#//marilyn probably deserves her own post but a lot of her stuff happens after simon's boarded the train so it isn't directly connected

[voidedlie-moved]

//SO I REDID SIMON’S PRE-TRAIN BACKSTORY. *laughs nervously*

It got kind of heavy, so uh, mind the warnings. It still isn’t fully canon compliant (as in it ignores some minor details) but I felt like the implication that one of his family members had died (the funeral thing) was important enough to write it in, and this is what I ended up with.

ABOUT SIMON'S CHILDHOOD, HIS PARENTS, AND SISTER: tw for mentions of alcohol / alcohol abuse / alcohol related death, child neglect / abandonment, and parental death. full text under the cut

Eliza Adnet and Martin Laurent are two young lovers that meet and elope when they've only freshly turned eighteen, in June of 1993. It isn't long before they have their first child, a daughter they choose to call Marilyn, in March of 1994. They're young and inexperienced, as well as extremely careless, and she grows up with a less than great childhood. By the time she's turned five, Martin has become an alcoholic, and Eliza quickly follows suit.

Simon is born in April of 2002, when Marilyn is eight years old. Eliza and Martin pay even less attention to him than they did to Marilyn, leaving the ten year old to do what she can to help her brother survive. And as they grow, Marilyn becomes more of a parent to Simon than Eliza and Martin ever were, even while still being a child herself.

Then, shortly after Marilyn's eighteenth birthday, their father dies of alcohol poisoning. And the night after his death, Eliza takes their family car and drives away, never to be heard of again, leaving Marilyn and Simon truly alone. Only a week after that, their estranged grandmother hears of her son's death, and organizes his funeral. She invites his two children to come, and Marilyn feels obligated to go. But ten year old Simon is extremely bitter towards both of his parents, and doesn't want to attend the funeral.

Marilyn forces him to go anyway, as she doesn't feel comfortable leaving him home alone. But while at the funeral, Simon grows more and more upset, and ends up in an explosive fight with Marilyn in the middle of the funeral. During which he exposes the neglectfulness of both of their parents to all of his father's estranged family members that had chosen to attend the funeral.

It's after this fight that Simon runs away, and is ultimately picked up by the Infinity Train.