Summary: Everyone is the main character of their own story, but sometimes, it's the side characters that deserve the spotlight—even if they don't think that way themselves. (Or: Leo Valdez on self-loathing, sacrifices, and theatre references.)
A/N: this story is all over the place oops. also i am a million years too late to make a story about the end of the prophecy and the doors of death but i did and i love leo.
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Before the Curtains Fall
The end is the best part of any story. – Light, Michael Grant
.
Act I
.
The stage is set.
(Seven half-bloods shall answer the call.)
The actors are in position aboard the Argo II. Each of them has their lines in the script memorized, ready to sail among the clouds.
(To storm or fire, the world must fall.)
Behind them, the lights flicker on to reveal the stage to the rest of the world. The audience, demigods and mortals alike, holds its breath in anticipation.
(An oath to keep with a final breath.)
Hushed whispers backstage signal the start of the performance, a quest to prevent Gaea from rising. To prevent the world from falling.
(And foes bear arms at the Doors of Death.)
With a swoop, the curtains draw open.
.
"Everyone is the main character of their own story," Leo mutters to himself, "even me."
And then he laughs bitterly because yeah, right. It sounds like a desperate lie even to his own ears, like something he'd only say to himself to make it feel as if he had a role to play in this whole-saving-the-world business.
The audience isn't here for him, he grumbles, of course they aren't here to watch him, not when there are so many other—better—performances to see. Practice makes perfect, they say, so why isn't he improving? Why isn't he making any progress? It's never seems to be enough, and fuck, he just wants someone to tell him that he isn't a hopeless cause. Because he's trying, isn't he?
Gods, he's trying his best.
These days, he feels cold, distant, which is ridiculous; it's all ridiculous because he's holding a fireball in his hands but he can't feel its warmth at all. It's hot and he's sweating and there are red sparks dancing on his fingertips, but Leo feels nothing except for the temperature that seems to suddenly dip below zero as he shivers alone in the room. Cold. Not like he can fully control the fire, anyway.
So ridiculous.
He waves the fire away with a flick of his wrist.
His flame burns out.
(Or maybe it had never been lit in the first place.)
.
The voice inside his head asks, Are you sure you want to do this?
Yes, Leo answers back.
He walks onto the stage, mind full of false confidence and heart full of doubt.
.
The theatre room is packed with people scattered all around, hushed whispers anticipating a great performance, popcorn dropped carelessly on the floor. Countless eyes stare at him, smiling, smiling, how long until the smiles slip off their faces?
His heart plays a requiem of regret. They expect great things from him, one of the seven; save the world, Leo Valdez, they whisper into his ears, put your life on the line for the quest, for the gods, for the demigods, for the mortals. The greater good.
So many fucking expectations.
Leo takes the microphone in his hands, stares right back at the audience, and pretends that his voice doesn't waver when he opens his mouth to speak.
.
The director calls out cut. It sure doesn't take long for him to be ushered off the stage.
Just like that, Leo's time is up.
"You're bright, Leo—blindingly bright. Like a spotlight on full power. It's too much. Your performance was good, but unfortunately it's not what we're looking for right now."
Some shitty euphemism for saying that he's been rejected. But they're not wrong.
Because that's the thing with spotlights: they, themselves, glow brightly in the dark theatre room, but it's the people who stand under the spotlight that get the applause in the end.
.
Leo wants desperately to believe that he has a greater purpose in the world and that the Fates have planned out something heroic for him, he wants to be more; auditions for a bigger role but ultimately doesn't get casted. Given a substitute part instead.
Should've known he isn't good enough.
(Why does he even try?)
And suddenly, it's suffocating and no amount of cheesy, cliché jokes can help him break out of this tense atmosphere because he doesn't belong here, he knows, doesn't belong under the same spotlight as everyone else—and he just want to leave. But also really, really wants to stay.
Wants to stay more than anything.
To earn his place on the stage.
