Author's note:

Thanks for the encouraging reviews. For those of you wondering: Sansa will appear in the next chapter.

Chapter 2: Hungover

Sunny morning-light fell on his face when he woke, stabbing into his eyes even through closed eyelids and acerbating the pounding in his head. The prospect of having to open his eyes at one point was a dreadful one.

The left side of his face felt odd and swollen, not quite painful yet, but he knew that might well be coming soon if it started out this way.

Squinting into the light, he tried to sit up, only to double over with a wrenching pain in his gut. His tongue felt as if it had turned into something foul and hairy overnight and stuck to the roof of his mouth. Thirst had him grope blindly on the ground for the wineskin he kept there for situations exactly like this. After a couple of moments, he found it, set it to his lips and drank.

Only to spit everything out again as the taste of whatever it was someone had filled into this wineskin registered in his brain. His intestines revolted and by the time he had himself halfway under control again, he was shaking so badly he could barely keep sitting.

Whoever had thought to have him drink horse-piss or whatever this was would regret the day he conceived the idea of playing a prank on the Hound. Or better, he'd make him rue the day he was born.

Cursing loudly, he stood up on wobbly legs, only to have to sit down again as his head swam and his vision turned black around the edges.

With a creak, the door to his chambers opened and revealed the sorry individual who was his squire, the wish to be anywhere but here clear on the young boy's face.

The boy's eyes grew wide like saucers, making him look even more childlike, when he saw him.

If he wouldn't have felt so shitty, he might have laughed at the thought how much worse than usual he looked to cause such astonishment. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen him after a night of drinking before.

"Ser, what... what are you doing in Ser Sandor's chamber?" his squire squeaked. Sandor squinted at him, sure he'd misheard.

He knew he might look a bit the worse for wear, but surely not as bad as not to be recognized.

"Quit your bloody blabbering, boy and help me with that armour," he barked, regretting making that much noise an instant later, grasping his head.

The boy's eyes rounded even more, but he wisely did as being bid.

"And find me the one who thought it fun to put horse-piss in my wineskin," he said, pointing at the offending object. "I've a mind to skin him alive."

"It's not... Ser, I filled that skin myself last night, it's sour Arbor Red as Ser Sandor requested."

Sandor growled, took a few steps, picked the skin up from where he'd thrown it and held it out to the boy.

"Drink it!"

The boy carefully sniffed and then took a gulp and shuddered.

Sandor gave a victorious huff.

"It's way too sour for my taste, but it's what Ser Sandor prefers," the boy said, eyes on Sandor's chin as he gave the flagon back.

"Stop talking as if I'm not here," he growled and held to flagon to his own nose, sniffed and had to clamp down on another wave of nausea as he did, otherwise he would have told the boy for the thousandth time that he'd do him bodily harm next time he called him "ser". Not that this particular threat had helped before.

Meanwhile, the boy had fetched his armour, the pieces polished to a shine, and started the lengthy process of getting him into it.

Someone pounded on the door, making the noise reverberating in his head painfully.

"Clegane, you drunken sod, come out, the king wants us!"

Deciding to leave the matter of the spoiled wine for later, Sandor had his squire fix the last pieces of plate to him, donned his white cloak and stormed out.

Blount was waiting for him, round-eyed just as his squire had been.

"Who in seven hells might you be and what are you doing wearing Kingsguard armour?"

Sandor snorted.

"Bugger me if I know."

So fucking drunk he'd seen fairies last night, this truly had to be the worst hangover he had yet to suffer through. With people not recognizing him on top of wine tasting like piss, he had half a mind to crawl back into bed and sleep until all this went away.

Blount was still ogling him as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Stop your gaping and yammering and start moving," Sandor growled, not hiding either his impatience nor his foul mood. "Didn't you say the king wants us?"

"But..."

"Blount, stop it or I'll do it for you."

The fat man finally shut up and followed him to the king's chambers, shooting him worried glances from time to time.

With a lifetime of experience in ignoring people's queer glances, this only barely bothered him and they reached their destination without further incident.

