The first day out, it was raining and cold and Blaine was fine with that. Ginger fussed over him, much to the amusement of his roommates (Charlie and Jim and Bill and two other men) who proceeded to flirt with her outrageously – and she flirted back.
He didn't sleep well that night. The drone and vibration of the ship's huge engines made him nauseous and hurt his ears. He missed Kurt. He just wanted Kurt curled around him, to press his cold feet on Kurt's shins to warm them, to feel Kurt's breath tickling his ear.
He woke the next day, sandy-eyed and grumpy. It was still fucking cold. It was still fucking raining. It was still fucking loud everywhere. His feet were starting to feel numb with the constant reverberation of the decks. He couldn't get away from it.
He was overly curt – not Kurt not Kurt oh god I want Kurt – with Charlie when it was time to head to the mess hall and he felt badly. He tried to be pleasant at dinner. He tried. He thought he didn't really succeed, but everyone seemed to appreciate the effort.
The next day was emergency drills. The threat of U-Boats had lessened, but was still present, so they drilled getting the emergency protocols over and over and over again. Privately, Blaine thought that getting into a lifeboat when your ship had been torpedoed and sunk from underneath you was similar to continuing to swim after the shark has bit your leg off – but.... He wasn't going to say anything. He drilled, contentiously, diligently and with care.
The next day was sunny and bright. Ginger forcibly removed him from his bunk and pulled him up to the top deck of the ship. He was still moody, he was still feeling dark blue and full of storm clouds, but he let himself be dragged along. Ginger marched them to the prow of the ship – the wind whipping her hair wildly, making their eyes tear and their noses run.
Ginger hunched in her jacket, shoving her hands deep in the pocket. She sniffed her nose from time to time, but didn't say a word.
Blaine didn't say anything either. He leaned his crossed arms atop the gunwales, looking steadily out toward the horizon. After a bit, he turned his head to take in the rest of the ships around theirs, and the planes flying overhead.
“How many boats does it take to make an armada?”
Ginger huffed a laugh. “More than this, I imagine.”
“What about a flotilla? Are we a flotilla?”
“Blaine, you're not a pirate.”
“.....not that you know.” Blaine muttered under his breath.
Ginger laughed, and nudged him roughly with her shoulder. He stumbled, laughed and recovered, then nudged her back.
“Everything's going to be okay, B.”

Kurt's tailor shop was on a quiet street just a block away from the apartment he shared with Blaine. He'd apprenticed with a larger, more famous tailor on a busy street in a fashionable part of town. His hard work, impeccable style and precise stitching earned the love and loyalty of several patrons – Mrs. Horowitz, Mrs. Crumpelbak and a Vanderbilt cousin – along with their circle of friends. When he decided to open his own shop, they followed him gladly.
His work ethic, his commitment to quality, his fresh ideas – they made him a name. A quiet name – not splashed across billboards or spoken on the radio, but he was known. When your son needed his first suit to make a good impression, when your mother gave you that impeccable dress that just didn't quite flatter you, when you needed something with a certain understated je ne sais quoi – you went to see Kurt.
Kurt loved designing, he really did. He loved to take a bolt of fabric in his hands and try to figure out what it wanted to be. He loved sketching designs. He loved finally seeing the finished product – love to see it on someone the first time they tried it on and it fit and oh god Kurt! I love it! Look! I never thought I'd say this, but I'm pretty, aren't I? Oh thank you Kurt!
He also loved alterations – changing a garment so it actually fit and flattered the person wearing it. Raising Mrs Gardner's hemline just a fraction of an inch – showing off her gorgeously toned legs, and making her feel 10 years younger. Fixing the bodice on Mrs. Polley's blouse – finally flattering her figure and bringing a smile back to her face. Hemming the pants of Mr. Christopher's new tuxedo for the gallery opening – he'd lost weight and his old one didn't fit any more.
You could tell a lot about a person while measuring someone's inseam. It was intimate, to say the least. Kurt was always politely distant, always professional, always quick. Most men would blush uncomfortably, stare at the opposite wall, try to pretend this didn't bother them.
Some men, though, would watch Kurt intently as he knelt in front of them. Kurt would take his measuring tape from around his neck, pretending not to notice the blatant tightening of the pants in front of him. He'd measure carefully, not to have to repeat it – and that would be it. He didn't fool around with his customers, no matter how attractive they were, no matter how their thighs flexed under their trousers, no matter how impressive he found things in their inseam. He didn't fuck his customers.
Well, there had been Phillip, that's true – but he didn't really count as a customer, as they'd been casual friends for a while. When he came to Kurt with a pair of pants that he insisted needed shortening – Kurt had taken one look at the hem and realized it was a ruse – yes, Kurt had taken the initiative to take very thorough and repeated measurements. Cupping and rolling and stroking and, okay, yes, that time, there was fucking involved.
And then there had been George. That time, sometimes he counted as a mistake. He'd never met George before he walked through Kurt's shop door, a garment bag of brand new suits for his new job slung casually over his shoulder. George had been gorgeous. Kurt had been nervous. George had been curious. Kurt got over his nerves quickly. Kurt had still been buttoning his pants when George walked out the door. When he came to pick up his completed suits, Kurt had spied the wedding ring that had been missing from his hand, and didn't answer George's calls again.
Of course, that had all been before Blaine. Blaine, who'd driven all thoughts and desires of any other man completely out of Kurt's head. Who was everything to Kurt, absolutely everything.
Blaine, who had asked one day, “But, Kurt? Who hems your pants?”
Kurt had proceeded to give him a rigorous training in tailoring and measuring properly. That had been the day they had discovered the tailor's stool Kurt had for hemming meant that Blaine didn't have to crouch quite so low when kneeling to suck Kurt's cock.
Kurt leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head. He couldn't afford to be distracted while altering this evening gown – there might be war, but society still went on.
He'd closed the shop hours ago, locked the door and drawn the blinds. He often worked late to finish up important pieces, sometimes fell asleep at the shop to stumble home in the early morning light.
Tonight, there was Mrs. Sandberg's dress to do. He could get a start on those trousers. He could play around with that jacket he'd been designing. Anything to keep from going home to the empty apartment.
He pushed himself back from the sewing machine, stood and stretched some more. He put the coffee pot on the small stove – he definitely need some coffee to get through this.
The thought of Blaine, the memory Blaine's mouth on him here in this room, Blaine's body covering his own had got him hard. This wasn't going to work. He wasn't going to be able to concentrate He put the coffee pot back on the shelf, donned his coat and hat, stepped out into the wind and locking the door carefully behind him. He walked the block to their building, nodded at Thomas who stood in front of the doors.
He unlocked their door, flicked the hallway light switch on and strode immediately to the radio, turning it on as well. He always had the radio on while he was home alone. Silence these days drove Kurt mad. Their apartment was stiflingly quiet now; Kurt could hear his own pulse in his ears and he hated it. He didn't care what was on the radio, news, music, dramas – he didn't care. Just enough background noise so he could pretend he wasn't there alone.
He turned the lights off he'd just turned on. He went to their bed – the bed that was slowly losing the scent of Blaine – and touched himself, desperately, pretending it was Blaine's hands he felt not his own. He came, gasping and writhing, his face pressed into Blaine's pillow.
He left the radio on all night.

