He gets too upset, sometimes. So upset that he won't be able to functionally cry, or yell, or even talk or sing about it until it's gone. So upset that he will just... Just, revert. His mind will trap itself inside giant childhood playgrounds for a day or two, surrounded by curative memories of better places and days.
At first, it is terrifying. Waking up alone, without his mom, and with his father so oddly distant, and with this grown up body that he knows is his, but is too big, too mature, too scary. And all this people who expect him to be a grown up when he isn't ready to be one that make him nervous.
But then, Rachel finds out about him.
Rachel, who is a friendly sort of enemy, most of the time, becomes his anchor on these recurring crises he can't manage on his own (although at first he refuses her help, because kid or not he is still a Hummel and wants to preserve his dignity for as long as he can).
She becomes his mother, somewhere inside his mind. Somewhere closed with a million locks, hidden beneath a million doors. But it is there. She becomes mother to him, and whenever he breaks down, what he'll instantly want is to be with her. To sit on her lap and stare adoringly into her eyes while she takes care of him until he's ready to come out of his infantile labyrinth once again.
And Rachel loves to play the part the way she does everything else in her life, wholeheartedly. She will push his hair back and rub a warm hand over his stomach, crooning song alter song for him, always holding him against her chest with the utmost care.
She will also talk to him in short uncomplicated words, and come back full-circle to how much she loves her big boy, and how brave she thinks he is, and how proud he makes her. And she will tell him stories, bathe him, dress him up for bedtime, and feed him.
And afterwards, at the verge of sleep, Kurt will smile, finally wonderfully lost in the sensations of having something in his life being this candid and simplistic. He will hold on to her strongly and hide his face in the delicate space between her neck and shoulder in a goodnight hug and let himself be taken care of for once in his life.
Somewhere along the way, Finn joins their family.
It happens after they've moved in together, a week or so before their parents get married. It happens when all what's been going on with Karofsky gets a few pounds too heavy for him to keep carrying around, when it all gets too sexually threatening for him to handle alone. Too hard, even with the promise that is the newfound presencce of this Blaine boy in his life.
It's all too unbearable. And a few days before the big party, he collapses, on his house and away from Rachel, and without the abbility to reach her because his iPhone is far away and too hard to decipher in this state, and he is kind of desperate and he wails. He hides himself inside of his gigantic walk-in closet and cries, hugging his own knees pitifully, wishing that he could reach mother, because she always makes it all better. Always.
And that's how his almost-stepbrother finds him. Huddled, crashing, barely responsive, and needing something that only Rachel had seemed able to provide until that point in time. That effortless affection tinged with maternity that made him feel better, safe.
But instead of making everything worse (because even though most of the time he means well, Finn Hudson is just not that brilliant, or that good at dealing with other people's emotions), he... he makes Kurt feel alright.
He goes down to his knees besides him, kisses the top of his head, talks to him in soothing nothings (everything's okay, Kurt. We're okay. I'm gonna stay here with you until it gets better. Nothing's gonna hurt you with me here to look over you, buddy.), holds on to him with big big hands that spread warmth on his back, until Kurt feels the fright ebb away enough for him to fall asleep.
When he wakes up he is in his pyjamas, tucked under his clean sheets; also, mother is there, sitting right next to him, blowing steam off a spoon, wide smile in place, waiting for him so he can have one of her handmade soups for dinner.
Finn is seating at the foot of the bed, looking at him witth huge, loving, brown eyes. When Rachel brings the spoon up to his mouth, their eyes still fixed, Finn says open up, sweetly. And he does.
Finn becomes father, then.
At first, it's hard to adjust, because Rachel is oddly possessive of him, and Finn seems to channel his inner daddy in the very same way Rachel channels her inner mommy, fiercely and fully.
There's a little tugging of wills, there's shifting between his true confident sixteen year old-self and his inner toddler in bouts of stress and having two competitive parents trying to outbest each-other, trying to pamper him as much as they can so he will love them the littlest bit more (Rachel does ask, once, who he loves more: dad or mom; but he gets sad and is ultimately unable to make the choice, so she just kisses his cheek and whispers it's okay, baby and doesn't ask again).
But after some time (after the success of the Hummel-Hudson wedding, after the harsh reality of transferring,to Dalton), they start making it work in a smoother fashion. Mostly because once Kurt's not always with them, directly in their sight, Rachel and Finn have to start working as a team to take care of him, because even though they know that he's somewhere better now, he thinks that they feel the need to protect him from something different, now.
Something different like Blaine (the potential of romance, of somebody stealing him away from them), perhaps, or even Dalton in itself, he reasons.
Because being on this new school –surrounded by acceptance- makes him think that maybe someday he'll stop needing them, stop getting so upset, or he'll start coping in a better (or more accepted) way, but right now (and shoving his pride to the side for awhile) mother and father are enough.
Right now they do okay. They do pretty okay, on their own unconventional way.