A/N: So, this is kind of a different turn from what I've been writing. But, I got The Green Mile as a Christmas present, and since I have almost a full week off from exams that I managed to watch it. And, it was an amazing movie. I thought, "oh, what the heck! Let's write a fan fiction about it." And this is what came to mind. I know that you're supposed to hate Percy because of the way he's portrayed. But, I've never really seen such a twisted and miserable character. And, in my opinion, nobody is born miserable. Since the movie didn't give him any background, I thought that I would make my own version of what happened to him and how he came to be the arrogant little prick we see in the movie.
Summary: He wasn't always like this, but a life of being alone can make a man miserable. He was scared, and to compensate, he put himself on a pedestal to put fear into others. Percy centric.
Miserable Little Man.
Percy hates a lot of things.
He hates Del, the Cajan prisoner on The Mile. He hates the boys on the mile that seem to know each other so well, while Percy himself is labelled a nuisance. He hates Paul, the way he looks at him. He hates Paul's position on The Mile, because he feels insecure when someone is more powerful than him.
But, he does like power. Because, Percy was the powerless one through his life. He was pushed around for being the smaller kid, the scrawny looking one.
"Beat the shit out of this 'un!" The taller kid said, his blonde hair combed back. "What'cha gonna do, Wetmore?" he asked, shoving the smaller kid towards the pond.
"Should drown him in the pond, Tim!" the black haired kid called out, looking at Percy with a rather sadistic look on his face. "That'll teach 'em to mess with us."
"Wanna go for a swim, Percy?" Tim asked, stalking towards him. Percy backed away, looking around wildly. He took a quick movement, running towards the left of the black haired kid. He grabbed his arm, swinging him around.
"Where you think you're goin'?" he demanded, Percy turning to face him. As if it was second nature, his arm swung out and his fist connected with the kid's face. The crunch of the kid's nose under his fist made Tim gape at him for a few moments. He watched as his friend tumbled backwards onto the ground, holding his nose.
"My nose!" he yelled, "Damn, he done broke it!"
Percy looked down at his fist, the red substance standing out on his skin. He looked up at Tim and his buddy, straightening out his back.
"You gon' mess with me?" he asked, "I'll break yours."
Percy loves power. He likes the idea that he's able to walk down the green tile, watching some of the prisoners look at him with fear. He was the superior, the one that doesn't let them bullshit him around.
He violent towards the prisoners, and only them. He values his job too much to go after one of his fellow guards if they piss him off, but he can threaten.
Percy reckons that's what he does best.
But, he doesn't like the job all too much. He gets yelled at most of the time by Paul or another guard, thought he does know that it's himself that brings it upon himself, but he just looks at them like they are morons.
What are they yellin' at him for? He done nothing.
And he thinks this while the prisoner is yelling out in pain, holding his eye where the handle of Percy's club jabbed him there.
(( "The goon deserved it."))
Though, he's only around people for a few hours a day. Then, he spends most of his days alone in a small house that seems much bigger than it should be. He has no friends, he can't seem to keep any that will put up with him. He doesn't have a wife to come home to, or any kids.
The only thing he comes home to is himself.
And Percy hates himself.
He remembers the first time he met his uncle, his aunt had married him a few years after he was born. It was one of the few memories that he remembers from his childhood. His mother depended on her sister, she had just married a rich man. She's the one raising a brat by herself.
It made sense.
Percy's uncle had nice clothes and a charming smile. He was a constantly talked about person in his household and Percy learned at a young age to rely on him. When he got the position of governor in the state his family was living in, things seemed to fall into his lap.
Jobs and money. Power.
Percy didn't have to work for much, they fire him, he tells his uncle. Someone pisses him off, he has the governor for an uncle. He learned that his uncle was a very reliable threat, and used him often.
He kept most of the jobs he got until he grew bored of them, and moved on. Greener grasses and the such.
Percy was a coward. He admits that to himself all the time. He admits it to his empty home, but he uses all the verbal and physical threats he can and works himself out to be a bigger threat than he really is. All he really needs to crack is a little bit of rough handling and violence bigger than his own, and he'll be that coward that he hides from people.
It doesn't take much, and he hates that. He hates the fact that, as much as he doesn't try to show it, his heart races every time Brutal walks by or if Percy has to stand off with him. But, he uses his words and connections as a rebuff.
That gets him by most of the time.
Percy's scared, so to compensate, he puts himself on a pedestal to put fear into others.
He wasn't always like this. He was a good kid, but his early years of his mother's cold shoulder and his father's missing influence, he had to learn to fend for himself. If that means walking around like he owns the place, than so be it. It's better that people see that part of him instead of the man that he goes home to every night.
He wasn't always like this, but a life of being alone can make a man miserable. Percy knows that he's not a good person, he's not someone that people would look up to.
He was scum, the annoying kid that people just wanted to push into the pond.
And it just takes a man like John to see that.
He sees fit that he's punished for being a bad man, and Percy is left wondering in the dark. It's nothing new to him, he's alone in the dark. Nobody cares.
He wonders if he was better off just drowning in the lake.