A/N: Silly me, I forgot the Disclaimer. I hope you enjoy this. Also, excuse the typos.
Disclaimer: Stories are red, Disclaimers are blue; so why in bloody hell does Makarov know you?!
It's a dumb idea like most of Roach's ideas. For one, they don't tell anyone they're going. They leave a note and Ghost's cellphone number, but he purposefully forgets his charger. He also empties his bank account and maybe "borrows" a couple hundred from Sandman- anything else, they can make on the road. Another thing that's stupid about it is that they don't tell themselves where they're going. It went down like:
"You ever think about driving your shitty four wheeled vehicular box into the horizon?"
And then he was all: "You hear that in a movie or somethin', Roach?"
And he was like: "Yes, but do you?"
So he said: "All the fucking time."
And he grinned: "Let's do it."
When he sighed "Okay." their fate was sealed.
- and now it's just open air on the 59 outta Houston trying to listen to terrible 80's power ballads over the sound of the wind whipping through their hair because the shitbox doesn't have AC. Sun glimmering a mirage-reflection off the asphalt and not another soul in sight, just the yellow grass and the sound of Roach getting all the words to 'Carry On My Wayward Son' wrong.
"It's 'Tossed around like a ship on the ocean.' Not... whatever the hell you just said about a blip for demotion."
"Demotion was the nice way of saying destroyed back home," he reminisces pleasantly, "And I thought you hated this song!"
"It's shit, Roach. This song is composed from the ballsweat of men shoved into the back of a station wagon dreaming of mustangs."
It feels right somehow, right in a way Ghost hasn't felt in a long time. A blur of heat and haze with Roachs presence a comforting but admittedly annoying constant. A sentimental dude might tell him 'this is a lot like we first met i guess minus my corpse', but Simon "Ghost" Riley is not sentimental. Simon "Ghost" Riley is just on an ill-advised road-trip with his favourite companion and he is determined to make it the best fucking ironic road-trip $887.62 can buy.
week one
"We're headed for Intercourse."
"Oh, Ghost, you move so fast. Slow down or I'll be eternally cursed with these vapours."
"No, dumbass, it's a town in Pennsylvania. Even better, it's a goddamn Amish town. This is gold, Roach."
"What is Amish?"
"Actually, you know what? Don't let me ruin the surprise."
The first week is spent taking the pick-up truck equivalent of a leisurely stroll through Oklahoma while plotting the shittiest possible course North. It's a hard decision between snaking a route through the shitty deep South or just barreling through the also really shitty Midwest. He deliberates poetically on the unique but opposite shitty natures of either extremity but Roach is no help with his head dangling out the window like a golden retriever, enjoying the great wide everything outside the truck, also like a golden retriever. The one time he looks at the map he points down to Oregon because he claim's its gonna smell the best.
Ghost catches himself staring at him instead of the road once, twice, thr- okay a few times, who fucking cares it's Oklahoma. There's something sad in the set of his shoulders, the way his shock white hair is hidden by that baseball cap, the way even Oklahoma is like this mind blowing assault on his senses. Taskforce doesn't let the soldiers out much- Ghost wouldn't be surprised if this was the most of the U.S Roach had seen beyond Taskforces backyard and the view from his roof once a year.
At night they park the truck off road and huddle under his worn old comforter in the truck's bed and hope no bored cops or cannibal hillbillies wander by while they sleep. That's actually how he makes the final decision.
"We gotta do the Midwest, 'Ro," he mumbles. Their backs are aligned under the blanket, each greedily clutching their share of the edge.
"Yeah?"
"Less flesh hungry, inbred rednecks trying to put us on meat hooks."
"Oh," he yawns and yanks way too much of the blanket over her side, "I didn't know we were auditioning for a movie."
"Yeah."
For some reason, Roach's heart beats faster than normal ones, even when they're asleep. Oklahoma is so desperately boring that this is the most exciting discovery of Week One.
week two
The most exciting discovery of Week Two is ketchup.
Roach discovers ketchup at a truck-stop diner called "Lou's" and empties the entire bottle onto his plate; Ghost pities the limp french fries struggling to keep afloat in the tomato apeshit apocalypse as he drinks it like a soup and scrapes the remnants off with his fingers, licking each sharp digit thoroughly just in case he missed some. It's something a five year old would do, but here is Gary Sanderson- 29 years old- cheerfully lapping processed tomato sauce from his palm while Ghost tries to think of ways to describe this respectable, but really odd man without being disrespectful.
