"Come home."
That was all he needed to hear, no reason given. As much as he had things to do for his tribe in his own country, Nichrome was sure they were fine on their own. He’d been here for a week and a half, helping them as needed and doing his best to keep them together. It was hard without the help of the other Officials, but Nichrome was sure they all had their hands full as it was trying to help their new God. Still, losing them was difficult, both emotionally and for the tribe, no longer having their support. Nichrome figured he would most likely have to go back and forth to help them when they needed him, but he also still wanted to help Ren with his own family. He had been given permission to help, and he did whenever he got the chance.
That, however, was not why he wanted to go back as soon as he could. Ren hadn;t told him to just come back; he’d told him to come home. Though both had long acknowledged being together as “home”, it hadn’t entirely sunk in exactly what that meant. Their life together was home for both of them, and though being with his own tribe was still certainly home, he knew he had two places to call such. Hearing Ren tell him to come home was enough of a reason for him to need to, and if Ren missed him, that was all the more reason to go back. As it was, he had no specific period of time he intended to stay in Patch Village. Rather, he was here because they had asked for his support, but after two weeks of being here, things seemed to be moving relatively smoothly now. To know that Ren missed anybody made him feel that much more wanted there, though Nichrome would make sure everyone and everything was okay before he left the village again.
Now was when he realized he’d gotten so used to being with Ren constantly after moving in with him, being separated for a long period of time was strange. Being in his presence so often and living with him had just become normal. Being separated for over a week was an odd feeling, and apparently that feeling was mutual. Even if Ren always found a way to go around it, the things he felt regarding Nichrome were things Nichrome could always figure out now. Back when they’d first gotten together, he’d found it hard to understand exactly what Ren was thinking and feeling, but it became clear to him after they’d moved in together and had spent every day near each other.
"I will… I’ll come home as soon as possible. Let me check with everyone here to make sure they’ll be okay without me. I don’t think they’ll have any problems, but I don’t want to just leave them. I’m the only Official still alive now, so I guess I’m a huge support for them. I’ll be back before the end of this week, okay? Thank you…I love you, and I’ll be back as soon as I can be."
As much as the Patch were his family, Ren was also family now. It felt weird for him to call the Taos as a whole his family, and he was probably still more respectful than casual than he needed to be, but he was also trying to get the Patch to find projects to do with the Taos. If it would help bring them together to support each other, it would make things both easier and at least for Nichrome, happier. He wouldn’t have to treat them like two different families that he had to go back and forth between. He wanted to be with both of them or either one of them and still be able to use the term “family” with no differentiation. Hopefully being where he was now would start to help with that, and he could move along from there. He had expected things to be difficult with the loss of the other Officials, but the rest of their tribe was supporting Nichrome as he did for them. If he could just get the Tao family at least partly involved with them, aside from just Ren, hopefully they would get to know each other and be able to work together. At the least, Nichrome would make the effort to see it happen.