Summary: Sasuke is heavily wounded after his battle at the Valley of the End, and Orochimaru's henchmen have yet to whisk him away (not that he'd admit to needing any such help.) A curious meeting with a familiar face leads to staggering implications and some much needed enlightenment. Time travel. AU. Genfic.

Warnings: Major plot spoilers, angst, bonding, BAMF!Sasuke

Lyrics: "Headlock" by Imogen Heap

"You're walking. You've been hiding,

And you look half-dead half the time."

He winces as the particularly painful, sharp sensation shoots up from his wound again and seems to coalesce behind his eyes and around his curse mark; he leans against a tree momentarily, waiting for it to pass. As he does so, his mind wanders back to the unconscious body he'd left in the Valley of the End (Sasuke never had appreciated such irony), and the remembrance of that idiot's inexplicable power only serves to strengthen his resolve to sever his ties with this useless village and his equally as hindering teammates.

"How pathetic."

He'd had his own ragged breathing and the pitter patter of the rain as his only companions for a while now, and so sure was he of his lack of pursuers—The village is still recovering from the invasion, after all; having only genin sent after him reveals as much, if nothing else—that the sudden intrusion of a decidely male voice startles him so badly that he forgets himself and attempts to fetch a kunai with his injured arm. This results in a dizzying, searing pain to his system, and he staggers slightly before slumping to the cold, muddy ground, his breaths now coming out in shallow puffs.

He hurriedly lifts his upper body and attempts to search his surroundings for the owner of said voice, his Sharingan flaring to life almost subconsciously before that, too, dissolves back into his normal obsidian and leaves him feeling drained from chakra exhaustion. Anger at this stranger and his utter helplessness swells within him, and he is moments from demanding the man reveal himself when, suddenly, someone steps out from behind a tree, clad in black clothing and silver armor and a katana strapped to his back.

None of this registers to the young Uchiha, however, for his attention is captured solely by the chillingly familiar crimson gaze on a face that is most certainly not That Man's. The stranger (who, with his black, spiky hair and distinct facial features is, for all intents and purposes, an Uchiha) moves closer to him until he stands just before Sasuke, apparently blatantly ignoring the bewilderment marring his usually passive countenace. The man then crouches down to his level, and his crooked eyebrow causes the teen to stop gaping and instead demand, "Who are you?! How are you alive?!" It never occurs to him to question whether or not the man is actually his kin; no one could henge such a convincing Sharingan.

The man's lip quirks a bit in amusement as he asks his own question. "You mean you can't tell?"

His vision is blurred slightly from fatigue (and hadn't yet completely recovered from his dizzy spell), and the heavy downpour is just as impeding; nevertheless, he quickly realizes that the eerie familiarity he'd felt earlier did not, in fact, extend only to the man's dojutsu. "That's impossible." The words are out of his mouth before he even registers it.

Cocking his head to the side, the man's small smile morphs into his signature smirk, red eyes fading to black. "Was I really this slow?" The question is rhetorical, but the implication is staggering. The smirk widens at his dumbfounded expression, and a gloved hand ruffles his hair. His mirthful demeanor abruptly dissipates, a solemn expression replacing it, and though the man—his older self; holy shit—is meeting his gaze, Sasuke isn't entirely certain the man is seeing him. "Heh. The Dobe had one thing right."

'The Dobe?' Naruto?

The small smile is back, and the young Uchiha is discomfitted by the strange expression on his own face, albeit an older version. Apparently having regained his train of thought, the man says, "We have much to discuss, Sasuke, but first..." He trails off, removing his hand from Sasuke's hair and turning around. He continues, glancing from over his shoulder, "...we need to get out of this rain. Let's go."

"What?" His brain is foggy and becoming even more so by the minute due to fatigue, and this current situation is so far from the realm of possibility that he's having trouble making the appropriate connections. That's what he's going with, anyway.

His older self looks quite close to rolling his eyes (and since when has his face ever showed so much emotion?), but he refrains, settling for clarifying, "I'm going to carry you, so get on. Any longer out here, and you might get sick." He pauses and peers at the teen more closely before amending, "More than you already are."

Too exhausted both mentally and physically to put up much of a resistance, he manages to get to his feet, but his legs might as well be noodles by this point, causing him to lose his balance. His consciousness begins fading mid-fall, and he is only aware long enough to realize his face had hit something much softer than the dirt floor of the forest.

"Monitoring you, like machines do.

You've still got it; I'm just keeping an eye."

He wakes to the warmth of a fire and the forest canopy.

He is on his feet and in a defensive stance instantly, instincts screaming at him to flee (it'snarutotheidiotalwaysgettinginmyway), to get away (myclosestfriendbutThatManistoostrongIneedpOwEr), and he doesn't even notice the man flicker behind him until he feels a hand on his shoulder. His elbow slams into the man's chest, or that's the plan, anyway. Instead, his appendage is easily caught, and the grip is too strong for him to simply pull it away. Before he can attack again, the man grabs his other arm and forces him to the ground, pinning him in place with his bodyweight.