The waitress gives them the stink eye so he gives him the helpless shrug man is loco finger spin one-two combo and tops it off with a coy tip of his shades and a wink as he slides her a generous tip. Roach only quirks an eyebrow when the waitress slaps his ass on the way out.
"Ghost has the sugar that all the ladies want," he teases as he swings into the truck's cab. He's rolling his eyes under his shades and knows that he can tell. It's his eighth sense: Ghost's gently condescending irritation, "Are we going to leave a string of broken hearts behind us?"
"How can I possibly get laid with you breathing down my neck the whole time?" he means that literally too, summons the mental image and everything.
"Get creative," he challenges, "Besides, would it be so awful to give a demonstration to further my cross-cultural understanding?"
"Yes. The more you understand anything the more trouble we're all in."
He gets all the lyrics to 'More Than a Feeling' wrong too.
"I see my marionette walking awaaaay."
The second most exciting discovery of Week Two is Hazard Nebraska, a town so depressing they have to stop at the local convenience store and use the one computer in town to look up the stats on Wikipedia because Roach used all the phone batteries up on the first day posting terrible photographs of their "Fuckin' Sweet Roadtrip" to some obscure image site. Hazard has sixty-six people, 100.0% of them caucasian ("This place is white as columbian crack." "White as a smooth creatures behind." "Whiter than Vanilla Ice." "Whiter than your pasty ass, heheheheh." "So white the local KKK shriveled up like an eighty year old dick while playing games of checkers with all the black pieces removed.") and was famous for having a Rest Stop sign consisting of a toilet propped up on three bales of hay. For ultimate ironic Ghost picks up a cassette of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska from underneath some Garth Brooks tapes and a single Toby Keith CD.
The thing is the Boss is a little too sombre and a little too quality for this trip and Roach starts to wilt in his seat around the fourth time they listen to 'State Trooper. He turns his head towards the despairingly dark sky and says- quietly- "I can smell the stars here."
Ghost reflects momentarily on how not weird a thing to hear that is anymore. He flips the tape out when they cross the state line and fiddles around futilely for a radio station.
"We should get Soap some ugly souvenirs. He hates those." Roach says finally.
"A sad, half-deflated football with 'Ohio' written on it in toll paint."
"A cup with a deformed cow on it."
"A pin shaped like Indiana."
"Exactly like that. He'll be so mad. I can hear him ranting obnoxiously right now."
"Nah, Ro', that's just the radio static."
There's unspoken words dangling between them and Ghost gulps the question down before he can be so dumb as to actually ask it. We even planning to go back? His face is tipped away from him, the moonlight making a hazy, pale outline of his angular profile that he has never once thought beautiful. He looks ethereal in this light, like maybe he'll dissolve if he doesn't yank him out of his malaise. Where are we going if not back? is the other question he doesn't ask. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel for lack of words and he starts humming.
"Everything dies and that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back-"
Ghost grins and finishes the verse (in dead flat, atonal monotone), "Put your makeup on, Ro', and fix your hair up pretty. Gonna meet me tonight in Des Moines City."
"Who's getting the lyrics wrong now?" he snickers
"Yeah, I take that back. Des Moines is fucking terrible."
Des Moines is pretty shitty, but it's also the third most exciting discovery of Week Two. Roach drags him down the entire colour-dappled stretch of Kruidenier Trail at two in the morning, eyes bright and steps light.
"Perfect, perfect," he mutters in heady contemplation, "It's just missing one thing."
"What's that?"
He holds up a stick of chalk and every part of his face glitters in the green light.
week three
They put seventy-five whole dollars into their 'Soap Souvenir Fund', which currently contained a stuffed cow with unevenly sewn eyes, four garish pins shaped like various smiling fruit, a fridge magnet that played 'God Bless America', a pewter spoon with the state crest of Iowa on it and three postcards with guys that looked like an angry Sheperd grinning on the front. They signed each postcard 'Glad you aren't here? '
By the time they get to Illinois the novelty wears thin.
"Let's do something fun," Roach huffs, "Stop the 'lorry'."