"Who are you?" was the first question out of Joffrey's mouth.

Sandor ground his teeth. If someone was playing a trick on him, they had done an admirably thorough job. If he wouldn't be the object of this particular jest, he might applaud the courage it took to get the boy-king in on it.

"You asked for me, your Grace."

"I asked for Sandor Clegane," the King said, for some reason not as amused by this whole farce as one would expect him to be, considering. "While you look as if you might be his younger brother, it is not you I asked for."

His younger brother? If what he felt like was anything to go by, the only family member he thought he resembled at the moment should be his grandfather. Shortly before croaking, that was.

A hunch, a faint memory of golden dust, made him touch his face. The bad side.

Or to be more precise, the one that used to be the bad one.

He only found unmarred skin, healthy and sound, if a bit stubbly.

"I...," he started and stopped again. "I... I need a mirror."

Joffrey impatiently pointed to one corner of the room where a full-length mirror stood next to the window. Sandor had witnessed Joffrey preen in front of it more times than he could count, while he himself did not have any use for mirrors, naturally.

"You might have done a bit of research first before impersonating someone like Clegane," Blount said behind him with barely concealed glee. "You've his build, but..."

The rest of the toad's sentence was swallowed by the roar in his head - part of which he might have voiced as well - as he looked at the visage staring at him from the mirror.

Pretty much like Joffrey had said, he looked like his own younger brother. His handsome younger brother. He still had black hair, mostly straight and unkempt today due to all the haste. It appeared a bit fuller and wavier than he remembered, probably because it didn't only grow on one half of his head.

He still recognized his brow, eyes and nose, the marked chin and sharp cheekbones. But his face appeared less gaunt, the eyes not as deeply set, albeit ringed with deep, dark shadows, owing to the night he'd had. The overall aspect of the face of the man in the mirror was more pleasing to the eye than his own face ever had been, even if it wasn't for the scars.

Scars that, now that they were not there anymore, made the most glaring, most upsetting difference to what he had expected to see in that mirror.

With a sickening, sinking feeling in his stomach, he perused the left side of his face. The one that should be a nightmare of blackened flesh and oozing fissures.

Careful, as if fearing to shatter the image, he touched his face again, felt for the bit of bone that used to protrude at his jaw. He found nothing but warm, prickly skin.

Hands shaking, he turned back to where Joffrey was glaring daggers at him.

"You'll lose your head for this, impostor!" the boy screeched. "Ser Boros, take him to the black cells!"

Boros, for once knowing what was good for him, hesitated before setting his bulk into motion.

Even though the man posed no real threat, the situation needed to be diffused and fast. He might be able to take on Blount and probably the rest of the guard as well, but there were limits even to his abilities.

"Need I remind your Grace of the incident with your tutor's daughter about which I lied for you to your father?"

Joffrey blanched, Blount stopped walking.

"He wouldn't have told anyone, he swore to me he wouldn't," Joffrey said tonelessly. "Did you torture that out of him? Where is my Hound?"

Joffrey's sudden concern for his welfare might be touching, wouldn't he know that it only stemmed from Joff's sudden fear that more of his unsavoury habits would see the light of day.

Robert had been appalled at the kitten incident, but he'd never knew even the half of it.

"He's standing right in front of you!" Sandor said through gritted teeth, seconds away from shouting.

Joffrey clamped his mouth shut and narrowed his eyes.

"The name of the butcher boy who threatened me on our way back from Winterfell?"

"Mycah."

"The Stark bitch's dead direwolf?"

"Lady."

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Too much wine and... I don't know. Truly don't."

Joffrey's face darkened.

"I preferred you ugly and scary," he said, pouting.

Sandor contemplated asking him if he should hold his face to a brazier to please his grace, but there was no telling if the boy would recognize the sarcasm. While he had no idea if what just happened was real, or just a prolonged version of last night's weird dream, he nonetheless found the thought of walking around with an intact face quite appealing and had no intention to risk anything happening to it.

