A/N: I'm very sorry, please try not to hold this delay against me too much. Real life and severe writer's block got in the way, and my family was held captive and threatened with laser beams to the kneecaps unless I held off on writing this. No, really, it's the truth.

Anyways, after freeing them I wrote a recap for you in this chapter so you don't have to reread the last chapters! Aren't I a nice authoress? (After making you wait for months on end for this chapter, I'm thinking that question should be rhetorical. Extremely rhetorical. Don't answer that, please.)

Disclaimer: What? The new chapter of xxxHolic features Doumeki in a banana suit! Mokona's teaching Watanuki how to pole dance? Yuuko is… being Yuuko? As if. Don't own, never will. Also don't own any of the songs mentioned in here, though I do own the Situation Music Machine.

Speaking of the latest chapter, is everyone up to date? Holy crap, it's like the pairing's finally canon now. Clamp is torturing us. I've never seen one group do so much teasing. D:

Warning: Some cursing, some parts of the story that aren't as cheery. Don't get me wrong, there'll still be comedy, there just might actually be serious parts for once. Don't worry, I'm weirded out too. I think the right name for it is dramedy.

Last time on Unicorn Weekend:

"Doumeki, what do you think of my coconut bra?" Watanuki asked nervously.

"I think it goes well with your grass skirt. What do you think of this loincloth I made?" replied Doumeki.

"It's nice!" Watanuki told him brightly, completely breaking character. "Do you think there's anyone else on this island? Maybe the other half of the plane survived."

"No, there probably aren't any others. I guess we're all alone—"

"Hola! I'm one of the Others!" Carlos greeted them happily, his own grass skirt rustling in the breeze, highlighting his tanned skin. His long black hair was slicked back since he was inexplicably soaking wet. His tan skin glistened sinfully in the bright sun, water droplets tracing delectable trails over the muscles in his bared chest.

Doumeki cursed under his breath.

"Has the author really sunk low enough that she's making Lost references now?" Watanuki asked snippily.

"…" Doumeki said in response, too occupied with the thought of Watanuki in a coconut bra and skirt.

"Did I do something to her? Because all I've done recently is try and walk over this hill right after you became a murderer, which I don't think is a reason to continue hey! Are you listening to me! Hey, bastard!"

"No." Doumeki deadpanned, plugging his ears, preparing in advance for the tirade that sure to follow. Any minute now. Now would be a good time.

…

Why were there no unnecessarily dramatic hand motions of rage? Doumeki looked over at Watanuki and unplugged his ears. Watanuki was looking straight ahead, peering intently at… a banquet. A banquet?

"Food." Doumeki announced.

"Do you always have to speak in monosyllables! What the hell's the matter with you! You're always like this!" Watanuki ranted, his hands flapping in the usual aforementioned unnecessarily dramatic hand motions of undeserved rage. Good, he was back to normal.

"You're fixed," Doumeki informed his companion.

"Eh? You know what, don't even answer. Let's go see what those girls are up to."

To his surprise, Doumeki realized there were two girls seated at the banquet table. He hadn't noticed them behind the steaming platters of freshly cooked chicken and turkey, roasted quail, vegetable dishes, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes, baked potatoes, twice-baked potatoes, potato soup, potato casserole, and oh look, more potatoes. He was really starting to notice a trend here. Despite it all smelling delicious, he didn't think it would be a good idea to eat any of it.

One of the girls had black hair, and the other was blonde. While they were both conventionally pretty, there was something about their faces that Doumeki didn't trust. He almost wanted to say they looked shifty, sitting there smiling at them in their pink ruffled dresses. Also, who has a banquet in the middle of a road in a grassy land that people randomly get dropped in?

"Hello!" chirped Watanuki, and judging from his friendly smile, this boy was completely not taken in by whatever façade these girls were putting up. In fact, he'd probably come to the same conclusions as Doumeki on this one. He was truly a paragon of alertness, and absolutely nothing could be slid by him. Nope, no siree. There is certainly not a single drop of sarcasm in this entire paragraph.

"Hello." The two girls spoke as one in a tone that sounded like they were attempting to be mysterious. After spending so much time with Yuuko (and just living in general), Doumeki had gotten pretty good at distinguishing who was actually mysterious and who was trying to make themselves sound more interesting. Wonder of wonders, even Watanuki had caught on. Doumeki wasn't actually sure why someone would try to sound like they knew many secrets to make themselves more appealing, because if you didn't have anything to back that up you just sounded foggy and like you were desperately trying to cover up the fact that your own life was so pathetically boring you had to make things up to avoid knocking people unconscious by your very lack of presence.

