self-preservation...

Sherlock Holmes peeled back the damp cloth and prodded at the hole in his side. There was a slight twinge of what he supposed was pain as his fingers came into contact with the torn skin, but nothing he couldn't ignore. Damn thing still hadn't stopped bleeding though - it had been like that since he got it. Every piece of gauze he taped haphazardly over it soon got soaked in dark red liquid. It had gotten to be an nuisance, what with it constantly threatening to stain his expensive shirts. Not to mention the blood loss hindering his speed and brain power. So, finally, he had decided it needed stitches.

There was no point going to a hospital or GP. It would take too long to get there, and then there would be a waiting time, and then there'd be oh how'd that happen, and forms, and time to stitch it, and blah blah blah while there were so many better things he could be doing. So he was stitching it himself.

Of course he'd stitched wounds before. No one could go through his lifestyle without learning to do so, and he'd coped with worse than this. This was barely a scratch. Three inches long but only a centimetre across, the thing ran along his lower ribs and bled continually. How irritating.

He was in the bathroom with a needle, roll of bandages and some disinfectant, getting blood all over John's stupid bath mat and towels, leaving the odd handprint on the walls or floor. The stitching was harder than it should be; his hands were shaking. He wasn't high or coming down, so he deduced that it had to be from loss of blood. Hadn't noticed just how much, he guessed, dripping iodine onto the wound. The needle was threaded already, with… cotton. It would do for now, and John could fix it properly later. Sherlock stabbed the needle through his skin, grunting in irritation at how much effort the basic task was taking.
"Should never have… jumped off… without… checking…"
It took ages to get the cut stitched shut, and by the time he was done he was bizarrely tired. Couldn't be bothered with cleaning up. Haphazardly he snipped a square of bandage to plaster over the scratch, criss-crossed it with medical tape, and then… passed out on the floor.