Chapter Text
Levi’s mother was always versed into the occults so, naturally, when Levi started dreaming, she wasn’t surprised. Not when he would wake up crying at night because of the nightmares, not when the dreams became so recurring it was all he could think of, not even when the dreams turned into visions and began to haunt him even when he was wide awake. She told him it was probably a gift, that whatever he was seeing meant something. It could be the future, the past, visions from another life or another world maybe, or it could be something entirely different, she didn’t know for sure, but she knew it meant something. She knew Levi wasn’t going crazy.
Saying that she wasn’t surprised doesn’t mean she wasn’t worried however. As a mother, she was terrified. She tried as hard as she could to not show it to Levi, especially when he was little, but she knew visions were a terrible burden to bear, especially when Levi’s were so violent. This is why she always tried to be as supportive as she could.
For the first years of his life, Levi believed her. Until he was about 13, he accepted his mother’s explanation for his dreams. He had a seeing gift and even though he didn’t quite understood what it meant, it was a sufficient explanation, but as he grew, the visions became more frequent and vivid. By the time he hit puberty, he would frequently get flashes of this other life, even when he was awake, and it often affected his everyday life. Eventually his classmates found out about it. It was after a particularly vivid episode, he was in school, in the corridors when he suddenly found himself in a field, on horseback, riding to save a man from one of those strange giants in his dreams. It only lasted a few seconds before his vision faded and transported him back to the school corridor, but this brief episode was enough for one of his friends to notice something was wrong. That day, Levi made a mistake: he trusted his friend. As soon as he confessed his secret and made him promise to not tell anyone, his “friend” revealed it to everyone at school.
While he had never been a very popular child, he only ever had one or two friends, Levi had never been bullied before. He was always more of the quiet kid, getting ignored by his peers on most days and being grateful for it. After the rumors of him having hallucinations and thinking he had some sort of special powers circulated, of course, his peace came to an end. It lasted five years. Five years of endless insults and mockery, until he finally finished high school. Five years of keeping his head up. Five years of hiding everything from his family. Five years of staying strong. Five years of coming home, feeling like crying in his bedroom. Five years of pretending. In his dreams, his “visions”, he was always so strong. The strongest. Levi cursed his dreams. He wasn’t strong and he wasn’t gifted. He was weak and he was a freak.
After high school, most of his classmates left the town and went to college. Levi couldn’t afford it. He wasn’t much interested in studying anyway and besides, his mother needed him. He couldn’t just leave her here all by herself, not after everything she sacrificed for him. He found himself a job in a small coffee shop and another one as a cashier and that was his life.
In the morning, he would wake up at 6 AM, open the coffee shop and work there until 6 PM, then he would get 30 minutes to go to the small store where he worked as a cashier until 1 AM. Because of his dreams, Levi had developed severe insomnia. He didn’t mind working late. It was better than laying in bed for hours, fighting against the incessant flashes. Besides, he quite liked these jobs. Especially the one at the coffee shop. Levi was more of a tea lover himself but he liked the atmosphere in that kind of place, especially early in the morning. He found that when he was focusing on his job, the flashes were becoming less frequent and less intense. His boss was happy with him. He did suspect something was wrong with Levi as he sometimes looked absent, but as long as he kept up the good work, it was fine with him. In his other job, Levi would often get more of those visions as he would get more tired but as long as the customer doesn’t notice, it’s like it doesn’t exist. Besides, his manager did not really care. It was a good life. Tiring and lonely, but good.
After a while of this life, Levi started to make friends again. With what happened when he was younger, Levi was very cautious in his relationships and struggled to trust anyone. On top of that his cold and unsociable nature made it difficult for people to like him. Despite all of this, he sympathized with one of his colleagues, Furlan, and later on with Furlan’s step sister, Isabel. She was still in high school but her extroverted and spirited character made up for her young age. It was incredibly easy to be friends with her. With both of them actually. Sometimes Levi felt like they were meant to be friends, like something was inevitably driving him towards them. Maybe it was part of his visions ? Levi couldn’t be sure of it: remembering the faces from his dreams was extremely difficult but sometimes he thought he caught a glimpse of Isabel or Furlan. It always terrified him, though he wasn’t sure why. When it happened he usually chose to ignore it. His friends didn’t know anything about those visions therefore it was useless to worry about it.
As time passed, the visions became less and less important. Of course they still happened but Levi wasn’t worrying about them anymore. Instead, he was focusing on his real life: his friends, his jobs, his mother. No matter what the dreams were, they weren’t going to define his life. He wouldn’t let them.