Doumeki certainly wasn't being over critical just because they were absorbing all of Watanuki's attention right now. Not at all. There is also a lack of sarcasm in this paragraph, too. Yup.

"It's nice to meet you! My name's Watanuki, and this lug is Doumeki. Feel free to ignore him if you want."

Can you feel the love tonight?
It is where we are.

Doumeki and Watanuki jumped when the song came on. Well, Watanuki jumped and yelped, Doumeki sort of just blinked slower than usual and looked around curiously. It's really the same thing.

The blonde girl looked surprised. "Oh! You managed to power our Situation Music Machine! It's a device we have that reads the emotions of the situation and plays the appropriate song in a manner that in no way resembles a song fic!" She gestured towards a silver disc floating a foot above the table and smiled pleasantly. Too pleasantly. Doumeki narrowed his eyes.

Her friend? sister? looked perplexed. "I think that's the first time it's ever played ironically though."

The first girl tutted. "Dear, I think you're right. I do hope it's not broken."

Watanuki was interested but a little freaked out at the same time. "That's amazing! How is it doing that? Is it reading our minds?"

A few features on Doumeki's face shifted so that he could look completely panicked. A machine that read minds would be very, very bad. A machine that could read minds while he was in the presence of a Watanuki in a skin tight shirt was even worse. The archer thought something along the lines of Oh Dear, but much less polite.

"No, of course not. It just reads the situation." The brunette paused and tapped her nose thoughtfully. "Well, okay, maybe a little mind reading," she admitted. Then she looked at our heroes as if just remembering they were there, which was true enough. "I'm so sorry, how rude of us!"

"Very rude," the blonde agreed. "Please, do sit down and join us in our repast. I'm Maryanne, and this is my sister, Susanna. It's a delight to meet the both of you at last. Especially you." She batted her eyelashes. Watanuki suppressed the need to roll his eyes in front of these kind women, but they always were so attracted to Doumeki it was ridiculous. It made absolutely no sense and wait something's wrong. The girl, Maryanne, wasn't batting her eyelashes at the Doumeki. She was batting them at... him! Finally! A girl who had a good head on her shoulders! Not that Himawari didn't have a good head on her shoulders, it was just…

Finally, a girl who preferred him over Doumeki! Watanuki beamed at her. "No, don't worry about it." He took a seat, fully expecting Doumeki to follow suit. He didn't. Doumeki remained standing, not trusting these two girls.

Have you heard the news?
Bad things come in twos.
But I never knew
'Bout the little things.

Everyone stared at the disc. Watanuki started, "That was-"

"Ominous." Doumeki and Maryanne said at the same time. They both looked up and glared at each other.

What a convenient excuse. "If that's what it thinks of the situation, then we shouldn't take up any more of your time. We'll be on our way," Doumeki said in a tone that brooked no argument. At least, not until Susanna replied in quite the same way.

"Leave the new unicorn."

Watanuki gulped and looked between the three. Doumeki, face blank with anger, the two girls, faces pinched with something like annoyance and betrayal. Like children who've been denied the candy they asked for. It was making him nervous, and the conversation wasn't helping. What was this about a new unicorn? "Look, there must be some misunderstanding. How about we just settle down-"

"No."

"Doumeki, what's gotten into you? You're being worse than usual!"

No response. Not good. Though the fact that it was Watanuki who had to be a mediator was a pretty big tipoff.

"Get up," Doumeki ordered without looking at him. "We're leaving." Watanuki swallowed and did as requested, but the furrow in between his eyebrows was a clue that there was a confused storm stirring just underneath. "Why?"

The bespectacled teen looked troubled, and it was one of his expressions that made him utterly endearing to his fate-appointed guardian. Only someone genuinely worried about another could have that expression; it made Doumeki want to wipe away his concerns with a gentle brush of his thumbs, with his lips, no matter how cheesy it was. Not that any of this showed, it was only an integral part now of Shizuka Doumeki, kept buried deep inside, and holy hell what song was it now?

You're just too good to be true.
Can't take my eyes off you.
You'd be like Heaven to touch.
I wanna hold you so much.
At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I'm alive.

No. That thing was so broken. Doumeki was momentarily distracted from his Mexican standoff and tried to change the song by concentration alone.

I wanna fuck you like an animal
I wanna feel you from the inside
I wanna fuck you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed

In retrospect, that was a terrible idea. Hopefully, no one would catch on that it was him.

Everyone was giving him strange looks. So much for that. Watanuki looked mortified and red-faced, the girls… Scary. So scary. No one should grin like that if there's that much blood dripping from their snout.

