Stay and watch
- or not.

It was nearly silent now, everyone was just listening to those unbelievable things spoken by a man who had been their enemy only minutes ago. The shouts of disbelief had already stopped, all eyes were transfixed on that man - Irie Shouichi - trying to put plans that had been worked on for months into short sentences, because it was not sure how much or if they had any time left to spend explaining this mess.

One pair of eyes didn't dare to leave their boss even for the shortest of moments though.

Tsuna managed to look determined and absolutely lost at the same time - determined to get his family out of this and safely back home, lost as he didn't exactly know how and the problems standing in their way only seemed to get bigger and bigger, even with more help on their side.

It made Gokudera curse being trapped behind thick glass more, only being able to watch, but not to do anything else. There wasn't much he could do at the moment to begin with, even without being locked up. But standing here, seeing the Tenth like that and not being able to help at all wasn't something he could stand much longer.

His fingers itched to blow that damn thing just up already, but that small part of him still thinking somewhat rationally kept on telling him no, that would be a very bad idea, it would not do anything to that glass just to you and the others and that would be bad, as it would make the Tenth worry even more. Do Not Do It - Do Not Do It - Do Not Do It.

Yet he wanted so badly to be over there and not here anymore. Standing next to the Tenth, behind, in front of, anywhere around him, not just watching, but helping, protecting, saving. He desperately wanted to tell the Tenth everything would work out just fine, even if he didn't know that, even if he doubted they really could make it sometimes.

If anything happened right now(which was very likely as they were in their enemies' freaking base) Gokudera would have to watch his boss getting hurt even more. (Tsuna would definitely not die - he kept telling himself that over and over together with his 'Don't Blow Anything Up While In This Thing'-mantra.)

Besides, he didn't trust that enemy turned ally at all. Though Reborn's words had allowed his eyes to move from him to the Tenth. (And everything Irie Shouichi had told them sort of made sense even if he didn't like everything he'd heard.)

He still took note of every single move, every twitch his hands made.

With that strange mechanic he was more okay. He had come with the Tenth after all and had seemingly helped him. Moreover he didn't look like a threat right now. That didn't mean Gokudera wasn't wary of him too. Hell, he was weary of all things around Tsuna right now not being Reborn's hologram. He tried to have everything in sight that still could move and wasn't locked up too or out cold on the flor. Without his eyes having to leave the Tenth again. Of course.

(He had checked if any of those women were twitching yet though, but forgot about them as soon as his full attention was with Tsuna and those weird explanations again.)

Gokudera knew that he should believe in the Tenth's (and therefore Reborn's) judgment. That was why he didn't see that mechanic as (much of) a threat. But he couldn't bring himself to do the same with the other man too.

Fact was, he didn't want to.

It wasn't like part of him was not relieved to have found some more help and to know they really weren't fighting a lost battle on their own. Because he was grateful for that. Really grateful as it lifted at least some of the heavy weight which had been pushed on the Tenth when they had landed in this time. They hadn't lost the rings after all, so they hadn't lost anything yet.

It wasn't because of that. Even if he could do this for the Tenth while Gokudera himself couldn't he would still thank him for giving the Tenth a bit more hope to hold on to. (Maybe he wouldn't say so directly, but he'd definitely mean it. If they could get out of here sometime soon.)

That wasn't the problem.

The problem was that there had actually been a plan. Which was really, really good and not the problem either. The thing pushing Gokudera to despise the other was that he had been included (as well as Hibari), had been trusted with it, while his older self hadn't been.

And damn he shouldn't worry over something like that right now, but it hurt, damn it! Hurt, because even after ten years, even after becoming the Tenth' right hand man for real, he hadn't been worthy enough to know something so important, so crucial to all of their survival. (To the survival of the whole freaking world as it was.)

Even if he didn't know the future Tenth like he knew Tsuna, he knew enough about both of them (and how strange did that sound) good enough to understand how much it had hurt him to make this decision. He knew that he would have needed (or will need, he didn't know anymore) someone to talk about it, to ease that pain even a little. (Someone that clearly couldn't be Hibari.)

He also knew that the Tenth had probably just wanted to protect everyone. Even ten years later he apparently liked to forget about the people wanting to protect him.(And that nearly made Gokudera smile in some twisted kind of way.)

Gokudera had always hoped to become someone the Tenth could trust with everything, could tell everything, because he knew that he would be never ever judged or betrayed by him.

Apparently he had failed.

Like he had failed to protect the Tenth.

But he had to stop thinking about that now! He had to be strong to do everything his future self couldn't do. And more.

So he pushed everything not having to do with right here, right nowas far away as possible, next to the memory of this disturbing nightmare about strangling the Tenth which had felt by far too real for Gokudera's liking.

Even if the Tenth kept on pushing him away - intended or unintended - he knew he would not stop trying to help, to protect. He wanted to stay with him, to see the fireworks together again.

And he would tell him those things as often as needed to be. So that Tsuna maybe would finally understand. He couldn't risk him dying or something stupid like that beforehand. Gokudera wanted to tell him that and so much more. But now was not the time for that. (And he really was too much of a coward, but he just couldn't admit that even to himself.)

Now they had to win and get back home. Home in their time. Then - maybe - there would be the right moment.

Maybe they would remember that they should let them out soon.

Besides the baseball idiot and the stupid brats seemed to stir and it really would be too much of a bother to silence them long enough to explain that everything was okay, they were just trapped in here for fun.

Gokudera wanted out of this fucking thing already.