He sat on the edge of the bathtub and John tutted over his hair.

"Sometimes I think you want to get yourself killed," the doctor muttered, gently parting the man's curls, still wet from the shower. Sherlock winced. "Sorry."

"She would have escaped," Sherlock argued. He could feel John's glare piercing through the top of his head, and he rolled his eyes. "I'm still alive."

"And you just as easily could not be," John snapped.

The memory of John's horrified expression when he found Sherlock crumpled and bleeding just hours before was enough to keep the detective quiet.

Without their bickering, Sherlock could hear the drip of the tap; the kettle boiling in the kitchen, cars and distant London traffic; John's steady (and slightly irritated) breathing. This close, he could feel the heat of the doctor's body and the the fingers moving through his hair around painful, raw skin. His breathing slowed and he struggled against the urge to lean forwards and fall asleep against John's stomach.

"Do you feel dizzy at all?" John asked. "Feel like you're going to be sick?"

"No."

"Drowsy?"

"I'm fine."

John sighed heavily. Sherlock wondered when he stop - he should've known by now that Sherlock was always going to insist that he was fine, even if he was bleeding from his eyes.

"At least it looked worse than it was," John murmured, moving from the wound to check the rest of Sherlock's skull with careful, practiced fingers. "Just stay awake for me."

Sherlock hummed in response, but he already sounded close to losing consciousness. He tried to think back to the last time he'd slept and found the memory to be too far to immediately recall. He assumed John would call this alarming; or in his current mood, idiotic.

He did try to keep his eyes open. Perched on the edge of the tub shouldn't have been so comfortable- the hard plastic dug into his thighs, he had to concentrate on not tipping backwards and the bathroom tiles under his bare feet were freezing- but when his only distractions were John's socked feet and the steady rise and fall of his chest, Sherlock's eyes had closed themselves in minutes.

"Sherlock?" John was very close. Sherlock couldn't move his lips to reply.

John held his face, tilted his head back towards the light. Sherlock tried to open his mouth to explain that he couldn't stay awake, but he was too exhausted to form the words. Running around London on an hour or two of sleep would do that, he supposed.

He expected John to order him to bed, but the doctor was still holding his face. He felt warmth on his lips, hot air on his cheek , and John's thumbs drawing soothing circles on his skin.

John's lips were soft, slightly parted and careful, as if too much pressure would break him; hesitant but relieved (and Sherlock could see why when he thought about it, remembered how he had run off and not answered his phone and gotten hurt and guilt squirmed uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach). He lingered, waited until Sherlock pressed back infinitesimally before he let go.

The kettle clicked and stopped.

"Get some sleep." John's words brushed against his lips, and Sherlock pressed in again, holding the other man's wrist. He would have apologised, but he hadn't worked himself up to it yet.

John understood.