Even as a five year old, Kurt had always taken such interest in the pretty patterns painted on the plastic boots you wore when it was pouring down rain in Lima. The patterns could be so intricate and beautiful, and the flowers on so many were but a mere reflection of the magic happening outside his window as nature replenished the grounds with water to keep it greener for a little longer, to make the little boy a little bit happier about staying inside on a Saturday morning, when he should be outside playing with his best friend, Blaine.
Because as far as little kid best friendships go, Blaine was probably the best one of them all and Kurt knew deep down that they'd face many many rainy days together in their matching floral gumboots they wore as they were finally allowed out to play in the wet grass that afternoon. Throwing balls around and riding their bicycles with no cares in the world that only two boys who had no idea who they are, but thought they sort of kind of did, had.
And they could spend hours upon hours (as they did most spring's) splashing each other in their bright yellow ponchos under the old green tree out the back of both their houses that kept them a little bit drier than not being under it at all. And by the end of the afternoon, they'd end up sprawled on the ever green, and beautifully wet grass and making shapes out of lcouds that change every minute when you're not looking or you breathe too deeply.
But the gumboots wore out as the rainy days increased and ceased and picked up and stopped and were inconsistent and poured, and the two boys fell apart because Blaine moved away to a place where Kurt wasn't and where he couldn't wear his matching gumboots any more, which made them both cry at night, even though they were thousands of miles away and seperated by a bazillion (but not really) state borders and parents who decide they need the new job half a world away (but not really).
But both the boys kept their black wellingtons with pink-red flowers on them under their bed beside the drawings they'd drawn on Blaine's last night in Lima.
But soon enough, Kurt stopped looking under the bed on rainy days because nothing could make the miserable days more horrible because no matter how hard he tried not to think about it, rainy days had just never been the same since Blaine had left eleven rainy but not really years ago.
And Blaine had stopped looking under his bed at those pretty boots with so much memories because the tears were worse than any thunderstorm he'd ever knew.
And they both wondered if the other had kept the reminder of their childhood and if, when rainy nights got too much and everything else failed, they thought about splashing in puddles and laughing about funny shaped clouds and maybe felt a little bit better because the memories of innocence and Blaine and Kurt made everything, no matter how big it seemed, just a little bit better and a little easier, at least.
But gumboots can't heal anything, because something's, plastic and flowers just can't heal because the only thing that can is an actual human, and by an actual human, Kurt meant only the one person who had ever really understood him. The small curly-haired boy with the too-big-jeans and his cropped childhood cardigans.
"Oh there you are, I've been looking fo ryou forever" And Blaine kissed Kurt, apologising for the years spent apart and the splashing that never got to be. And the matching gumboots that grew too small and the clouds that never stopped changing. And the kisses were reminders of the thundery nights spent huddled next to each other on the couch watching Disney Movies and holding hands when a clap of thunder broke. And neither of them ever regretted those afternoons in the yard and the bright yellow ponchos or the rainbow umbrellas.
"I looked for you in every cloud, in every drop of rain and every patterned wellington I saw on five year olds." Kurt murmured against Blaine's lips
"Every poncho reminded me of you. And I still can't look at the tree out the back because it reminds me of the one at your house."
And as Blaine kissed Kurt another time over the dead bird's casket, they both couldn't help but laugh and smile cute smiles at the same time. Because the rain had started falling and they could gaze at clouds and kiss forever and Blaine's gumboots were but upstairs and once again, everything was perfect.