"Fuck no."
"It's stuffy in here, can we at least roll the windows down? As much as I love the smell of your silky vanilla skin and the grainy licorice dashboard, the air is starting to get kind of thick." he sticks his tongue out distastefully for emphasis.
"Fuck no."
"Simon."
"Things I'm not excited about: smelling four metric tonnes of bloody cow shit for the entire three hours between here and Chicago."
They pull up to a truck stop for some fresh air and Roach skulks around the store like a particularly pallid predator animal, filling his arms with frenetically coloured candy and basic amenities like tooth paste and playing cards. Ghost waits at the counter in his red pashima and his trucker-plaid button up shirt, all utterly calculated chill, six foot one and a two hundred and twenty-one pounds of undiluted British cool. He's downright phlegmatic in his tranquility, the pitch-perfect image of disaffected soldier in his shades and with his carefully alligned skull mask. The girl at the register is looking him up and down a little sparkle eyed. Ghost watches her muster her courage before asking in hushed tones:
"He uh..."
"Nah, my half Brother from the North east."
"He don't seem, uh..." a delicate pause, "- healthy."
"Yeah. He ate a whole rack of collector spoons as a child and now he has argyria. So tragic."
"No, I meant-" before she can clarify what she meant, Roach marches to the cash register and drops off his candy load and hoists a 24-pack of Kit-Kats onto the counter with his thousand watt grin beaming out mischief at the speed of light. The poor clerk is startled by the presence of what could only be assumed to be shark teeth on the fairly large, eccentric man, but she begins ringing in the twizzlers and sour-pops dutifully, pausing only to look so suspicious about the beer that it's breaking Ghost's heart.
"No offense, but I need your-"
Ghost whips out his ID casually- the important thing when faking out a midwestern clerk just trying to do her job is to act casual- and yawns. Casually.
"I know, I got a baby face."
"Thirty-six?"
"Fuck yeah. If I were actually seventeen why the hell would I have a fake ID that read thirty-six. That would just be downright careless of me."
Roach wraps his arms around the case when they're back in the truck and looks worryingly pleased with himself.
"Overkill." Ghost comments, "We can't keep that shit in the truck, Ro'. We gotta drink it all before we even think about getting close to civilization. No fancy city cop is going to be charmed enough by my scrawny ass to let it slide."
"Fine," he leans his chin on the case and the bottles rattle like windchimes, "We'll drink it all tonight."
"Beer even work on you?"
"I have no idea. Let's find out." Roachs cackle is too much for one truck cab to contain so Ghost finally agrees to roll down the windows. When night falls, they park the truck off road and set up camp in the back with the bottles divided evenly - twelve and twelve - between them.
"Oh fuck this, Roach, I don't think I can drink twelve beers."
He cracks his first one open (literally, he was having trouble with the bottlecap) and snorts derisively, "Is Simon Riley backing down from a challenge?" he chrugs the beer down.
"No I mean I don't think I can drink twelve beers. Mathematically. This is only gonna end with me on my back drowning in my own piss and vomit as you consume my intestines."
"Don't be melodramatic, I'd eat your eyes first."
"I know."
Two beers in and the night air feels crisper, the stars burn brighter, mostly because each of them gains a hazy halo in the glittering heaven of tipsy. Four beers in and Roach crawls the space between them to rest his head on his shoulder. Five beers in, he stops trying to shove him off. Six beers in, his fingers are tracing the inseam of his jeans lazily.
"They smell terrible, but I like cows. They remind me of home."
"I always imagined that cows had spiked hooves and were fifteen feet tall. When you milk them, the blood of innocents comes out."
"No. But they did have a temper. They were very strong."
"Somehow that's even more horrific than whatever I just described."
"No, no. It's good because it's horrific."
"Yeah wow, I'm so jealous I didn't grow up surrounded by glorified cow shit."
"You should be," Roach waves his half-empty bottle at him like he's trying to prove a point with it. There's something wound up inside him, ticking down to what Ghost hopes won't be an awkwardly emotional outburst, "There are things I don't miss about America, true, but at least it was an even playing field. There's no justice on your continent, Ghost. Everyone gets to live, but they don't get a fair chance. It should be like-" and he holds out his hand, spreading his fingers towards the sky, "- two sides of a coin," he turns it over to show his palm, "The politicians have a distaste for everyone else, but both got an equal chance to prove themselves. There was balance."
