Disclaimer: The Thunderbirds do not belong to me. They are the intellectual and actual property of Gerry Anderson and his affiliates.

AN: Fluff without plot. Or maybe with a bit of plot. My brain needed another vacation from angst and gloom of my other stories. Plotted on another mind-numbingly boring two hour trip – four hours there and back. Maybe not such a good idea for it to happen while driving, but there are worse things that could happen instead of being stuck behind a daydreaming driver who doesn't react when the traffic lights have magically turned green. For the second time. Oops.

Hungry, Hungry Tracys

Dinner time on Tracy Island.

It is, I've discovered, the most ideal time to pause, see what fine young men my boys have grown into. Of course, I'll be the first to admit that it always wasn't like this, but I knew we'd get there in the end.

Or rather, my mother knew we'd get there in the end, and she enforced that ideal onto me. If she hadn't have decided to stay back in Kansas, she would have been sitting opposite me, with that smug, knowing smile of hers permanently etched onto her face. Not that I would mind, in this case; after all, there are worse things that could happen than your mother being right about everything, all the time.

Scott is my right hand man. I mean quite literally as well as figuratively. He is my second-in-command, my go-to man when I need to consult with someone about something related to aviation. He also sits on my right.

All the time. It doesn't matter where we are; the seat on my right has his name written on it in invisible ink. It's an unwritten law in the Tracy household that Scott gets to sit on my right. I don't mind; given all he's done for me since Lucille passed on, it's a justified spot for him. The others don't seem to mind either.

I move onto Johnny. He sits opposite Scott. Fitting, in a way, I guess, given their own personal politics. To make it easier to comprehend, I'll use the political parties to accentuate their differences; John is slightly Republic, and Scott's about as Democratic as they come. They tend to bash heads with each other quite a lot. Not in the same way Gordon and Alan would; neither Scott or John have ended up being pushed into the swimming pool because their ideas differ. No, they'd prefer to debate into the late hours of the evening before desisting. Don't let their arguing fool you, though. Underneath it all, they are good friends as well as close brothers. Johnny defers to Scott for advice and Scott turns to John to reminisce about their Mom.

Johnny's not down dirtside as often as he should be, but I like mealtimes when he's here. He lends a certain air of elegance to a meal, a touch of class as he uses a knife to cut his steak into smaller bits, compared to Gordon, who rips his meat to shreds with his teeth, or Virgil, who just seems to inhale his food.

Virgil sits beside Scott, like he's always done as a child. The proximity of Virgil's chair to Scott's chair may seem too close to be normal to a stranger, but I know better. The reason they're sit together close – almost piled on top of each other – is because they seem to draw strength and comfort from each other. It isn't uncommon in this household for Virgil to merely pick at his food when Scott's incarcerated in Sick Bay or for Scott to skip a meal entirely if Virgil is stuck down there instead. I don't know what it is, but there is something that ties Virgil and Scott together.

Gordon, my lovable ginger, is ever jovial. The prospect of food only heightens his mood. Even the fact that Alan is completing his rotation on Five can't dampen his mood. He shoots me a grin, hair all spiked up from towel drying it after his dip in the reef.

At this time, I imagine Alan would be on board Five, moping at the fact that he has to eat his nuked up meal by his lonesome, miffed at the fact that I insisted that he head on up to Five. After three consecutive month rotations on Five, I figured that John deserved some down time as well.

The food gets placed in the centre of the table.

Scott eyes John, waging war. Winner takes all.

John simply twirls his fork in his hand as his response.

Virgil leans forward, nose practically inches away from the pork chops, salivating at the smell.

Gordon inches the plate closer to him, prime position for first pick.

Within seconds, the game is on. A free for all, no rules, with hands and cries of give me that, or, I saw it first and even you've got three on your plate already, Fatty; don't be a greedy-guts flying through the air. The laws of brotherhood; thinly veiled insults are a sign of affection.

The proverbial smoke clears, the platters in the centre of the table wiped clean of food. Almost 80% of the meal has managed to work its way onto Scott's plate. John, by contrast, is left with eating the remaining food, which consists of all the things Scott, Virgil and Gordon loathe. Luckily, it also happens to be the food John favours. It's enough to keep my easy going blond son satisfied.

Virgil snaffles a minted baby potato from Scott's plate. Scott ignores the action, or he just doesn't see it. John attempts to do the same thing. Scott growls at him and John meekly draws his hand back to his body.

The winner takes it all, and the loser has to fall.

I shake my head in wonderment. It never ceases to amaze me, watching four grown, and sometimes civilised, adults descend into such savagery within minutes.