Dear K,
We're here, safe and sound!
Not much time to write at the moment – but I wanted to let you know as soon as my feet touched dry land. Everything's fine here. I'm about to catch the transport to my base (I can't tell you where) I get to meet the rest of my crew and our plane. Secretly, I think she's mine.
Ginger's assigned to the main hospital nearby – she's made me promise I won't see her there in any official capacity, though I'm welcome to come and have tea with her on her days off.
Did you know she's a card shark? I sure as hell didn't. I never would have agreed to play poker with her if I did. She beat everyone on the boat. She's got enough money now to live like an empress.
Incidentally, do you think you could mail her 3 pairs of stockings and a lipstick in a flattering shade? I ran out of money and had to give her an I.O.U.
I love you I love you I love you I love you.
And I miss you a hell of a lot.
All my love, always
B.
PS. Do you think you could go to the library and find out how many ships make up an armada vs a flotilla? It's a matter of great consternation and debate around here.

My darling B,
You can't know how happy I am to hear from you. I've been having nightmares of enemy submarines and icebergs and imaging a whole host of things that could have gone wrong in your crossing. It's good to know you're safe.
I made good on your I.O.U's to Ginger and mailed her the stockings and lipstick and a few other things. You should be getting a similar package (sans stockings and lipstick) as well. I hope the cake makes it there – Carole swears it's the same recipe her mother used to send her father.
I'm keeping busy. I've been giving Rachel cooking lessons – which has gone just about as well as you imagine. I've taken on some Red Cross sewing.
I can't think of anything else to write except how I miss you and think of you all the time and I'm really trying not to be miserable and yesterday I actually laughed for the first time since you've been gone. I miss you and I love you.
All my love, darling, every last bit of it.
K.
PS. I asked Mrs. Peterson at the library. There is no set number for either a flotilla or an armada. Both words are used interchangeably by civilians, though it seems generally considered that they are both smaller than a “fleet.”

Weeks turned into months. Kurt and Blaine exchanged happy silly adoring letters and packages back and forth. Kurt sent Blaine reminders of home. Blaine sent Kurt things he picked up in little shops, antique stores – a silver locket pin, a shell-thin teacup painted with violets. Kurt told Blaine the mundane details of his life – the funny stories he would have told him over the dinner table. Blaine told Kurt as much as he could about his missions, his love of flying, his devotion to his wonderful crew and theirs to him.
Kurt was slowly re-learning how to be alone. How to remember to not make a double-pot of coffee. How to buy only enough bread for himself to eat. How to fall asleep without someone to hold on to. But, he was doing it.
He was at work in the back room of his shop – humming along new radio quietly playing – when he heard the front door bell jingle.
“Kurt?” A man's voice called.
Cooper. Blaine's older brother. They seen each other several times since Blaine had left – gone to dinner, seen a show. It was nice, becoming closer with Blaine's family.
“Kurt! Are you here?” Cooper's voice was breathless – with laughter, probably, Kurt thought..
“Back here, Coop!” Kurt called.
He added just one more flourish to the skirt he was designing before spinning around. “It's so nice of you to drop---”
“Coop? Coop? Is something wrong?”
Cooper's face was gray and ashen. He was out of breath and couldn't seem to swallow properly.
“Mother--” he panted. “Mother just received ---- telegram.”
Cold rushed over Kurt's body. He reached out to hold onto the table behind him.
“Blaine's plane's gone down.” Kurt wasn't hearing this. He wasn't. He wasn't hearing this. He sat down heavily, staring with wide eyes at Blaine's adoring older brother.
“His plane's gone down. Blaine's reported as missing in action.”