Trigger Warning: mentions cutting

Chapter 19-3rd person pov

*timeskip for however long it takes CPS to do stuff(maybe a little over a month?)brought to you by the fact that the timeskip before this one and the ones that follow are all part of a large quote and i thought this would be fun*

George(Washington) got CPS to investigate Mr. Laurens again and had been waiting for them to say that he was an unfit parent. Finally, he and Martha(Washington) found out that Henry was soon losing custody of all five of his kids. The fact that one kid had run away due to abuse paired with the fact that another had been kicked out of her home had been enough for CPS to deem Henry an unfit parent. George wasn't sure how to tell Alex, John, and Martha. He knew that John and Martha would probably be happy that they and their siblings would be free from Henry, but Alex would find it harder to see this as good. This is due to the fact that until they can find relatives of the Laurens or a foster family to take care of them, they would have to live in an orphanage. Alex had been in the foster system until he got adopted at 16 by the Washingtons. He hadn't had an easy time in the orphanages and foster homes, especially since he came out as bisexual early on. George knew that Alex wouldn't like the idea of his boyfriend and his siblings having to go through that or anything close to that.

"Alex, John, Martha, can you come here? We need to talk about something," George called out.

"Shit, what did I do now?" Alex mumbled as he got off of his bed. The three of them had been doing homework, sort of.

"It's probably nothing," John said. They came out and sat on the couch next to the armchair George was sitting on, Martha was on the couch and closest to George.

"Do you guys remember how I reported Henry to CPS again?" George asked.

"Yes," the three said in unison.

"Well they got back to me and they think Henry is an unfit parent," George said.

"That's great!" Martha said, not sensing the worry on George's face.

"You don't look happy about that," John noticed.

"Well you and your siblings are being placed in foster care until they can find your relatives or a foster family that can take you in," George explained.

"Nononono this is bad!" Alex said as he began remembering all of the bad things he had to go through in his childhood.

"That's better than being with Henry," John said.

"I don't think you understand!" Alex said.

"Calm down, it's different for us than it was for you," John said.

"How? We both had shit fathers and dead moms and no one to take care of us anymore so they put us in foster care. We're both queer-and Martha, that was the source of many of my problems and you-" Alex rambled.

"I'm going to stop you right there. Breath, it's good for you. It's different for you and me, Alex. Yes, we both had shit fathers and dead mothers," John said.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to say anything wrong," Alex said quickly.

"It's fine. And, yes, we both were in-or will be in foster care, but you were alone, I'm not. I have my siblings and they have me, also we have friends like you that care about us. We probably won't be in there for too long anyway, I have many living relatives and I think some live close to here," John said.

"Are you sure?" Alex asked tentatively.

"Yes, I'll be fine, and if it matters to you so much, I won't tell anyone that I'm gay and Martha won't tell anyone about herself either," John said.

"I don't want to control your lives. Choose what you do wisely though," Alex said. John took this opportunity to kiss his boyfriend.

"I think we should talk later," Martha(Washington) said. She and George walked out of the room.

"Nope, swallow each other on your own time," Martha(Laurens) said while sitting in between John and Alex.

"Yes," Alex said. Then he stood up, walked up to John, sat in his lap, and continued kissing him. Martha went back to Alex's room to finish her homework.

"Finally some alone time!" John said one he heard Alex's door shut.

"I love your sister and I love our friends but they're always around," Alex said. He remained on John's lap but they weren't kissing anymore.

"Yeah, I'm really going to miss you if I have to move away to live with family. We should make the most of the time we have left," John said.

"I'll still call you and maybe we can go to college together," Alex said.

Later that week John and his siblings were taken to live at the orphanage. They remained there for less than a month before his aunt and uncle were granted full custody over them. Their aunt was their mom's younger sister and their uncle was her highschool sweetheart. They had an adopted daughter who was 6 years old. Alex came to visit John after he was settled into his new home and school.

"We miss you a lot," Alex said while sitting under a tree next to John.

"I miss you guys too," John said.

"How is your new life? Better than before?" Alex asked.

"It's great, actually. It's probably going to sound stupid but I have an accomplishment that I have you to thank for," John said.

"What is it?" Alex asked.

"Well I haven't cut since that time you found me in your room and told me to try using a pen instead," John said.

"That's amazing! I know it can be hard but doesn't it feel great to know that you aren't hurting yourself anymore and that you don't have to do that?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, it does. Your drawing thing works though. I always carry a pen on me now. It helps me to distract myself, but it doesn't really help me to punish myself which was one of the main reasons I started cutting in the first place," Jon said.

"I know. You shouldn't punish yourself though, humans make mistakes and it's just a part of life. The drawing does exactly what I expected it to do," Alex said.

"I'm really working on it. My aunt, she's a child psychologist and she has been helping me with it a lot," John said.

"That's great! I'm super proud of you and I'm sure the rest of the squad would be too," Alex said.

"How are they?" John asked.

"They're great. Thomas and James are annoying as ever but Angelica, Aaron, and Theo want all of us to become friends for some reason," Alex said.

"Have they still not convinced you?" John asked.

"Nope and they never will!" Alex said. The two continued talking about life and other stuff(very specific...but really, that's what they talked about).

Word Count: 1180

A/N: Hello! Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! I'm so sorry about my irregular updates. The next chapter will be the last one(sorry)! Have a great morning/noon/night and a gay day!