-Lee X Sakura, you've been warned.

Second Place
By: Question Immorality

He dreams at night of a liquid-black wraith that moves away from him when he nears it like a serpent without a spine. The thing attacks him with bright, iridescently flickeringthings faster than the eye can see and he wakes when the shadow he is fighting -- always fighting because he dreams of nothing but bettering himself -- slips underneath his defenses and scores the first blow it has scored in a long, long time. The shadow has no distinguishing features except for its eyes, and its eyes are always dark crimson blood red.

When he shivers into semi-consciousness, the air is cold and sterile, but the bed is soft and comforting. It doesn't take more than counting backwards from five to get himself to dream again. It's a rematch, like always, because neither the shadow nor he can ever stop competing. This time the shadow comes to him in jagged, chaotic, random bursts of speed and blades and it's all he can do to keep the shadow of fire that bares ivory teeth at bay.

When he wakes again, shocked into consciousness when he is slashed lengthwise by the shadow with no name, he notices that his bed is warm, and remembers that it shouldn't be warm because he always sleeps as cold as his body can physically stand.

Lee wakes up knowing instinctually that something is wrong -- that he shouldn't feel a pressure by his side and that this woman, that this lover, that Haruno Sakura should not be there because Rock Lee is Rock Lee and Rock Lee just does not settle for second place, ever.

He curses himself for even thinking that, and promises her that he will make it up to her with breakfast in bed this morning. The promise is unheard, and unspoken, and when Sakura later tells Ino that Lee is the best thing since, well, ever, Lee makes sure he doesn't smile on the inside.

'…She still chose me, over them. I was the first…', his whisper trails off in the darkness. Lee is more perceptive than people give him credit for, and despite his words he knows the lie is only partly true.

Lee was never Sakura's 'first' in the truest since of the word because Lee was never Sakura's teammate. Naruto and Sasuke were, and both of them combined were her first perfect fantasy. Sasuke was her first at many things including love, lust, and lover; but, he was not her first kiss nor was the Uchiha prince her first love. Lee knows these hidden truths of team Seven because when he does not train himself to the brink of oblivion, he watches what goes on around him, and notices. (He learned to do so from Neji, and has never properly thanked him.)

Lee knows that Naruto was Sakura's 'first', though it is unspoken in many ways between the two. Naruto would always have the honor and dishonor of being first kiss on both of his teammate's lips and would only forever hold the spot of brother in one of them. To Sakura, Naruto is not a lover, nor he is a brother. He is something far, far more tangible.

Naruto is safety. He, to her -- and Lee knows this because he watches how they interact when they are near each other and think no one else is watching -- is nothing more than the warm, vibrant presence that placates her fears. He is a net. A lifesaver. A gentle push in the right direction. Her stable contingency so different from Sasuke because Naruto keeps his promises, and always, even know when he's disappeared,returns.

Lee doesn't approve of how she views her teammate; but, ever since Naruto and Sasuke left he has deigned it necessary to keep his mouth and opinions on the two to himself more often than not.

The bed shifts, minutely, as he tries to stand. He won't be able to sleep for another hour because his body is just weird that way and he knows that he shouldn't lay down when he's wide awake because he'd just do things. He doesn't fully stand, but manages to sit in bed and not wake Sakura.

'……….'

Lee stares down at the woman he's devoted so much of his heart to and stifles a small laugh. He can't call her a girlfriend, or call her a girl, because Sakura is so much more to him than that and it would be silly, in his mind, to give what they have a label. They have been together two years, four months, twenty-seven days. Lee counts every day she is with him (because Lee could never be with Sakura; it just wouldn't work that way) and knows without uncertainty that this would be the woman he would marry. She may not feel the same, because Sakura is indecisive about where she places her heart these days, but Lee is patient (Neji taught him this, he has thanked him), and knows that in time she'll see him as more than a boyfriend, or lover, or second-place contingency, and more as someone she could spend the rest of her life with because they have been so much more than friends and so much more than casual lovers. They are tied, both physically and mentally, to each other - though their reasons for allowing such a thing to happen are as varied and different as his Taijutsu and her Ninjutsu.

They are beings of wants, and needs, and parallels. Her scent drives him mad. His body after a hard training session makes her stare. She is what makes him straighten up when he sits down. He is what cracks her emotional shell. She is what makes him come back at night when he's laying near-dead in one of the more dangerous parts of the Training Grounds and he is what she sees when she looks off into the distance nowadays because Sasuke is gone, maybe forever, Naruto is gone (there is no other word for it - he is just gone, and no one acknowledges this) and Lee has never left her, and that counts for something, dammit.

He stifles another chuckle. Sakura sleeps like an angel, but wakes like a clown, and the hair splayed across her face sways with every breath she takes. He brushes the pastel-pink silk away from her face and smiles, genuinely, because looking at her is his happiness made physical as genuinely as it gets.

A moment later, it's too much to just sit down on the bed. He stands, knows the displacement of weight will wake her sooner, rather than later, and heads for the bathroom. She's already reaching out to the empty space he was laying in in half-awake grogginess when he reaches the bathroom door.

"Mfh…Lee…?"

The door almost clicks shut before he says: "I'll be right back, love."

"Alright…", and then the door closes, finally and carefully so as to not disturb her; but still not before he sees her smiling a sleepy smile and decides that second place might not be as bad as it sounds after all.

Finis