It's selfish and he's undeserving. Leo's the one who can light a flame in his hand, but it's Jason who truly soars among the stars, the stars of the show, and it's Piper who is part of the main cast, gets all the good lines, and Percy and Annabeth and Hazel and Frank, but never Leo.
Never Leo.
His role is small and disposable. The odd one out. The one who connects more with machines than living, breathing people, for gods' sake. The seventh wheel.
When he looks at his friends, Leo can see everything he's not. They have sincere smiles and honest laughs and everything about them is so genuine it hurts. It hurts because Leo is fake, fake, a fraud and a goddamn liar and there's nothing genuine about him at all, really. He's just good at pretending, putting on masks, because avoiding difficult subjects is infinitely easier than telling the truth. It's so easy.
He's an actor who can't act. An actor who's too good at acting; manages to fool himself sometimes, even.
But not his friends. His friends are real and he would give up his life for any of them, in a heartbeat, but never, never can he allow them to do the same for him. Main characters don't die—can't die—and it's up to the side characters to make sure of that.
So Leo Valdez lets go of the microphone, moves to his place at the back of the stage, and hands over the spotlight that was never really his to begin with.
.
Act II
.
It's his turn to make the dramatic exit.
Usually, gut-wrenching feelings and warnings about the near future come to demigods in the form of dreams, but Leo just feels it this time, feels a wave of panic and dread flooding throughout his entire being. A good ten minutes have passed since the seven have reunited with Nico and it's been ten minutes too long of happiness for half-bloods like them. They are demigods and their luck is never this good.
Leo's brown eyes dart around quickly, flickering all over the surroundings, preparing for… something. Something like the ground crumbling, breaking apart, cracking right beneath Percy and Annabeth's feet, which he realizes almost too late, that it's happening right now. He makes the decision then, although it's more of an instinct rather than a thought-out idea. In this particular story, in this legend-in-the-making that they are currently weaving, the son of Poseidon and the daughter of Athena are main characters who can't die—who aren't allowed to die.
The plot has to move forward, and there's no denying that it's easier for someone who has always been on the sidelines to be disposed of. The show must go on, as they say.
It's Leo's turn to make the dramatic exit.
He dives forward, shoving Percy and Annabeth out of the way just in time before the ground fully gives away. But he isn't done: he turns around, unstrapping his tool belt and tossing it up, knowing the others are going to need it more than him now. And just before he is out of sight completely, he flashes a pose—because he'll be damned if he isn't going out Valdez-style.
"Complete the quest!" His last words. He's had more than enough screen time in this story, but he feels that, on his deathbed that is rapidly approaching him from below, he has the right to be a little bit selfish with his final request. "… and don't forget about me," he whispers to the air.
He is the boy who understands machines more than humans, Repair Boy, one of the seven. He is Leo Valdez, Bad Boy Supreme, and he thinks that maybe, just for a second, he stood under the spotlight after all.
The Doors close.
On the surface, Jason weeps silent tears and Piper sobs and Percy and Annabeth hold onto each other, faces grim, hands shaking, knees week, not yet fully registering what happened as they watch the boy who willingly exchanged his fate with theirs disappear—
—because even if they don't always get the spotlight, and don't have the biggest roles to play, the side characters in a story are still irreplaceable. And they will be missed.
.
The End
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Leo is the main character of this story, of his story, he realizes too late long after he has fallen into Tartarus. The rest of them will continue on, move forward, drive the plot, but he's done his part. Leo isn't in the next scene, or the one after that, and it's time for him to step off the stage permanently.
He shuts his eyes. The lights fade away. The camera stops rolling.
And in the dark, the curtains finally draw together.
A/N: there is so much angst revolving around leo that RR seems to brush past for whatever reason (it's a middle grade series and whatnot) but I think it should be more important? and don't get me started on how rushed the leo/calypso pairing is ughh.
ok anyway hope you enjoyed this word vomit of a story. thanks for bearing through my lack of knowledge about theatre stuff.
~madin456