✉ (when we meet again) for kayssian?
“Kay,” said Cassian.
Kay didn’t glance up from proofreading Cassian’s essay, continued his systematic deletion of whole paragraphs in what Cassian assumed was a well-meaning gesture.
“Do you ever get the feeling that… you’ve met someone before?”
“Yes,” Kay said flatly, eyes still fixed on the laptop. “When someone starts talking to me, or uses my name, or sits next to me in a lecture, or makes the terrible mistake of inviting me to a party… I often get the feeling that they know who I am.”
“Right,” said Cassian, distracted by the number of folders and post-its spread around Kay’s feet. The last time his roommate devised a cross-referencing system for their study notes, it had taken Cassian several days just to locate the contents page.
“But I mean like… in another life.”
Kay paused his typing, a half-chewed stylus drooping from one side of his mouth.
“Cassian,” he said slowly, “exactly how much sleep have you lost over this assignment?”
“None- okay, some,” Cassian admitted, drew a breath when Kay’s deadpan expression didn’t change. “I’m feeling a lot more prepared today though.”
“Prepared and perfectly sane are not mutually exclusive parameters,” Kay said dryly.
“Give me two minutes.” Cassian grinned, kicked Kay’s boots from the couch so he could sit. “and then I promise you can spend the next two hours explaining how dynamic interfacing works in non-binary devices.”
Kay reached for his coffee, tried not to smile.
“Your negotiation skills need work,” he muttered. “I would’ve heard you out for thirty.”
“Infinite universe theory,” said Cassian, pointedly closing Kay’s laptop. “Is the idea that at any given time, in another universe there is another version of ourselves, making different choices that take us down completely different paths.”
Kay folded his legs beneath him, stirred his coffee with a finger. Cassian frowned, tugged at the sleeves of his jacket.
“...what if those paths somehow crossed?”
“I suppose,” Kay said slowly, almost to himself. “Given time and space is infinite, no matter how small the likelihood of something, given an infinite amount of time and an infinite number of possibilities, then the likelihood of any given possibility occurring at some time, or somewhere, all the time… is in fact a certainty.”
There was a small silence. When Cassian blinked, Kay dropped his stare to his lap, gently huffed a breath as his hair fell over his eyes.
“There’s as much chance of recognising someone from another world as there is one existing,” he finished.
In the pause that followed, Cassian felt a strange prickle over his skin, as if somewhere, at some time, a light right next to him had flared to black.
That in a universe of infinite outcomes, one single possibility could make enough difference to spill into the rest.
When Kay looked up, Cassian was almost sure he felt it too.
“So maybe it isn’t whether you’ve met before,” Cassian said quietly, grateful for Kay’s company as the room grew still. “But when you’ll meet again.”