"You could just tell him no." The young man spat. "You can decide some things for yourself, you know." She can hear the sneer on his face, in his emphatic words.

"Jacques." She says his name so emotionlessly, the way she knows hurts him and the way she knows causes him to flinch. She doesn't turn her head from her mirror. She won't. She refuses to look at him.

There are lips pressing into her hair.

"Jacques, don't be jealous." She lets herself give in, reaching up and pushing her fingers through his hair. "Don't be jealous," she murmurs again, more to herself than to him.

The lips kiss their way to the nape of her neck, hesitating before they leave her hair. Only pausing long enough to whisper vehemently, "I'm not jealous, I'm livid!" before branding her skin. She almost flinches, almost. His mouth is burning her neck. His arms are around her shoulders. She is only going to let him for a moment, though, because if she stays there with him and lets him kiss her, she'll love him.

She is still kidding herself into believing that he doesn't matter to her.

"They can't do that to you; I won't let them, we'll stay here and—"

"Shut up, Jacques." She says it to save him, only to save him!

His kisses grow feverish, hot and delirious and she knows he can't stop because she's leaving him and he'll never be able to kiss her again. His arms tighten, crushing her painfully to the back the chair as though that would keep her with him.

Nevertheless, she's leaving, and no matter what he does, she's not about to let him keep her here. Only to save him! Only to save him! She refuses to look at his face. She refuses to see his eyes, brighter than usual with unshed tears. "Get out," she whispers, but he doesn't hear her words, only her voice and her heart beating so fast it's almost thrumming. His lips tease her jaw.

"Get out!"

"Stay…"

"Get out!" She's screaming now, writhing against his hold—she wasn't done with her makeup and now it is smudging from her tears. "Get out now!"

He releases her long enough to let her stand. She is not going to look at him! "Out, Jacques." Her command is too shaky for him to take seriously. He won't leave her in tears. He tells her so, calling her every name she's ever wanted him to call her. Precious, Love, Sweet…all those things that she's not, because she hasn't made him leave yet!

"You have to go. I…" She has to gasp for air because that's the only way to get it into her lungs. "I have to go."

"You can't tell me that you don't love me." He's not arrogant about it, but he…knows.

But he's wrong. "I don't love you." She can't make it come out in anything more than a whisper. "I've never loved you. You're scum. You're worse than he is. That's why I won't say no to him. I don't love you."

"I love you. You, not your connections."

She feels the control returns through her fingertips to her head and down to her toes. If she doesn't look him in the eyes, she can say it. "I hate you, Jacques!" She can hardly believe that she's able to spit the poisonous words out of her mouth.

He still won't leave. He's wrapping his arms around her again, and this time she can feel his heartbeat because she's pressed against his chest.

"I refuse to believe that."

She's going to break the kiss before it begins. She smiles at him, that smile that she knows he hates because—so he claims—it's not her.

He finally lets her go—out of his arms, out of the room, out of France and off the continent, but never out of his mind.

She's convinces herself that she's content with that.

As Éclair looks at Tamaki and smiles, she doesn't feel what she's supposed to.

She's supposed to feel powerful and in control, because she left and forced him out of her heart. But she didn't, and she won't.

When Tamaki refuses her, she goes back. They go on. But the words Jacques said that day won't leave her mind. She won't let them go.

She…refuses.

Is this crack? I'm not entirely sure...my brain's fuzzy from lack of sleep and stress. I don't even know what I'm doing, writing things to put on FF when I'm this braindead. -.-

Actually, I've always felt bad for Eclair, and I really feel she has no reason for her rep. If I were in her position, I'd have done everything the same way she did. Maybe that makes me a she-dog? Anyway. I just...really, really, really wanted to write something about her and her self-esteem and control issues, and this french dude popped into my head and bugged me into making him a nondescript OC.

Knowing me, this does nothing that I wanted it to accomplish, but...yeah. Review, and you can complain about how much more you hate her. It'll keep me from writing fanfics when I'm tired. And if you like/pity Eclair even a little bit...you get e-cookies.