developing on my addict martin + elias au i almost want to write it ... but i know ill give up pretty early on... but awooo. i love mathing things out to be ~canon compliant as well
so ok. canonically elias age gap means he wouldnt be martins same age. but maybe martin lived in oxford and ended up meeting elias through the drug scene elias was involved with in his uni days. gonna say ... martin was a young teen trying to sell his moms old pain meds and was eventually directed to elias or someone elias knew as a possible contact to sell to. elias did buy from him to sell to uni mates and help out this struggling teen. they keep in contact thru this and eventually martin flips to buying, and elias helps him buy. elias kind of looks out for martin in this way... until he graduates and moves away. they barely keep in contact. once years later martin reaches out and elias says he doesnt deal anymore after Something Happened [the leitner] but that if martins ever in london he can reach out to the mag institute and elias might be able to help him find a job.
fast forward, martin is desperate, he looks up elias' name and finds hes the head now and is like holy shit and does apply and then the person he meets is so radically different from who he knew as a teenager. but he still looked up to elias for so long, he cant shake it, even if elias is being weird
they dont talk much, martin assuming bc he doesnt want to get in trouble for biased hiring or the drug past they share. but its weird and its sad and it makes him feel strange to hear how people dont like elias at the institute
fast forward again when moved into the archives and they are in closer contact it becomes more weird and unsettling and sad for martin. he also doesnt understand just... whats going on. hes almost jealous of the attention jon gets from elias compared to being relatively ignored himself
martins keeping clean, he promised to when he was hired and elias gave him a weird loaded talk abt drug testing. but prentiss happens. and he still has some meds left over from before mum went to the care home where now they keep track of the meds there. he just wants to sleep for once. he ends up relapsing hard and then keepign it up back in the office once hes moved in, he tries to quit but he cant function without them bc of the panic attacks insomnia anxiety etc. elias delights in holding this over his head. tim is unable to be talked to about it bc hes lashing out at everyone and martin cant make his habit into the next target for stokers rage. sasha could care less about him. jons acting so suspicious hes just lucky jon hasnt already found out. the cv lying confrontation happens the same but there is SO much martin is still hiding after it ...
as they look into the not!them he starts more and more to wonder if thats what happened to elias. being haunted by not knowing and not able to talk to anyone about it
the unknowing happens. martin burns statements. elias pulls him up on it and instead of the mum bit he shows martin elias' memories of the leitner that made him go sober and then the memory of jonah stealing his body. martin is just fully traumatized and fucked. still gets elias sent to prison though, and lukas is installed
cut to next season. martins grieving for his elias, reckoning with that the last ... 10? who knows how long years hes been trying to be friends with his mentors killer. and he cant tell anyone, and if he did no one would understand it or believe him. the proof hed have to bring would be tied into his drugs past and jonah is holding that over him, that any way he levied proof of his knowing jonah is different would immediately be followed by revealing hes a hard addict and hes still convinced that with that reveal that jon in particular would completely discredit everything. so he lives with this knowledge alone
lukas feeds into this fear, digs into old wounds of elias' history with him and jonahs manipulation and martins own self hatred over his using and convinces him no one knows who he really is and if they did they'd be disgusted and leave him so he has to keep them all at a distance
eventually... eventually. gd probably in scotland is when it comes out, to jon at least. in the recovery from the lonely martin goes through Heavy withdrawals and jon Knows what they are and it all comes out
but i want more of a punch reveal than that. i want melanie as well to be involved somehow bc i loveee herrrrrr. hmm
