"Ah, you look very good in that." The gentleness of his words remained after the virus had overtaken your consciousness, and he smiled while seeing you wake up with chains on your wrists and a white piece of clothing he'd found while in an expedition and which he dressed you in. It was a sick fantasy, but he would've liked you to wear something like this in the altar.

Had you married.

There was nothing he wished more than to be able to hold you, but if he did, he'd catch that stupid virus too, and then who would take care of you? No, for your own good he didn't touch you, unless you were sedated, and he could do so without risking you biting him. Same reason to why he had chained you down in the basement, over which house he'd settled his shelter.

It's been almost half a year. He misses you so much. The real you. Even now he still wears the ring he'd bought before the whole disaster began in his finger, its pair wrapped in silk under his bed. Waiting for the right moment, for when you return to yourself and accept his proposal. You never got the chance before. He hopes you'll say yes.

But he'll keep waiting, hopeful and patient, to the day the government notifies they'd found a cure. Most nights he spent besides the radio, hoping the transmission will reach him. They promised to do so when he managed to send a message to them, back when light worked. They hadn't replied since, but... surely it was because they were busy working on it.