…

Snout?

Everyone else seemed to realize it the same time Doumeki did, but the two girls who had tried to act like poor imitations of Southern Belles now had pig snouts. What? Could this day get any odder? What was with all the anthropomorphic animals popping up all over the place?

Hey guys, miss me? Remember what I said about pigs and foreshadowing? Well, yeah, tried to warn you.

Maestro, cue the appropriate music!

The little silver disc gave a bob that gave off the impression of a salute and more music began to play. Doumeki resisted the urge to break it. He wisely decided not to dwell on how easy it was to anger him when someone threatened to show an interest in Watanuki.

Sometimes I feel I've got to
Run away, I've got to
Get away
From the pain that you drive into the heart of me

That last line did not bode well. He and Watanuki looked at each other at the same time and, coming to an understanding in one of their rare moments of perfect silent communication, began running like track stars.

The girls followed. Of course. Except they were less like girls now, sometimes running on four legs, sometimes not, but their faces were elongating to fit their snouts, mouths beginning to drip slobber as the run took its toll, and their eyes became more squinty.

Not that Doumeki or Watanuki really saw this. Running away was their top priority at the moment, not cataloguing the changes in two creatures who possibly wanted to eat them.

Hey, it had happened before in the hotel with the women who were actually hungry birds. Watanuki sighed. Why was it that all the pretty women who were nice to him and didn't go to his school wanted to eat him or were Yuuko?

Actually, yeah, that was a question he'd like answered. He turned his head around, still running after Doumeki (darn archery star, why did he have to be so in shape, too? Shouldn't he have better balance now or something since he had a tail?). "Why are you doing this? You were so kind, why do you want to eat us?" he yelled back.

Unexpectedly, the girls stopped short and got absolutely disgusted expressions on their faces. The boys stopped too, in surprise at the sudden end to the chase. It was about this time that the two boys saw what had happened to their almost hosts. They had shrunk vertically and exploded horizontally, along with a now decidedly piggy head. Even their ears were triangular. They still stood on two feet and were in the frilly pink dresses, which clashed something awful with their new pink skin tone.

"Eat you? Where in the world would you get an idea like that?" Maryanne (she still had blonde hair) looked repulsed by the idea. That was a good sign.

"Experience?" offered Watanuki.

The pig sisters looked at one another in bemusement and back to their former guests and targets. "We aren't going to eat you," Susanna assured them.

"Oh, good, you really had us worried there for a second." Watanuki sighed in relief, bent over and trying to catch his breath. Doumeki took all his considerable will power and did not sneak a peek.

Maybe just a small one. No one had to know.

"Ugh, as if we'd ever do that. How utterly uncouth." Maryanne this time.

"Uncouth? But aren't you both-" Watanuki did not finish his sentence. He might be oblivious, but those twin glares were pretty easy to read.

"It's not like we wanted to be pigs. We wanted to be beautiful maidens, waited on hand and foot by gorgeous men who want to marry us and are secretly princes waiting to whisk us off to rule over our kingdom with an iron hoof. Erm, fist." Both sighed dreamily.

Watanuki took a step back in trepidation.

"So why were you chasing us?" Doumeki cut in.

"Yeah! That's righ- Ugh." Watanuki made a choking noise as he realized that he'd almost just agreed with the Doumeki. Whew, catastrophe avoided.

Doumeki gave him a smirk like he knew exactly what Watanuki had tried to avoid and that he wasn't getting away with it. Curses. Watanuki's tail bushed up in annoyance.

"Not both of you," Maryanne argued. "Just the unicorn."

"Okay, but why me?" Watanuki asked, having given up by now on trying to convince people that he wasn't a unicorn despite the lack of hooves, horse body, or magical powers.

"Because you're a unicorn," they chorused, as if it explained everything. To them, it probably did.

Doumeki frowned the frown of severe condescension. "You'll have to come up with a better explanation than that."

Susanna sighed. "We need to Watanuki to stay with us forever. This is one of those 'for eternity' deals."

Watanuki blinked. "I don't think that was a better explanation."

What's this? Doumeki's frown is evolving! It's-it's- A frown of face punchery! Doo-do-doo-do-doo-do-dooo!

"Because you're the unicorn, right?" Maryanne carried on where her sister left off. "Only pure and chaste maidens are around the unicorn, are allowed to be the unicorn's companions. So if we're allowed to stay with the unicorn, then that means we're beautiful maidens! See? Simple, and everyone wins. My sister and I get to be beautiful human ladies, and you get to hang around with two gorgeous women who love you. Platonically."

