It's the Answer That Are the Problem

Takes place right, right, before the androids arrived on Kami Island and fought Piccolo and (ran away from/lost to) Cell when the gang's having a sleepover and pillow fight (off-camera) at Roshi's house.

Ten point of your own-self-satisfaction if you can guess who the 'uncles' are in the movie (whose series actually does exist, although I don't think this particular plot exists, yet).

Krillin made sure his voice was perfectly casual. "So, where do you think the androids are now?"

"Hmm," Yamcha shifted his head slightly but didn't remove his resting chin from his palm.

"Where do you think the androids are now? Is there any chance they gave up on going after Goku?"

"I doubt it, bro."

"What do you think they're doing?" Krillin nervously clasped his fingers into his lap. He squirmed on the small red couch, and readjusted a coffee mug resting on the black lacquered table. Pillows and blankets surrounded the area like a makeshift bomb shelter. Outside, the sand was a pale yellow, the grass a thick healthy green, and he paid particularly close attention to a palm tree that dipped close to the window.

"Probably killing someone."

"Or just slowly making their way here, to kill Goku," Tien's face was even grimmer than his voice.

His voice, the shorter man noticed, was beginning to falter in its attempt at being relaxed. "I wonder if they'll really do that."

"Try to kill Goku?"

"Of course they will. You're the one that told us what they were planning on doing."

Their looks were starting to become suspicious, and a drop of sweat ran down his hot neck. "They only beat us up though. Maybe they'll change their mind."

"They'll change their mind when Goku shows up and beats them."

"Or Cell," the scarred bandit offered. "Cell might get them."

"Hopefully one of the Saiyans will stop those monsters."

They all clench their jaws and fists, although the smaller man did his mostly halfheartedly. Traditions had to be followed, no matter how his feelings were being wound tighter and tighter under the skin.

"I just wonder…" Krillin rubbed his index fingers together. He breathed, then counted to three. "Do you think they have emotions like the rest of us?"

"They can be amused." The three-eyed man's voice was wry. "And angry."

"The big guy seemed to like birds," the short fighter offered.

The other two shrugged.

Unable to hold it back any longer, Krillin finally blurted out the question that had occurred to him exactly ten minutes after the blonde android had kissed him. "Do you think those two, the…Juuhachigou and Juunanagou, do you think they're…" He couldn't say the word, the one word he'd focused on and dreaded and hated and would save him from his own feelings.

"What?"

Tien and Yamcha stared at him, expectantly. A dark flush crept up Krillin's face. He felt a like twelve-year-old. "You know, together."

The blush conveyed more than the words. "Oh," was their fine reply to his question about the situation. He tried not to hide his anxiety and hope. For what, he couldn't be sure.

"I guess. If they even can date."

"If they can feel anger, and amusement, and happiness…" the one monk said, feeling a ball of tension forming in his stomach. "I guess they can date."

The sun was shining down beautifully, and he had a whole new hope in the situation. They would defeat Cell, and find a way to reason with the androids. Everything would work out okay. How could it not, if the mechanically enhanced trio could have feeling, and could date. Krillin knew it shouldn't have made him so happy, that no matter what the situation came to, the world ending, the androids dying, the world saved and the androids going off to live a normal life, he didn't have a chance. They were possibly together, with each other, dating.

"I can't imagine them having a relationship that wasn't abusive. Even with each other."

"Oh yeah," Yamcha pulled a disgusted face. "I bet they're together right now. Doing Kami knows what."

Krillin's eyes doubled in size as his heart shrunk down three. He had an image of himself flying, smiling, then suddenly loosing the ability to control his ki, and plummeting to the earth. His vision blurred, from tears, perhaps. "What?"

Together? That was not what he'd meant when he'd used the word 'together.' Simply dating, maybe holding hands while they set someone on together, sure, but not. Together.

The bald man's smile was dissipating.

"I don't even want to think about that." Now Tien was revolted. Piccolo looked behind his shoulder at them, more than a little disturbed at the turn in the conversation.

But Yamcha was like a real twelve-year-old with a particularly nasty scab that he had to show the other neighborhood kids. He ripped the bandage right off his arm, and flung it and the wound into Krillin's eye. It burned.

"I bet that girl and that guy are messing around right now." He sounded so sure of himself, as though he'd seen them himself.

Just like children, the kids had to admire the oozing of the puss from the injury. "And what about the big guy?"

"Oh," Yamcha crossed his arms. "I bet he's right there."

"With them?"

Soon blood would begin to fall from Krillin's eyes. "What?"

"I mean, look at them. They're dating, and they look almost like brother and sister. It's creepy. You think those three have normal standards when it comes to that sort of thing?"

In a better life, Krillin could have asked about any theories about such matters. If only to drive his imagination further insane. What exactly would Juuhachigou find normal and abnormal in that particular field. But now, he had heard too much. Besides, in a better life, Juunanagou and Juuhachigou would never date.

Piccolo came through though. "That's enough." The vein pulsing in that green forehead told them to shut up.

The humans settled down again. Until Master Roshi and Oolong came down the stairs. "What's going on?"

"Not this," the Namek growled.

A hellish image came to the bald man: the two infamous perverts overhearing their conversation, and adding their own thoughts and ideas into it. Especially once they heard how attractive Juuhachigou was. They would pull out magazines supporting their theories, movies, charts, pie graphs. The two might even hop onto the computer to create a composition image of what Juuhachigou and Juunanagou (and oh Kami, maybe Juurokugou) were doing right now. "Like that," Oolong would point authoritatively to the screen. "In that exact position since they're so much smaller than the other one."

Krillin's vision was obscured with red.

"We were wondering about the androids and what they're doing right now."

Master Roshi nodded solemnly. Then he turned on the TV. The moans had never been more disconcerting to the shorter fighter. A sultry voice told them all that Taboo XXXVI was on next, and that this time around, the twin brother and sister had included their bigger brother into their fun, and maybe their cold-hearted but warm blooded father would join in, and maybe they would take a trip to the carnival to visit a certain clown. Then to the bar, then to the trailer park, then the gym to pick up their tipsy and energetic uncles.

Krillin fell face first into a pillow, and the other agreed that taking a nap would be a good idea. Although, they hoped that the smaller man would stop snoring like that, since it sounded uncomfortably like screaming.

When he rolled over, leaving blood on his pillow sheet from his bitten lips, he stared for a long time into the ceiling. Although he knew he was testing fate with this, he prayed to Kami, to whatever god that was listening to just be kind to him for once, and make it so, somehow, that Juuhachigou and Juunanagou were not dating.

The ex-monk listened to the moaning, and determined that on the movie there was family reunion taking place, and look, everyone had managed to arrive.

"I bet," Yamcha whispered to Krillin. "They're doing that right now."