An act to decode.

A mind to decode

The candle was about to extinguish and he cussed to himself. He was about to finish the book and there was no way he'd leave it for the next day. He certainly couldn't turn on the lights or the boys would burn him alive. Besides, his arse, which Christopher had saved yet again earlier, hurt too much to move. So, he decided to run with his eyes. Getting dizzy in the end was definitely worth it, although he couldn't understand why had Christopher given him such a precious gift.
The candle was still "alive" and he wanted to laugh at it. In a matter of minutes, though, he was left in darkness to himself.
To his thoughts.
Cryptography was more interesting than he'd ever thought, especially since it wasn't any different from talking, yet it felt much safer to just write something no one could know what it meant. At least not everybody, because keys were difficult to find. The easiness Christopher talked with about something so complex had him brain-drooling, if that term even existed.
The boy he saw as a messiah despite the short time they had known each other for.
The one who could actually entertain him with maths while they were supposed to be doing french.
And the type of guy he could just never be.
He unconsciously groaned at the thought of not being enough. But it was stupid. They were young men who would later take different paths, and Christopher probably had the "correct" concept of the birds and the bees. It was impossible, looking at it from any point of view. Sherborne hadn't made it impossible, Britain had.
He wanted to forget about it for another night of his life, so he tossed and turned, and his eyelids were being kept open by some inhuman force.
He could hear everything.
From the buzz of the bees to the night farts of his roomates.
And he heard the door being touched, and a note sliding. He stopped caring about anything in that moment and went to catch it, even if it probably wasn't anything of his business.

OVCX ISF HEUKLRWABG?

He grinned.
It was enough for the stubborn Alan Turing to go to bed.

The next day, as he walked through the corridor and caught a glimpse of his friend, the first thing that came to his mind was:

"I understood it all, dear friend"

The heat rose to his cheeks.

"I understood it all"