Twelve wasn't the best age for Kurt. His phobia of speaking seemed to get worse and he would only willingly speak to Blaine, Wes or Rachel. He'd also started singing less, much to Blaine's surprise.

Blaine wasn't sure what had caused this change in Kurt's personality or when it had begun to happen, really, but he was becoming increasingly worried when Kurt went back to only saying one or two words at a time, if that.

Regular yes/no questions were often met with a shrug and open ended answers were either treated the same or had answers with very few syllables.

Of course, Blaine still wanted Kurt to speak at his own pace if and when he decided he wanted to speak, but he also found it a little confusing considering that the twelve year old had made so much progress since Blaine had adopted him.

He was pretty sure that Kurt had a speech disorder, but he didn't know the first thing about speaking disorders. Due to this, he decided to take Kurt to a speech therapist and see what they had to say.

Kurt didn't seem phased by Blaine's decision, but succeeded in gluing himself to Blaine's side when the day arrived.

When they entered the therapists office, Blaine was surprised that he hadn't ended up with Kurt in his lap. The twelve year old gripped onto Blaine's shirt as he buried his face in the soft fabric, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

"Hi Kurt," The lady said sweetly, not even receiving the slightest bit of movement from Kurt. Blaine shot her a look that said 'I'm sorry' but she just smiled and began to address Blaine. "So you wanted to talk about Kurt's speech..."

"Not his speech, per se. More about his lack of speech..."

"You mentioned before that his parents died when he was five?"

"Yeah. I adopted him when he was six. He's never spoken much, it took him four weeks to speak to me for the first time and then he would occasionally say a word or two. As he got older he would begin to speak more, to me and my best friend anyway, he's always been shy with strangers. It's just recently, he seems to be becoming really quiet again and I mean, I've always said that I want him to speak at his own pace when and if he wants to but it just doesn't seem...normal I guess."

The therapist was taking notes the whole time, on Kurt's behaviour and on what Blaine was saying. Kurt was just sitting on the chair beside Blaine, his face still buried in the thirty one year old's shirt as Blaine rubbed up and down his arm soothingly.

"Well, it probably has something to do with losing his parents. It's a post traumatic thing, sometimes kids stop talking when something traumatic happens to them and losing both of your parents at five is pretty traumatic. It could be social anxiety though, judging by his behaviour I'm guessing he completely closes himself off from people he doesn't know?" A nod from Blaine. "That's not something that usually happens with post trauma."

"Is there anything that can be done to help or make it any better?"

"If it's post trauma, there isn't really anything you can do to stop it, all you can really do is just make sure he's with someone he's comfortable with as much as possible. Social anxiety is something that he can overcome, but there isn't really a specific technique to get over it." The therapist replied. "He'll probably always be at least a little bit shy but as long as you help him to become as comfortable as possible in whatever environment he happens to be in, he should be able to start overcoming it."

"I don't understand why it's started to become worse though? He used to say hardly anything when he was six or seven but he started to speak more and began to say whole sentences and paragraphs by the time he was about ten and now he's gone back to hardly speaking."

"Do you know of anything that could've happened to knock his confidence at all?"

"Not really...I mean, he used to get teased in school but as far as I'm aware it stopped."

"Was he ever teased about his speech? Made fun of because he never spoke?"

"Not as far as I know. But even if he was why would he stop talking around me?"

"Judging by what I'm seeing here," She said, gesturing to Blaine and the little boy snuggled into his side. "You're sort of like a comfort blanket for Kurt. The person that he's most comfortable and secure around and he knows that he doesn't have to talk all the time when he's with you if he doesn't want to, and he obviously doesn't want to talk so he's not, because he knows that you're okay with it. He also seems to communicate with you in other ways, and because you're used to the lack of speech you know what he's trying to say, even when he's not actually speaking. Like when he first curled himself into your side, I saw him clawing at your shirt slightly and you instantly pulled him closer and began to rub his arm, causing him to relax."

"I never really thought about it like that...it's kind of instinctive I guess. I can't really decode his behaviour but when it happens I know exactly what he's trying to tell me."

"That's exactly my point," The therapist smiled. "It's totally normal. I mean the whole situation isn't one hundred percent normal, but the fact that he's sort of relapsed in a way is, because he's comfortable with you."

Blaine sighed. "So I'm worrying about nothing?"

"Basically," She laughed. "But it's okay. I think most people in your situation would have done the same thing, just to make sure he didn't have an actual problem with his speech or something."

"Thank you," Blaine said, smiling. "I was kind of freaking out, I don't know why I just didn't know why he stopped talking."

"You're welcome. And if you have any other worries, speech related obviously, you can just call. I mean, that's what I'm here for and even if he doesn't have a real problem, I'm here for anyone who has troubles with their speech."

"Thank you...again. Kurt," He said softly, causing the twelve year old to look up at him. "Come on." He smiled, standing up and outstretching his hand to him, Kurt gratefully taking it, and left the therapists office.