Only Human [Alex Rider]

Fandom: Alex Rider 
Spoilers: Scorpia Rising (spoiler for character name only)
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Title: Only Human

Character(s): Julius Grief, Hugo Grief
Disclaimer: Alex Rider does not belong to me and I do not make any money out of this.

He stares at himself in the mirror for a whole minute. They told him that it would take a while to get used to it, but he didn't think he ever will.

That shape of those eyes. The sharpness of the nose. His entire face shape has been changed by a simple few hours of operation and months of recuperation under bandages. He isn't himself anymore; he never will be.

He has to act like someone else now. He has to look and act and think like someone he has never met, someone he has never knew, but someone he has watched for weeks. He has to imitate their every movement, imitate their speech patterns and little quirks and by the end of it all, Julius Grief knows that he could never do it.

He is too human. He is too himself.

But of course his father doesn't accept failure. His father don't accept anything less than perfection. So at 7 o'clock that evening, Julius walks out of his room, walks the way he has been practicing for the last days weeks, still with the bandages on his face from plastic surgery. He goes to meet his father in the dining room.

"How are you finding yourself adjusting?" asks Hugo Grief.

"Fine," says Julius, though he is lying. "I practiced walking the way he does it. I used the same shampoo and wore the same brand of clothes and ate the same thing he liked."

"There is nothing wrong, then?" There is a slight, menacing tone in his voice, as if the slightest thing wrong could completely derail their plans. But that is true, and Julius knows it.

Which is why he replies: "No, everything is fine."

"Are you sure? You seem distracted. Don't lie to me, Julius."

"I'm not lying," says Julius, but he isn't telling the truth either. "I'm not hungry, I'm going back to my room."

But what Hugo doesn't know is that, in the middle of the night, a boy who's face is wrapped in bandages sneaks out from his room and runs to the kitchens, and orders a feast fit for a king.

Months later, when Julius Grief re-examines himself in the mirror, with those brown eyes, fair hair, and hideous burn marks, he thinks back to those moment. And somehow, deep inside, he knows that the plan would never have worked.

After all, he is only human.

He cannot live a lie.