A/n: A few years have passed since they got their home at Mystic Ruins and though many things in their life have changed, some things, it seemed, remained the same.

Wheel of Time

The keys on the keyboard produced light clicks as gloved fingers tapped over it with practiced ease, the rows of code appearing on the monitor incomprehensible except to the two tailed fox who was entering it.

Nearly finished with the self assigned task, Tails took a cursory glance at the time displaying in the corner of the task bar and continued with the completion of the code that would wipe away any signs of his intrusion from the Eggnet.

The entire day had been spent trying to stop the hordes upon hordes of badniks from invading Central City. The bots had arrived without a warning this time with the orders to overwhelm and they just kept on coming. Even with Sonic giving it his all and the others joining in to lend a hand, it hadn't been enough. For every ten bots that were taken down, thirty more took their place and the group of heroes was put in too much of a time crunch to be able to seek out any Chaos Emeralds.

That left them with no choice but to switch the strategy and Team Dark suggested to take out the source, basically stop the production and launch of the badniks altogether. While the fighters and heavy hitters worked on keeping the invading hordes from causing more damage to the city and worked on protecting the people, Tails headed home to manually hack into Eggman's network and switch the automated commands. It took quite a while, having to not only stop the badniks that were already sent off but also cancel all the continuous production and deployment commands from the various factories. Then there was the matter of rerouting the transportation crafts.

Evening had arrived by the time he finished with his task and then went on wiping all signs of his existence from possibly getting detected. It was a cautious process, considering how much tight the upgraded security on the network had become. He constantly had to fight back from getting his own connection hacked. It had been a couple of hours since he rerouted the last of the sent out vehicles, working on thoroughly analyzing any possible viruses that could've been sent out to infiltrate his personal network. The only updates he got from the strike and defense teams was that any more new badniks had stopped coming and they were working on beating and clearing out the hordes that were already present.

Finishing with typing up the code and deploying it, Tails leaned back and stretched. Taking into consideration the amount of badniks present when he had left the city to work behind the scenes, the amount of people that were in potentially harm's way and how spread out the armies were, he had concluded that it would take the others a few hours at most to complete their mission. Considering what the time was, that meant that his brother was probably done and on his way back right about...

Boom!

Now. Tails smirked, satisfied at the accuracy of his estimation as he heard the signature sonic boom that accompanied his brother whenever the hedgehog broke the barrier of sound. Shutting down the computer, the twin tailed genius hopped off his office chair and headed out of the workshop area and towards the front door, passing the lounge. He hadn't even reached it before the knob turned and the door was pushed open, his blue furred brother stepping inside, the dark sky speckled with occasional stars visible behind the tired hedgehog, showing that the night had already fallen.

"Hi, Sonic," he greeted. "How'd the battle go?"

"It got much easier after the badniks stopped coming," the other responded with a tired grin as he stepped inside, closing the door behind him. "It took us a while to take out the last of them and help with cleanup afterwards but we wouldn't have gotten that far without you, Tails."

"Well ofcourse," Tails sent his brother a cocky grin, "Where would you even be without my tremendous skills and crucial work?"

Sonic chuckled in amusement, plopping doing on the couch with a sigh.

Tails studied him, a quick visual examination revealing that his brother was alright save for some superficial bruises and scrapes which would heal on their own. Aside from that, Sonic looked dead on his feet with exhaustion. Being in a constant battle since late morning without a pause and then not having the energy boost that followed the usage of Emerald's power resulted in even the hyperactive hero getting tired.

Approaching his brother before he could doze off on the couch, Tails took Sonic's arm and pulled him to his feet, keeping the other's arm around his shoulders to help the hedgehog to his room.

Some years ago, and still to this day, it would've been Sonic who would carry a sleepy, tired fox to bed and tuck him in. Now, it was the younger fox who returned the favour, supporting his exhausted big brother as they both headed upstairs, Sonic unable to hold back a drawn out yawn as he leaned on Tails. He resisted the pull of sleep, preventing himself from dozing off right where he stood so he wouldn't pass out on his little brother.

He knew Tails was strong enough to carry them both when he couldn't, someone he could always trust to fall back on, his wingman, his partner in crime, his brother. He could always depend on Tails.

Once they had climbed to the upper floor, Tails dragged his droopy, nearly half asleep brother to his room, Sonic following along without a fuss as he let out an incoherent mumble.

Once inside, he allowed the weary hedgehog to plop down on the bed and kick off his shoes, telling him to lie down as soon as he did. Sonic complied, releasing a soft sigh as his head hit the pillow, eyes already falling shut due to drowsiness.

Tails smiled and draped a blanket over the other, carefully tucking him in as he adjusted the fluffy covering and once rubbed his brother's blanket covered shoulder.

"Tails."

"Hm?" Tails responded as Sonic's eyes slid open to glance at him, sleepy but grateful.

"Thanks, lil' bro."

Tails perked up at that, smiling as he gave the other a reassuring pat on his shoulder.

"Goodnight, Sonic."

"Night..." Sonic mumbled, voice barely above a whisper as his eyes slid shut once again and his breathing turned deep, soft snores beginning to escape him as he fell into a deeper slumber.

Tails still had a contented smile on when he silently left the room, turning off the lights and closing the door on his way out.