#fading stuff

Dark doesn’t even recognise what’s happening to begin with. It starts with him getting tired a lot because there’s just not enough ‘belief’ to maintain him at his usual levels. So he starts sleeping every night which he doesn’t really notice or care about. He’s just tired a lot. Marvin notices and honestly hopes it means Dark’s listening to him and trying to sleep on the regular, but then it starts getting harder and harder to get Dark to wake up.

He starts forgetting things. Like he’ll walk into a room and just have forgotten what he went in there for. Or he says he’ll do something but never gets round to it because five minutes later it’s just gone from his head. Dark going quiet a lot and Marvin having to yell at him to bring him back to himself.

Dark notices that he’s starting to fade when his hand starts to disappear and he goes out his way to try and hide it, except Marvin is a smart cookie and finds out pretty quickly and Dark is just like ‘pfft it’s just fading’ and acts like he’s not scared but Marvin knows he’s lying and tries to figure out a way to stop it happening.

It’s all useless though and Dark just gets weaker and weaker and fades more and more and he eventually breaks down and Marvin wraps around him, promising to save him because it kills him to see Dark like this.

Marvin being caught up in some kind of scheming when Dark finally just disappears. Marvin’s half way through saying something and he turns, and Dark’s just gone. Bye bye. And Marvin is just like “No I was saving him!” and Marvin comes close to breaking because he was so busy trying to save Dark from fading that he didn’t even get to tell Dark goodbye or how important he was and now he’s gone.

Marvin does his best to keep going because he has stuff to do, everything doesn’t just stop, which is the hardest part of it. The world keeps going, so he tries to keep going because if he stops it’s just going to completely crush him. He doesn’t know how to bring Dark back and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now he’s gone. Does he act like Dark was never there? Does he honour him? Does he drink to his memory? What does he do?

Marvin fading     - -     Dark fading - Part 1

Like imagine if Marvin and Dark were like actual egos and depending on how people think on them they come and go and are at risk of fading if they aren’t remembered. Dark is so popular he’s never even been close to fading but Marvin isn’t nearly as popular and at some point he kind of falls out of favour and starts to fade. Slowly at first, enough that he tries to hide it from Dark but he can’t hide it for long because as he’s fading he’s also getting weaker and as soon as Dark realises, he swears he’ll bring Marvin back and refuses to let him spend a single fading moment alone.

The second Marvin is completely faded, Dark is doing everything in his power to bring Marvin back,desperate to have him back and make people remember the magic man. But when they do and Marvin comes back, he’s remembered differently and has changed. There are important parts of Marvin that are completely missing, like his library job, he works as a barista or a waiter or something silly like that now. Without being the librarian, Marvin technically didn’t meet Dark so he doesn’t remember him, doesn’t know they were a thing and despite Dark’s best efforts to remind him, Marvin has no inclination to get to know Dark because their first meeting has been eradicated. Also Dark is a weird grey man who seems a bit obssessed with him and it kind of puts him off.

Marvin encountering Bim, magical, glittery, positive, a hopeless flirt and being drawn to him instead. Someone so different from Dark and Dark watches as they get closer, as they do the things that he used to do with Marvin and having to watch as Marvin is completely happy with someone else. But hey, he tries to remind himself. At least Marvin isn’t faded any more. If anything everyone’s paying him so much more attention now.

Heartbroken Dark becoming bitter and angry, slowly developing a deep hatred for Bim. Frequently going out his way to make a nuisance of himself for Bim but never involving Marvin. A couple of times he tries to go into hiding hoping that he might fade away but nope, never fading because he’s just too popular.

What would have been Dark and Marvin’s anniversary comes around and Bim takes Marvin on a glamping trip somewhere remote and wild. Dark sits in a cake shop that Marvin introduced him to with a cupcake trying to convince himself that this is better than Marvin being faded, which it is, but fuck it hurts so badly.

Bim and Marvin coming back and being so coupley, so Dark gives the would-be anniversary present (some album or something that he knew Marvin badly wanted) to Bim to give to Marvin. Then at least Marvin still gets it from someone who matters to him.

Ultimately it doesn’t work out between Bim and Marvin, after several months they break up and both of them are feeling pretty damn wronged. Like it’s a messy break up. Marvin winds up complaining about him to Dark and Dark obviously is kind of happy but also not because he wants Marvin to be happy.

By this point he’s convinced himself that Marvin would just be happier without him so he tries to set Marvin up on a couple dates and none of them work out or go beyond like a second date. Dark getting drunk whenever Marvin’s on a date because yeah he’s going to be fine but I need to be drunk.

One time Marvin bails on a date and comes back and finds drunk!Dark who starts talking about ‘his ex’ clearly talking about Marvin, except of course Marvin doesn’t remember so it’s all just “Oh he would do this and that and whatever.” Then Marvin asks what happened to him and Dark says that he faded. Marvin having heard about fading from Bim and the others and so he feels so bad for this poor weirdo so he sits and drinks with him for a bit.

Dark and Marvin end up falling asleep on the couch together and Marvin just keeps making excuses to hang out with Dark over the next weeks and months. Like he arranges dates but none of them work and he much prefers Dark’s company because the guy is kind of a fun person to be around (when he isn’t being a mopey ass). Then some time, Bim tells Marvin that that present was actually bought by Dark and reveals to Marvin that he’s the faded ex Dark is still pining over and that’s like a big revelation.

He avoids Dark for weeks, Dark becoming bitter and drunk most of the time until Marvin comes back and asks Dark on a date because Dark is kind of a nice guy you know, he has fun hanging with him, and like he’d like to try and get to know him in a date environment.

Okay Imma stop there cause this got waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay away from me.