House leads the way, unlocks the door, goes inside. He hooks his cane on the coat rack and shrugs out of his jacket, hangs it, and takes back the cane. Only then does he give a glance back to Chase, not that he thinks he’s changing his mind at the last minute, but just to see where he is. When he’s in, House gestures to the dark living room.

“Come on in. Shut the door,” he starts to the bedroom, not wasting any time. He’s not offering Chase a drink because he doesn’t want him more drunk than this. The point isn’t to dull the pain, to drown out how he’s feeling, but to finally let himself embrace it.

“Power’s off, don’t bother with the lights,” Chase knows he’s been living with Wilson. It means the power’s off here and no one’s been in to clean, so there’s a light layer of dust around that in combination with the darkness, gives it an odd, abandoned feeling.

First things first, he opens the curtains, and it brings enough light from the street that the room isn’t pitch black. With their eyes adjusted, it’s good, comfortable actually, if not ideal. House goes to the closet and is rummaging around on a high shelf and brings out a box. He steps to the side holding it, awkward to move without the cane, and sets it on the dresser and then comes back for something else. Another box, smaller, the size to hold CDs. He moves to the dresser with that one, too, and opens it first, pulling out a couple small pillar candles and lights them, setting them in a little cluster on the edge of the dresser.

He takes the lid off the other box and pulls out a couple of neatly coiled and wrapped lengths of rope and turns, tossing them on the foot of the bed that’s uncharacteristically made. Chase barely has a chance to react to the fact that what House had up his sleeve was rope bondage before House announces, “Put the bag on the bed and strip.”