"Go away," Joffrey said, still sulking. "I have Blount and Trant guarding me during court, you can... do something else, I don't care. I'll let you know should I have need of you."

…

Finding himself suddenly with time on his hands, Sandor didn't quite know what to do with it.

He went to the kitchens to get himself something to eat and a new wineskin. He got both in addition to a lot of friendly smiles to which he wasn't accustomed at all. The smiles vanished when he glowered back and the maids went on hurrying and averting their eyes from him as they had before, which was at least familiar.

The food tasted like shit, as usual after a night like the last and the wine he threw against the wall after noticing he still couldn't stand the smell.

Careful what you wish for, my ass, he thought. With his stupid, drunken musings, he'd probably condemned himself to die of thirst before the day was over.

Then again, it was only a dream anyway, so maybe he should get the most out of having a whole face, even if it wasn't real.

He went back to his chambers, threw water in his face, rinsed his mouth and combed his hair. Then he spent an inordinate amount of time getting rid of the stubble on his face, careful not to nick the side he had no experience shaving.

Hollering for his squire, he then changed out of the cumbersome plate armour and donned one of the fine white tunics embroidered with the kingsguard sigil. Then he went outside again and walked through the keep all the while racking his brain to what he should do with a face like this. Maybe he should have asked that idiot Oakheart, who never was without obliging female company.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost collided with Cersei, who was apparently taking a turn around the grounds in company of two other ladies whose name escaped him at the moment.

"Who might you be and what are you doing wearing a kingsguard cloak?"

Maybe what he should do was make a list of how often he'd been asked that question today.

"Sandor Clegane, at your service, my lady," he said and bowed.

Cersei's artificial smile wavered a bit and she threw a nervous look at her ladies in waiting, then let her eyes stray farther to the side, probably trying to see whom she could call to her for help against whom she thought was an impostor.

He sighed and started the same game he had with Joffrey.

If this was supposed to be his version of a dream full of wishful thinking, it sure made him go through quite a lot of drudgery to keep his pretty head on his shoulders.

"When you were thirteen years old," he said, "you went to a fortune teller..."

Cersei held up a hand, silencing him with an expression of pure panic on her face.

"Would you excuse us for a minute?" she asked her two companions with a sugary smile and motioned for him to continue when they were out of earshot.

"You came out crying. You never told me what she'd said, but you made me swear to never tell anyone... I didn't."

Cersei's eyes widened, her smile vanished.

"How could he tell you that!" she said, aghast.

"I am Sandor Clegane," he hissed at her, turning his formerly 'good side' to her. "Can't you see?"

Cersei shook her head, but then looked, looked again.

"Shortly after I married Robert, I asked you to bring a message to my father," she said finally, her voice tinged with disbelief, "I didn't write it down, you had to memorize it, what was it?"

"This marriage is a mistake," he repeated the gist of what had been her raging, ranting reproach against her father. "You bade me marry someone who calls me by another's name in our bed and is often too drunk to find his way to where he should be to make his heir. This marriage will be the downfall of House Lannister, mark my words."

A pained smile appeared on Cersei's lips.

"A bit overdramatic, I guess," she admitted to Sandor's surprise. "But correct."

Then she turned to him fully and shook her head in amazement.

"What happened?"

"Fuck me if I know."

Her smile changed again; she had thousands of them, he knew, and this one was one of those never once given in his direction.

Later, maybe, it seemed to say, or maybe that was only his imagination. When it came to Cersei, he'd spent years imagining and more times than he could count with his hand on his cock.

He hadn't done so for a long time, but it wasn't something one simply forgot.

"No one can hear us, tell me the truth," she demanded.

"I didn't lie, I have no idea," he grated, thinking that he might have wished for his voice to be a bit more pleasant, too, while he was at it. But be that as it may, he had no intention to make Cersei think he had lost his wits along with his scars by telling her a drunkard's tale of fairies and three wishes.

"Passed out drunk last night, woke this morning hungover, thirsty and apparently with this face. Thought it was a prank when everyone pretended not to recognize me."

