Author's Note: Hello everyone. Well, here's my first House one-shot—or maybe one-shot. I hope it meets the standards of those who read it, and I hope that someone can draw a message from it. Anyway, please read and review. Thank you. I may continue with this if the impulse over-takes me.

Disclaimer: Even if I did own House, I would not have him go through this. Although, to be perfectly honestly, this was very fun to write.

Spoilers: None, if you must know.

"Loosening the Screws"

He meandered down the sidewalk, the tip of his cane falling squarely on each of the cracks, and he stared downward towards the ground. The asphalt was littered with multi-colored leaves, and the trees stood tall even though their claim to beauty had long since left them. And, through these wooden figures he saw the sun, desolate and hot. But, he knew that next year, come spring, they would once again hide behind their leaves, masking the wooden outline that laid just beneath, and the sun would also be hidden.

Unfortunately, for him, come next spring, he would be dead.

Gregory House, famous diagnostician, dead? He could hear the sobs wracking the bodies of people world-wide, each one's being shaking violently like an earthquake from within. The distant echo of the news of his death would spread like locusts, swimming into one ear and out into another. And another. And another. Wars would stop, and peace would be found amongst the feuding countries. Elections would be postponed, and all time as it was known would stop.

So much for fantasizing.

Rather, the situation would most likely play out like this:

He would die. His body would be found, and, when it was, the person who found it would cry. Not because this person knew him, but because this person had stumbled upon one of the pungent scents and scenes of death and realized one day he or she would unfortunately have the same fate. Obviously not in the same place, the same manner, or at the same time, but this person realized that the bitter sensation of death would one day come for him or her as well.

Eventually, a concise funeral would be arranged, and he would be buried and soon forgotten. And his body would be there forever, alone, rotting, becoming one with the Earth, until that one fateful day when a friend would visit. A flower would be placed on his grave, a prayer mumbled and carried away on the wind, and then he would be left in eternal solitude.

Of course, the prayer would consist of pleading, pleading to the Lord that this man who had befriended him or her would escape the vast pallor of purgatory and follow the winding path to heaven.

If House were alive, he would tell them to stop acting delusional, for he was a devout cynic. He knew that everyone lived, died, and rotted. Whatever occurred after that had no affect or importance to him or on his existence.

And now he sat in his living room, reflecting, waiting, aging.

His walk had long since ended, and he was tickling the ivories for one last time. A glass of brandy sat atop the piano, and his cane sat by his side, never to be used again by him or anyone else. He glared at it, a burning ire present in his blue eyes.

And he turned away from it, running a hand through his hair as though trying once more to paint over the gray dust that had coated his formerly- golden strands.

But, rather, it was a useless attempt to cover the denial he had of his age. Or, rather, the denial he had over what he truly was. He was not old. He was not young.

He was human.

And now, instinctively, as a human, he would seek revenge on something that had plagued him.

Fate.

Fate had already loosened some of his screws, and now he would force it to make amends. He was not one to surrender to anyone or anything, and authority played a minor role in his life.

He retrieved something from his pocket. Pills. White pills. Vicodin.

Slowly, with great pleasure, he laid out the white pills on top of the piano, putting them in a line like soldiers. And they were. There mission was to loosen the rest of the screws in his body, to allow it to come apart. He nursed the brandy before drinking the last swill of it, and he allowed it to scorch a raw path down his throat. One by one, he lifted the pills and fingered them, examining their white shells. And he put them back down; each one made a reassuring click as it hit the black wood.

Again, one by one, he lifted them, except this time they followed in the wake of the brandy.

One. Two. Three. Five. Seven. Nine. Twelve. Twelve pills. Twelve soldiers.

He waited, and, suddenly, he fell over, hitting the ground with a thud. But he felt no pain.

But, for a moment, he could feel them. He could feel the soldiers within him, each one loosening those ever tight and tense screws.

His mind was the first to go, and he felt as though he was swimming in the serene blue of his eye, forever floating. One screw gone. Next, his blood was halted in his veins, and it stood still anxiously before relaxing. Two more loosened, liberated of their duty. His lungs, his eyes, his mouth, everything. And that made for more loosened screws. Every screw in every crevice and crack was coming loose, escaping before the collapse of his body.

And the last to die was his heart. With one last pump, one last shove, it too died.

He had finally done it. All of his screws had been loosened, and, it never felt so good. But, what he forgot was, he wouldn't be able to feel. There had been a fault in his plan, but it was too late now.

And, through the window, a sunset fell upon the land. The daylight had simultaneously died with him, but tomorrow, its screw would be tightened once again.

But, that would never happen to him.

All of his screws had been loosened, and he had never felt the same. That was, if he could feel.