Hungry, hungry Tracys.

It wasn't always like this.

I guess I should start with Scott. Being my eldest son, I experienced all my firsts as a father with him. The first smile, the first cry in the middle of the night, the first diaper changing – an experience I never wanted to repeat, but unfortunately had to, my mother's advice of the cartoon characters go in the front being rendered useless, as the diapers were plain – and the first time feeding him solid foods.

Now, I'd like it known that I liked feeding my sons – for the most part. Like everything else in life, there were ups and downs. It was my third favourite activity, preceded by Daddy's play time and Daddy's bath time respectively. It was an excellent time to bond with my little ones, and there was food, that after months of acclimatising to it, actually tasted good. Or I had at least managed to convince my brain that it tasted good so I could eat it if I had to.

Scott started eating solids at around six months. By all means, it was a normal progression for a baby his age.

Lucille and I couldn't afford a high-chair at that point in time – her father had been involved in a hit-and-run, and most of our savings had gone into paying his hospital bills so that he could receive the best standard of care we could afford – but it didn't matter to Scott. At as young as six months, he was extremely adaptable.

Instead, I balanced him on my lap, bouncing him on my knee to keep him entertained as I battled with unscrewing the lid of his baby food. He seemed to prefer the sweet vegetables and fruit over the rice cereals Lucille and I fed him for breakfast. He used to giggle as I jiggled him up and down while also trying to reach for the jar in my hands. I learnt very fast that I had to secure Scott's arms from flailing about as I fed him.

Feeding Scott as a baby is one of my most cherished moments of his babyhood – it definitely trumps the diaper changing incident. To me, there was nothing better than coming home after a hard day in the office to my wife and son. Lucille would greet me with a kiss and then present all the outstanding bills that had come through the mail system. I would sigh and promise to pay as much as we could of them the next morning.

Scott would be lying on the carpet – he hadn't mastered the art of sitting upright without support yet – grabbing his favourite toys towards him. When he saw me, though, his blue eyes would shine just that much brighter and he would gurgle and smile. I would tickle his tummy and cuddle him before sitting back on the sofa with him in my arms and a jar of baby food on the coffee table.

Pretending the spoon was an airplane seemed to be the trick to get him to eat. He would stretch his mouth as wide as he could so that the plane could land. I'd like to think that it was this experience that influenced him to become one of the best pilots I've ever seen.

It probably wasn't, but a father can dream.

John was next. By this time, Lucille and I had purchased a high chair when it came to feeding John. We were under the impression that a high chair would make feeding the baby a cleaner experience, not to mention, less disastrous for my wardrobe – feeding Scott in my lap, I had ruined several suits, especially as Scott had decided that the easiest way of letting me know he was full was by letting food fall from his mouth onto my suit and then smear it in with his hand.

What a misconception. Feeding Johnny was just as messy as feeding Scott.

John was a bit of a late bloomer. He didn't really take to solids until he was just over seven months old. I was concerned by this, but Lucille and our GP had told me not to worry, as John had his own rate of developing.

Unlike his older brother, the blond tyke was not a finicky eater. He would be willing to eat anything on his spoon. If his attention held long enough.

When John was seven months old, Scott was old enough to be an active toddler. He would run around the sofa and the dining room table with his favourite toy in his left hand – a large blue plane – making engine noises. Poor Lucille was stuck with the task of bundling our two year old terror off for bath time, and Scott certainly didn't make it easy for me to feed John.

John, engrossed by the antics of his big brother, would turn his head every time Scott moved. As a result, the spoon of food I had prepared would never make it into his mouth. I splattered it onto his nose, both his cheeks, somehow, I managed to track mashed pumpkin into his hair and once, I even fed the spoon into his ear.

Yes. His ear. His head had turned that much following Scott.

So, feeding John was most definitely a messy experience.

In the end, I reverted back to feeding John on my lap. It was just as messy as the high chair, maybe even more so, as I ended up spooning food onto myself as John's head moved, yet again.

Feeding him in front of a mirror worked, though. John was too preoccupied with the reflections to move and squirm as much as he used to.

Feeding Virgil, my chestnut haired boy, was like using a vacuum cleaner. If he liked what he was eating, and he often did, he would finish his meal within ten minutes flat and then demand some more.

Apple puree and vanilla custard were his favourites, much like Scott.

Retrospectively, I would say that feeding Virgil was quite possibly the easiest experience I've had with feeding my sons. He took to his high chair straight away, he didn't try to snatch the baby food jar out of my hands, or knock the spoon off course. His head remained still, eyes tracking the spoon's path to his open mouth. He would mash his gums together before swallowing and opening his mouth for more food.