Her gaze was unwavering on his face, this time lacking the usual disdain for him that always lingered in the downturn of the corners of her mouth, in the way she looked down her nose at him, quite a feat considering she was more than a head smaller than him.

Then again, she'd never looked away, not once. Even as a girl, not much older than Sansa, she had not shied away from him, never had a thought for pitying him or averting her eyes. So secure was she in her beauty, her appeal, she didn't fear ugliness, even though she hated deformity and ugliness in others as if everyone was personally to blame for his own appearance.

Her eyes took in his face, his hair, wandered down his body, lazily, assessing.

He was pretty sure his body hadn't changed at all. His armour was made to fit him like a skin and he would have noticed if something was amiss there, but still her eyes wandered and lingered as if she saw him for the first time, in a way that felt almost indecently intimate.

"I am feeling a bit faint after this surprise," she said slowly, not looking at all different from before. "I'd like you to accompany me to my chambers."

They walked there in silence and when she bade him enter, he experienced the entirely new sensation of both his eyebrows crawling up to his hairline. Before, any sort of exaggerated facial expression had been uncomfortable at best, stretching and tugging at his scars.

What people took for stoicism and lack of emotions, humour mostly, was in truth just an unwillingness to cause more pain than necessary.

He stepped inside, looking around. His years as Joffrey's shield had not given him much opportunity to be in Cersei's chambers. Not that he missed his former duty.

She poured both of them a goblet of wine, Arbor Gold from the looks of it, and offered it to him with a smile.

"All that reminiscing about the past got me in a nostalgic mood," she said, her voice low and seductive.

Much as he tried to tell himself that this was a dream, years of instincts told him to be quick in puzzling out what Cersei might want from him.

Cersei always wanted something when she began to use her feminine wiles and it surely would be better if he knew beforehand. If this turned out not to be a dream – although he couldn't imagine how it could be anything else – he should keep his wits about himself.

"We used to spend much time together, you and I, didn't we?"

Together, was stretching the truth quite badly. He was her shadow, always around, never thought of, never noticed as long as he didn't stand in the sun, blocked her way or managed in any other way to incur her displeasure.

She handed him one goblet and he watched her drink it, then took a careful whiff. As he'd feared, his throat closed and his stomach threatened to summersault once again at the smell.

I'll kill you when next I see you again, bloody stupid fairy, he thought bitterly.

Fortunately, Cersei didn't seem to notice he hadn't drunk anything and soon enough plucked the goblet out of his hand again, stepping even closer to him and running a finger down his face.

"You're a different man now, Sandor Clegane," she purred at him. "What are you planning to do with this unexpected turn of events?"

His body answered her nearness, her touch, with a disconcerting immediacy and he very nearly told her that he wouldn't mind fucking her if she was so inclined. Still, even for a dream, that might be a bit of a big step over a line that had been clearly drawn between them from the very beginning.

Lust-addled as his thoughts were, they still snagged on part of what she had been saying.

"How am I a different man?" he asked, his muddled state of mind not helped by the way Cersei so very indecently pressed herself against him. "I am still who I always was."

She threw her head back and laughed, throaty and genuinely amused.

"Oh you poor man, you have quite a surprise ahead of you," she said, amusement a bright glitter in her eyes, like sunshine poking through the canopy of trees. "You are what people see when they look at you. It made you into who you were when you looked like a monster, it will change you again now that you look good enough to eat."

At that, she rubbed against him and there was no way she wasn't aware of his state of arousal.

"Speaking of which," she said, running her hand over his chest while following its progress with a greedy gaze, "I'd not be averse to taking the first bite. My father always lectures me about the importance of adequately rewarding those loyal to us."

Alright then, he thought dazedly as he reached an arm around her and yanked her against him with a hand on the small of her back. That sealed it; this was a dream, despite all the weirdness. An aged up, somewhat disturbing variant of his youthful wet dreams, but something he would not pass up.

Cersei chuckled throatily at his sudden ardour as he bent his head to her.

...

tbc