Ghost can't do drunk philosophy but he can do drunk reach-out-and-take-Roach's-hand and he can also do drunk ignore-the-curious-look-on-his-face when he does it.
"I'm... sorry," he says distantly, curling his calloused fingers over his.
"What are you sorry about, Ghost?"
"That you have to be here, I guess."
His mouth twists inquisitively and he rolls his body drunkenly, straddling his torso between knobby knees, "Are you really sorry that I'm here, Simon? Are you sorry that I am here right now, with you?"
It's easier than he thought it would be to slide a hand up under his chin, trailing his knuckle over his jugular to feel his hummingbird heartbeat. He meets the kiss halfway and it's not so much chaste as it is tentative, indecisive, terrified. He pulls away first and his empty eyes are iridescent in the dark, the only goddamn bright thing in the whole blurry universe right now.
"Wanna go tip a cow?" Ghost asks huskily. Roach's grin goes ear to ear.
"Hell fucking yes."
Unfortunately the cow dies but Ghost is pretty sure that it was no one's father.
week four
They don't kiss again after the hangover.
What they do instead is argue about road games.
"Whoever spots the most haystacks before Ohio wins."
"Yeah, that sounds completely fair."
"Fine, fine, the Staff Sergeant of crappy road games will allow for the Second Lieutenants handicap and modify the rules so that cars also applicable."
"How magnanimous."
"The Staff Sergeant of crappy road games is always fair in his adjustments. You should be thankful that he has taken mercy upon you."
"So thankful, so grateful, Ro' I'm down on my hands and knees feeling a goddamn benediction, the holy spirit burning in my eyes over your every ruling here."
"As it should be!"
"But I gotta point out here that I have more important things on my mind here than playing your retarded I spy with my left nostril games. Like, you know, driving."
"Oh, as if driving is so hard! I bet I could drive and still see every red car on the planet!"
"Then maybe I should let you take the wheel for a while."
"Maybe you should!"
So he lets Roach take the wheel for a while.
Apparently Soldiers enter the world with inborn skills relating to murder, architecture and the operation of complex machinery. He "follows the lemon stripe" and sure, okay, they're swerving all over the damn place, but the highway is empty and it's like seven in the morning and Roach is laughing harder than he's heard in literally years. Not that sharp, tepid hyena cackle, but a full-blown-this-is-the-laughter-that-burns-planets-whole guffaw. Simon "Ghost" Riley is man enough to admit that Gary Sanderson is his favorite person and he likes it when he's smiling.
- and that's how they end up in a stuffy sheriff's office in Randolph Country, Indiana at seven thirty eight on a sunday morning. Roach is bouncing his feet nervously, hands knotted as he emits a low, hiss that's gotta be freaking the poor guy at the desk out. His complexion is chalk-dust in the white light and Ghost does not want to answer any of these questions at his expense.
"This Driver's license isn't real."
"No," Ghost admits honestly. It's not even trying to be real.
"Says here on your ID you're thirty-six?"
"Yeah, that's true."
" 'Simon Riley.' What's your real name?"
"That one is true."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Pretty much."
The cop is young and exhausted, sipping his coffee tiredly with so much 'it's too early for this crap' weighing down his shoulders that Ghost decides not to give him too much shit, "And who-" he waves his pen vaguely in Roach's direction, "... who is this?"
"My brother."
"Half brother." Roach corrects."
"Half brother from Azerbaijan ."
"What he said."
The cop frowns so hard his mouth looks like it'll fall right off his face. He tops off this champion grimace with a helpless hair ruffle and a long-suffering sigh.
"Look, I'll be right back. You... people don't go anywhere, okay?"
"Fuck, Ro', we gotta get outta here." Ghost says the moment the door swings shut.
"He kept looking at me weird." he scrunches up his nose, rocking forwards in his seat as Ghost springs to action and begins searching the room for the keys to the truck.
"Probably thinks you're like my illegal mail-order slave from Eastern Europe. Gonna get me up on charges of human trafficking. Shit."
"Mail Order slave from America," Roach chuckles.
"Wow, don't joke about that- don't wanna think how illegal unions are."
