pampered fat separating the food from the skin.

"My good luck charm," the King would often say, both hands resting on Christopher's immense thighs. They spread out so far that they pour off the edges of his wide seat, the same as his generous behind, but his lover enjoys that as well, slapping them sometimes just to watch them shake. "I look at you and see how the country prospers."

Christopher certainly hopes it's so. It's been months since he'd last braved a horse, as they seem to get more and more inconvenient with the amount of blubber that weighs down on their necks that he can no longer suck in even minimally, so his longer trips are always in a carriage, curtains drawn so that he can eat in peace without being looked upon - a necessary change after that one time one of his vest's buttons had given out and had bounced directly out of the window. He hopes that their people truly do prosper, and that he's adored outside as he is inside these walls, where him lounging half-seated, half-laying down next to the King's throne during feasts with his increasingly stuffed gut resting on the seat to take some weight off of his poor back is a sign that everyone else can let loose too.

And let loose they do, just as they should - being in charge of a whole nation is an ordeal. These little pleasures, indulgences snuck in every now and again, are nothing but fuel for all the work they do.

He rarely invites his family anymore, but he does send gifts - clothes and food, mainly, the two resources he himself always needs and never runs out of. He had not liked the look in his father's eyes when they'd last met. It hadn't been fair to treat him like a stranger just because he'd needed some assistance to hop out of his carriage and because the walk from the moat to the entrance had been arduous and long and, at the end, rather breathless. He has his King and all the love and the approval of his lover and his court, and that's more than enough.

They don't understand, Christopher had suspected for a while. It's no small feat being the King's favourite. He shakes his head in silent disapproval as he carefully arranges his straining white shirt into place so that it cradles his belly comfortably enough and paws at the copious fat of it with one hand to lift it up and deftly tighten his breeches with the other. They just don't understand how much he has on his plate.