Doumeki raised an eyebrow. "I won't allow it. You're not dragging him into your daydream."

"Daydream?" Susanna asked coldly. "This isn't a daydream. Not here. Didn't you see us before? We were beautiful then because the unicorn was close."

Doumeki's frown didn't fade, but Watanuki grew more and more puzzled. "I don't think your logic should actually work, but for whatever reason, it did (and when did I get the power to turn pigs into women?). She's involved, so I'm really not going to look too closely into it. But what do you mean, not here?"

Maryanne took over this answer. "This land's reality is… softer. At least, that's how it was explained to us by the witch."

Both boys got a sudden sense of foreboding. "Witch?" Watanuki asked weakly.

The sisters nodded. "Yuuko, the space time witch. We met her when she wandered onto our master's land looking for booze."

Doumeki pinched the bridge of his nose to lessen his sudden headache. Watanuki scowled. "That's exactly like her, that damned lush! Didn't even bother warning us, can't believe her! I bet she's laughing her head off right now." Ah, there were the flailing hands! It had been a while since Doumeki had last seen them.

As a matter of fact, Yuuko was not laughing her head off at the moment. She was on the phone. Specifically, she was on the phone with Watanuki and Doumeki's principal. "So you see, after a homeless man tried to set Watanuki on fire, Doumeki was mauled by an escaped tiger."

"Oh no!" cried the man. "An escaped tiger? How in the world did I miss those news reports?"

Yuuko held the phone away as she snickered. "Those tigers, they've got an iron grip on the media."

"And this was after they were both attacked by zombie gorillas?"

"Right," Yuuko grinned. They were so going to kill her when they got back.

"No wonder they've missed a week of school. Do you have any idea of when they'll be back from the hospital?"

Yuuko pursed her lips, knowing the man couldn't see it. "That depends entirely on them. If they can pull through and discover what they need to before it's too late, then yes, they should return."

The principal dabbed at his forehead nervously. Something about talking to this woman made him anxious. He also got the feeling that more was going on then he really knew about, but despite her hard to believe story, the man felt that asking what had really happened would be even more ludicrous.

"Ah, wonderful then, wonderful. I'll see them when I see them, I suppose. Thank you for calling, Watanuki is lucky to have such a caring and responsible employer."

"That he is," Yuuko exhaled, smoke swirling around. The principal shuddered, absolutely certain he shouldn't be able to hear a predatory grin but nevertheless found he could.

"One more thing before we hang up," Yuuko said, interrupting his thoughts.

"Y-yes?" He hadn't stuttered in years, not since therapy. What was going on?

"What is it you desire?"

"I can't believe she dropped you here without an explanation! That could have been very dangerous," exclaimed Maryanne. "I wonder what she was thinking."

Now that the pigs were closer to Watanuki and had been for the better part of their conversation, they were beginning to look like girls again. It was not a little eerie.

"I bet she wasn't," Watanuki muttered bad-temperedly. Why did Yuuko keep throwing obstacles in their path? Weren't the ears, tail, and horn bad enough on their own?

Right, this was Yuuko he was talking about. Of course they weren't.

"Don't say that, I'm sure she knows what she's doing," Maryanne replied.

"I doubt it, the unicorn's right. We'll never catch Frederick's eye like this." Susanna looked sullen.

"Frederick?" Doumeki questioned. Both girls turned bright red at the mention of his name and studiously avoided eye contact. "Is that the prince you wanted?"

"Wait, if Yuuko's the space time witch, then that means they might be from a different dimension, like Syaoran! So even if we don't have a Prince Frederick, they might."

Maryanne tugged on her hair self-consciously. "No, she told us we have to be in the same dimension as the unicorn, or else it doesn't work. Our Frederick's not a prince, he just has the same name as one. He's but a farmer who was good to us, yet since he wasn't born with a… generous countenance, no girl in our village wants to marry him."

"Though you must have a Prince Frederick, from the Hanover Court? It's not as if he isn't well known."

Doumeki started. "Prince Frederick of the Hanover Court? He's been dead for centuries, and your farmer as well, probably. Oh hell," he continued, coming to a realization he was pretty sure he didn't like. "You're already dead, aren't you?" Having half of Watanuki's eye had never sucked so much.

"How do you know that?" Watanuki asked.

"I pay attention in history class," Doumeki deadpanned.

Before Watanuki could do his customary dance of I-hate-you-please-die-from-the-awesome-sight-of-my-spaz-attack, the girls started screaming.

