Jeff Tracy knew what he was doing when he instructed Brains on building the Thunderbirds. He knew his boys.
Each son loved their ship, possibly a little more than they should. But then, each ship had saved the life of her pilot on more than one occasion.
There was really only one difference between John and his brothers in this regard. While they certainly loved their 'birds, they did not live in them as John did.
John had a much more complex relationship with Five. She was beautifully functional, clean lines and circuitry to die for. She was sensuous, the curves of her stations he just loved to run his hand over, the smoothness so precise, no flaws anywhere. She kept him safe. She kept him sane.
But she could also be a bitch. She delighted on throwing the temperature out of whack. On odd occasions she would turn the gravity on or off. She sometimes forgot to warn him that a meteor or piece of space debris was about to take out the communication array.
She sometimes lost contact with his brothers.
For all that, though, John wouldn't change her for the world. Quite literally, as Five was now his full-time home and Earth was his holiday destination. He never forgot the look of shocked disappointment when he had said this to Scott. He wisely never said it again – but he thought it and he believed it.
There was very little Earth had to hold him. If you removed his family from the equation there were exactly five things John missed about Earth when he was on Five. It was easier to list these than what he did not miss (gravity, pranks, gravity, glasses, gravity, etc).
John missed cheeseburgers. They did not get to eat fast food very often, healthy eating is key to fitness after all, but up on Five there was even less opportunity. It wasn't like he could just drop out of orbit and grab one on a whim. (Well, technically he could, but it would be so very unprofessional!)
So it had become a ritual almost, the first day back that John could co-ordinate himself and providing that he was not needed on a rescue, Scott took him out for cheeseburger and fries. And chocolate milk. They varied where they went. Six years into iR, and they were just starting on Adelaide having worked through Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.
John missed the rain. Yes, it sounded stupid to most people, but living in a constantly regulated atmosphere meant that John really, really appreciated rain. The smell of petrichor was one of his absolute favourites. And John loved a good storm. Even on Five he had been known to sit in the observation deck and just spend hours watching hurricanes and cyclones and thunder storms, but experiencing a great thunder storm was a joy he had never grown out of.
John missed the sand. Or rather, John missed the feel of the ground beneath his feet, be it sand or grass or wood or stone. He had super sensitive feeling to touch in general, but the feel of something real, something solid, something growing was actually rather relaxing. As much as he liked being hugged – and he didn't mind as much as people thought, as long as it was his family and as long as it wasn't a surprise – hugging could really hurt if not done correctly. The feather-soft touch of the grass, the slightly grainy feel of the sand, the cool smoothness of the stone path at home was a delight he frequently indulged in when home, bare feet out once gravity was no longer too much of a menace.
John missed people watching. Yeah, it sounded like a contradiction – he did not like crowds, and he spent his days listening to people – but what John loved was sitting in a coffee shop window watching people going by. He could nurse a coffee for hours this way, just watching the world pass him by. Only Virgil ever had the patience to do this with him. Scott was too active to sit for longer than 10 minutes which soon became tiresome to both of them. Gordon could sit but he couldn't shut up. Alan didn't see the point. So Virgil and John made sure to spend an afternoon off at a coffee shop every 'holiday' John took. They had their favourite spots and their favourite drinks.
But the thing John missed most on Five was sunsets. Yeah, he was the sun setting over the whole planet – and it was amazing – but to see the sun setting over the island, the colours touched his heart and made his spirit soar. The colour never seemed to be the same twice, yellow/lilac/palest blue, reds/golds/oranges, midnight blues tinged with dusky pinks. And to see the stars just starting to become visible.
It was a favourite pastime of his and Scott's, began before John could even remember, to take cushions, and later chairs and now the sun loungers, out onto the back porch (now the deck), wrap up in a treasured blanket and just watch the sun set. When it had been the wheat fields of Kansas they had needed to keep warm, and often had hot cocoa with marshmallows in. Sometimes Virgil had joined them, painting on the go.
When their mother had died it had become a way of coping, of connecting with the stars the youngster was convinced his mother now lived in. But it had progressed from the porch to the roof.
When they had gone their separate ways John had kept the habit up alone, and Scott had joined him when he was visiting. They often took the car out to the desert or to a deserted field and lay on the hood, seeing who would be the first to spot a star.
When they moved to the island they all began to stay out for the sunset. It didn't last as the novelty wore off, and pretty soon it was just John and Scott and occasionally Virgil.
When their dad disappeared John did not set foot on Tracy Island for over a year. And then it was a frantic Scott that had all but forced him down. He barely coped the first 48 hours he was down, and he did not set foot outside of his room for that time. Scott had left him alone once he was down, and his only visitor had been Grandma. They talked until John had fallen asleep.
He woke up on a sun lounger, wrapped in his favourite blanket, mug of now-warm hot cocoa on the table between him and Scott, and Scott watching the sky change colours. He'd forgotten how soothing sunsets could be.
John never thanked Scott for that, but Scott knew just how much that initial sunset had meant to him, how much it had healed him.
So now, on the rare occasions John did come down to Earth, he always made time to watch the sun set with his big brother.