His mind is furiously working to figure a way out of the situation when a familiar voice breaks the tense silence. "Sasuke, calm down. It's me." Who-? And then the hazy aftermath of the (ididn'twanttoihadnootherchoice) battle becomes clear, and he stops struggling. As the panic subsides, faint stirrings of embarassment arise. Most likely noticing the tension leaving his body at the dawning realization, his older self releases the hold and then helps him to his feet.

Sasuke regards the other male more closely now that precipitation isn't actively distorting his appearance and finds that resemblance between the two of them is rather obvious. Frankly, the other man simply looks like a taller, stronger version of himself, which, he supposes, is exactly the case. This observation isn't merely one-sided; he notices the man glancing over him as well. Whether it's due to simple comparison or concern for his health, he doesn't know; perhaps it is both.

Regardless, Sasuke has questions that need to be answered. Never being one to beat around the bush, he asks, "How did this happen?"

As expected, the man is not surprised by the sudden inquiry. (They are the same person, after all.) Rather, he gestures to the fire, saying, "Let's sit down first. I'll explain while you eat."

"Hn." Reluctantly, the boy does as he is told and seats himself on the log directly across from the other man, accepting the cup ramen and water without complaint (but not, however, without a crooked eyebrow at the food choice. He only receives an unconcerned shrug in response.) He takes one bite of noodles and then stares at the man expectantly, earning himself that weird quirk of the lip he now associates with his older self.

"Impatient, aren't you?" Not waiting for an answer, he goes on, "To answer your question... Well, I can't give you a satisfying answer. This whole situation," He gestures airily to everything and nothing, "was planned to an extent." Sasuke opens his mouth to speak, but the man interrupts him, "I know what you're thinking: 'If you could time travel at will, why wouldn't you have stopped the massacre?'" He merely nods, and the man runs a hand through his unruly spikes, sighing. "It's a lot more complicated than that."

He mulls that over as the other man gathers his thoughts. "So... you couldn't go back in time any further?"

"In a way... Yes and no." His frustration must have shown through because the man explains, seeming to pick his words carefully, "It would have been... unwise."

His tone is indignant as he parrots, "'Unwise'?"

"Simply put, there is nothing I could have done to prevent it."

He jumps to his feet in anger, ramen splattering on the ground, forgotten. "You could have killed Itachi!"

A pained grimace surfaces on the man's face at the accusation, and his charcoal gaze moves to the fire, despondent. Rueful, he reveals, "I murdered him when I was fifteen." Sasuke has half a second to feel a grim sense of triumph before the man's head shoots up, gaze sharp. "A few hours later, I found out the truth behind the massacre."

Utterly thrown, he blurts, "The 'truth'? What are you talking about? Itachi murdered our entire clan—"

"—because he was ordered to by the village."

Sasuke pulls up short at these words, disbelief coloring his features. "What?"

"Relations between the village and the Uchiha were strained after the Kyuubi attack," He begins, hands clasped together tightly, gaze back on the flame. His face screws up into a sneer as he continues, disgusted, "so Tou-san and the Elders planned a coup."

Sasuke barely has time to swallow this before his older self goes on, "At the time, because he was a prodigy and the next Clan Head, Itachi was expected to infiltrate ANBU and become an agent for the clan; but what the Clan didn't know was that Itachi loved the village too much to allow them to carry through with their plans, so he divulged everything to the Sandaime and became a double agent."

The man finishes with, "Itachi was ordered to assassinate the Clan, and he became a missing nin because he obviously couldn't have stayed in the village."

"...That's..." Sasuke murmurs, voice strangled and eyes impossibly wide. He pauses and takes a moment to compose himself. "If that's true... then why am I...?"

The man's quirky smile replaces the thin line, tinged with wistfullness and regret. "The one thing Itachi loves more than even Konoha..." He declares, tilting his head toward the young Uchiha, "is you."

Sasuke's gaze drops to the ground, tears springing up unbidden, his hands clenching hard enough to draw blood. His voice is barely a whisper, shaky, "Then... then what have I been doing...?" He thinks of the fight (ohgodallthatfornothing) and Sakura's desperate begging (itwasn'tsupposedtobethisway) and Kakashi's warnings (youdon'tunderstandyoudon't). He thinks of That Ma—his brother being forced to choose between family and the village (ididn'tknowididn't), how that must have felt.

He is sobbing inconsolably before he knows it, and when the man attempts to comfort him with an awkward pat on the head, he instigates his first hug since early childhood (ohbrotheri'msosorry), hands digging into the man's back, face pressed into the fabric of his shirt. He is dimly aware of an arm hesitantly wrapping around his back, rubbing soothing circles (likemomusedto) and the other in his hair.

When he finally calms down much later, his only consolation is that, at the very least, he cried on himself.

"You know you're better than this."

End Notes: Another time travel fic. Whoo whoo. I've been craving Sasuke time travel for the past few days now that my Ame Orphan-fic/Naruto time travel fic need is being met. Why has no one written of Sasuke whisking off his younger self for adventures? And why do Time Travelers never really tell their past selves anything? Eh. I was confused, so you get this.

Sasuke refers to him as 'the man' a ton 'cause no name has been given. (But don't worry; he's given one next chapter.)

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