"You're wrong! You're wrong, you have to be!"

"Centuries? Dead? We're not! How can we be dead? Are you drunk? We're right here! We've only been here for…" Susanna trailed off, and all four of them came to a sudden realization.

"How long have we been here?" Watanuki didn't direct the question at a single person, and no one answered. "Shouldn't… shouldn't it have been night by now?"

"Where things go to become forgotten," Susanna muttered. "Forget the parts of yourself you dislike to recreate yourself, that's what she told us. Doesn't do much good if he died while we wasted time here though, does it!" she yelled at the sky, enraged. "I don't care if he's dead, we're at least getting what we came for!"

Watanuki frowned. "We're exactly where we started again?"

Maryanne shrugged. "Looks that way."

"Ah."

…

They all took off sprinting again.

Back at the table and mostly forgotten, the disc still hung in the air, playing the last strains of the song.

Now I'll run from you
This tainted love you've given
I give you all a boy could give you
Take my tears and that's not nearly all
Oh...tainted love

So… Since your job with the piggies doesn't seem to get you much work, ever consider finding a new employer?

"I need a bow," Doumeki huffed as he ran down yet another hill. Really, all this running was getting old. At least neither of them had tripped-

Spoke too soon.

Doumeki felt something tangle around his legs, nearly dragging him to the ground. He managed to catch himself, and searched near his feet for- a bow! Perfect! Too perfect, but who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth?

He took the correct stance, ready to shoot down the enslaving pigs until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Watanuki's hand. Doumeki cut down his initial response (EEeee, he's touching me! Yay, he's willingly initiating contact! …Why do I have an inner preteen girl?) and turned to look at the spirit bait. "I have to shoot them."

Watanuki's eyes widened. "What? No, they're not bad people, they're only doing this because they're in love!"

"Love is no excuse." Doumeki readied his weapon, only to realize he was missing one very important thing: targets. The girls were gone. Disappeared. Not currently present. If they had invisibility cloaks, they would be wearing them, because Doumeki was not seeing them.

Watanuki summed up both of their thoughts in his usual eloquent way. "Huh?"

Did they stop at the top of the hill? It was a blind spot for sure, and the hairs on the back of Doumeki's neck lifted at the thought of them watching the two of them right now.

That theory was harshly debunked in the next thirty seconds.

An ear-splitting scream erupted from the top or behind the hill, and goosebumps raised themselves along their flesh. What was going on?

Watanuki's face was determined. "We need to go back and make sure they're okay."

Doumeki was incredulous. "Good idea."

"Look, I know you don't like them, and they might have tried to kidnap me, but they're not malicious and hold on, you're saying I have a good idea?"

"…No."

"Eh! But you just said I did!"

"Yuuko was right. It is fun messing with you." Of course this was a horribly inappropriate time to do it, but if it delayed Watanuki from doing something stupid for that much longer, Doumeki had no regrets.

Alas, Watanuki's rant was once again cut down in its prime.

Hey guys, miss me? I was doing someone a favor- hey, just realized that Carlos wasn't with you last time I checked in. Any idea where he might have gone off to?

"What am I, his keeper?"

…Anyone with even a smidgeon of knowledge of the Bible would be very worried right now, Doumeki.

Doumeki raised an eyebrow of defiance. It was very defiant indeed.

"No, you most certainly are not my keeper, seňor Doumeki. Watanuki may have that position, if he so desires it. You, however, may have my revenge. I swear it on my honor as a Mexican!"

Everyone turned towards the voice. "Carlos!" Watanuki exclaimed, ignoring the lines about keepers and revenge. "You're alive! And… Mexican? Weren't you a Spaniard?"

Doumkei said nothing, but watched very, very carefully.

Carlos had come from the direction of the scream. The pig sisters did not follow.

Bit of a cliffie, but not really. So, I'm back. Ish. I feel like my writing style has changed, but I hope it's not too dramatic. Anyways, things are starting to heat up and get even more outlandish than they already were, so hope everyone's following along okay. I had no idea my OCs were going to play such a large role, but it makes sense if you drag two characters and stick them in an entirely different world. Yeah. Honestly, how did I not see that coming?

In case it wasn't obvious, I'm not in the habit of planning out my stories all that much. I'm trying to change that with this one though.

Songs, in order of appearance: Can You Feel the Love Tonight? by Elton John, The Little Things by Danny Elfman, Can't Take My Eyes Off You by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Closer by Nine Inch Nails, and Tainted Love by Soft Cell.

So, thoughts? Suggestions? Concerns? Plans for world domination? (Dibs on Japan).