"Almost as illegal as your smooth moves, so subtly snooping through all those drawers. You know that he put the keys in his pocket, don't you?"
Ghost stops, one hand deep in a rusted-filing cabinet, "Fuck," he mutters eloquently. He doesn't even shut the cabinet before yanking Roach to his feet and dragging him out of the station-house, "You ever hot-wired a vehicle before?" he wonders, his tone a little strained.
"No," he replies flatly.
"Kay, let's hope for a miracle here. Ghost and Roach miracle express or whatever clever fucking thing it is I usually say in tense situations like this."
"Actually," Roach points out calmly, "You tend to reliably fall apart at times like this." and with unearthly grace and poise, he smashes the truck window in with his fist and unlocks the door, "C'mon. Time to be a Hero, Simon."
If the definition of Hero was: hotwire a truck and make a madly successful dash for the state line then Simon "Ghost" Riley was elven shades of noble Lancelot crusader. Second Lieutenant of Taskforce 141? More like Second Lieutenant of Petty Crime bullshit. He was lucky that Roach didn't really think of the complications for later. Right now he felt so great about himself the last thing he needed was him looking at him all disapproving like 'oh Ghost, were we on base, Soap would have your head.' Instead he's howling alongside him and, obnoxiously, flipping between radio stations for something appropriately "reckless" and "illy behaved". Unfortunately, the only thing on is church sermons and Christian Rock so by the time Ghost pulls the truck to a stop to catch his breath, they're hearing some monotone fossil espouse the parables of Isaiah or some other biblical shit Ghost can't make out because his blood is rushing in his ears.
"Let's do that more often," Roach says breathlessly, not even being a little bit sarcastic. He's sitting by the broken window and the wind has dislodged his cap, exposing that odd hair and tousling it, he is so bug-eyed and knife-boned and so him and Roach in this moment - His Roach: his guide, his muse, the anti-thesis of his conscience, best friend, worst thing that even happened to him - that when he kisses him this time, it's with intent. Palm ghosts a trail from knee to thigh to hip, hooking around his waist and pulling him close. His hands scrabble for purchase on his shoulders and he's gonna have scabs from the marks they're leaving. He murmurs his name pleadingly between each kiss and he asks him, "Roach, goddamn, Roach? Will you be my illegal mail-order slave?"
"Yes, yes, of course I will."
"Gonna cover you in stamps, dude."
"That better be a metaphor for kisses, Ghost."
"I have no idea what the fuck I'm saying," he admits blearily, "I just want-" he cuts him off mercifully, because the Staff Sergeant of crappy road games is always merciful and his hands go under his shirt. His hands go everywhere which is all well and good except that when he tries to pull him into his lap, either his ass or his elbow or some other awkward piece of anatomy hits the gearstick and they go reverse right into a fucking ditch.
By the time they're on the road again Ghost has cooled his jets and the radio pastor is talking Jeremiah. Roach, on the other hand, is wringing his hands and biting his lips red, breath coming in barely controlled puffs every time he readjusts his shirt hem or his baseball hat or his fucking sunglasses. He spends the better part of the day a tightly wound ball of twitchy lust and it takes Ghost the words shit Ro can you just get turned on indefinitely coming out of his own, treacherous mouth to realize he's an idiot for not taking full advantage of the situation
Ghost stops the truck in front of the first motel they've seen since Indiana, "Let's, uh," he whips his head around at the sound of his voice, his eyes wide and ringed with tension, "I mean, do you want to..." he gestures weakly. Suddenly his voice is catching in his throat and his palms feel numb and damp. Terrible. Terribly undone and uncool.
"No, Simon," he shudders out, "I do not want to engage in complicated intercourse with you. That is why I have been earnestly engaging in this agonizing flirtation routine for years. Augh. What do you think?"
"Damn why didn't you put it that way before?"
The motel's owner is a perfectly nice middle aged man in a dumpy sweater vest and horn rimmed glasses. He notes Simons (very mild!) british drawl and starts on about how he isn't like most folks up here, he really likes english folks. Knows lots of good ol' boys from down south and oh, you look young and fresh and like you need me to cut you some slack, ect. No one has ever taken so long processing a cash payment and fetching a key in the whole history of the human race, Ghost swears to god for once, and he keeps offering the same fucking three day autumn equinox deal with such a droning list of perks that Ghost finally blurts out, "Holy shit it's like you've never rented a room to a guy trying to get laid before."