There was only one problem I had with Virgil. As soon as the last spoonful of his puree or custard entered his mouth, his gums would clamp down on the rubber utensil and he would refuse to let go. No amount of teasing the spoon or cajoling Virg could get him to relinquish the spoon. It was hard convincing a six month old baby that, no, the spoon was not part of the meal.

Tickling Virg would get him to drop the spoon from his mouth, I had mistakenly thought. To no avail; he laughed, giggled, waved his chubby hands in the air and churned his feet like pistons, but the spoon remained firm between his gums.

In the end, I would let Virgil keep the spoon in his mouth until he had just about drooped off to sleep in my arms. I would then lay him down in his cot and ease the spoon out from lax lips.

Covered in baby slobber, I held the spoon gingerly at arm's length, before closing the door on my son, letting him sleep in peace.

Gordon.

Gordon was a terror.

Feeding him was such a traumatising experience; I think my brain has tried to block most of the times I fed him. I never knew that a baby could spit food far enough to wallpaper a wall.

Gordon was a troublesome eater. Well, that wasn't exactly true for Gordy. Like John, he only started solids later, at around seven and a half months. As a preemie, Lucille and I had been warned that his development may be slower compared to his full term brothers.

The trouble with Gordy was getting him to eat. His lips would remain resolutely shut, no matter how many times I would shove and force the green rubber spoon through his mouth. With no seafood baby food, I guess Gordon just wasn't interested.

Getting Gordon to eat his dinner could take up to two hours. I had tried everything – pretending the spoon was a plane, feeding him in front of the mirror. I had even taken a bite of his dinner myself, hoping to convince him that it was good. Unfortunately, my look of utter revulsion wasn't masked quickly enough. Gordon simply laughed and poked his tongue out at me.

By the end of the night, my nerves were shot and I was frazzled and exhausted beyond belief. I had reached the end of my tether, and Gordon was giggling at the fact that I had been outsmarted by a seven month old.

"Gordon," I had snapped. "Open your mouth and eat the food!"

Well, Gordon opened his mouth. Promptly, he let out an ear splitting wail, stunned at the change in my tone, the harshness in my voice. Lucille hurricaned into the room, instantly cradling our son to her chest, picking up on my bad-mood vibes.

"You listen to me, Jefferson Tracy, you don't get to take your temper out on our sons!" she hissed at me, full of venom. "Christ's sake, Jeff, he's seven months old! He thinks this is fun!"

Her eyes darted to the sofa, worn and lumpy from Scott, John and Virgil's excessive jumping on it.

It was the first time in our married life that Lucille had made me sleep on the couch.

Alan had the face of a baby cherub, but that was misleading. Feeding him was about as fun as having my toenails extracted without the use of laughing gas. Even Lucille, the woman who embodied endless amounts of love and patience with her kids, found feeding Alan a trying experience, right from the word go.

There was no way of knowing what kind of mood Alan was in when it came to feeding him. If he was in a good mood, he was about as amenable to the process as Virgil was. If he was in a bad mood, it was Gordon, all over again.

Alan's reaction to food was based on whether he liked it. For the first bite, he was neutral, tossing up whether it was nice or nasty.

I could feed him nice foods without incident. Seated in his high chair, Alan was a tidier eater than any of his counterparts. He would attempt to chew and swallow his food, the happy little man that he was.

If the food was classified as nasty… that was a different story. I thought Gordon was bad, but Alan was worse. Alan would take a mouthful of the food he detested, salivate on it before spitting it back out onto me. There went another few business suits I kissed goodbye.

It took Alan a while, but once he and I had settled down into a rhythm, he really wasn't that bad to feed.

After having five very different learning curves, I had decided that I was through with feeding infants. At least until the grand-chilren came.

Good thing that Alan was my last child anyway.

I draw myself back to the present. There is no food left on anyone's plate. It has gone that fast. Despite being just fed, Virgil's stomach grumbles. He pats it gently and covers his mouth as he hiccups.

Hungry, hungry Tracys.

The bickering starts before dessert gets placed in front of us. Gordon kicks Scott under the table, complaining that it wasn't fair that Scott and Virgil got to eat all the minted potatoes.

Scott rolls his eyes. Virgil throws his arm around Scott and together they duet – surprisingly well, considering it's Scott – to Queen's We are the Champions, just to rub salt into Gordon's wounds.

Dessert gets placed on the cork pads.

The battle starts again.

I sigh. Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I throw my hands into the chaos that ensues.

Nope, it never used to be this way.