Owner hands him the key numbly after that and Ghost feels kind of bad so he takes the autumn equinox three day deal.
They don't turn the lights on. They don't unpack their single dufflebag of travel necessities. They don't even lock the goddamn door. Roach reaches up with trembling hands to remove Ghosts shades while he gently pulls the cap from his head and runs a thumb up and down his hair. It's a blur after that- he tackles him against the dresser and he manages to guide him to the bed, hands on his hips and mouth on his neck. They both say some really stupid things: he mutters into his collarbone, "You are six thousand combat knives made into one person. Why would I ever look at anyone else?" He trails a finger up the length of his bare chest and whispers, "Cut you open here and hollow out your chest cavity. I'd lick up every drop of candy red suffering and then wear you like a cape."
"A fashionable one I hope."
"I'd have the coolest cape. It would incite the sickest jealousies."
"Fuck. Yes."
It isn't until they're sticky with afterglow and miscellaneous fluids that he really thinks about everything that's happened, "We are gonna be in capital T trouble when we go back, you know."
"Then we'll keep going as long as we can." his answer is elegant in its simplicity, "You didn't really think I had anything else planned, did you?"
"Actually I did. Pretty much you always have a plan is how it goes down and pretty much it always ends badly for me."
"Yeah," he sighs, circling the marks he made on his throat with two fingers, "That's the problem, isn't it?"
He wouldn't have Roach any other way, he thinks but doesn't say it out loud. Mostly because it's not true- he could do with less chipper chess theories played out over his grey matter, he really could.
They have the room for three days and two nights, but mostly they waste time watching cable.
week five
Week Five is the week Roach declares their "Illegal Mail Order Slave Honeymoon Party".
Week Five is also the week they run out of money.
Week Five is the week they drive carefully through the misty back-roads of Pennsylvania with a garbage bag taped over their broken window and minimal gas in the tank because they're labouring under the delusion they can bus back to Logan Airport, sneak into a plane headed for the middle east in the middle of the night, sneak into Firebase Phoenix and pretend that they were just sleeping the whole time, they didn't go anywhere, honest!
Week Five is the week they walk two miles in the rain for gas only to return and find the truck gone, either stolen or towed.
Week Five is the week they end up stranded on a park bench in a town called Blue Balls, huddling under a soaked comforter as Roach despondently munches on a stick of slim jim. Ghost looks at him in the glare of the street lights and says blandly, "Gary Sanderson, I am in love with you."
"Ha ha," he responds, "Great joke!"
"I know. I got a better one though."
The better joke is that they have to call Soap.
They spent literally their last dime on a strawberry slushie. Fortunately Roach has this really great blind, terminally ill beggar guy act that earns them $5.78 in small change thanks to the sweet siren call of double leukemia. Ghost feels a death toll chiming ominously in the distance as he dials the number, but it must be a real fucking funeral because Soap does not sound furious.
"You're where?"
"You what?"
"You... why?"
"Of course."
"GPS this, Captain. We ain't moving from this park bench. Our asses are about to become one with it, the great ass-iron-grate merger of the century. We'll have made ourselves a park bench cyborg by the time you get here."
"Be that as it may, try not to perish in the five hours it will take me to reach you. If you feel hypothermia begin to set in, don't be a hero and please seek out shelter."
"I am not dying in a place called Blue Balls."
Salvation assured, Ghost slithers back under the wet comforter and wraps a gangly arm around Roach's shoulders. "You know," he begins conversationally, "In some literature, allowing your mate to eat your carcass after you've died of exposure is considered the greatest of all romantic tropes."
The things he should say is stop bringing that up you cannot consume any part of my flesh hopy shit. What he says instead, "I already thought we were. So glad losing my virginity was not only a harrowing blur of physiology but now also comes with a deceptively innocuous name to describe the horror."
"Simon."
"But are we?"
"I don't know. For a long time I assumed I was just crushing on for you," he admits coyly, "But a best friend would never have let me talk them into something this abysmally stupid."
"Yeah, this is the stupidest thing we've ever done just about."
"We are going to be in so much trouble."
"The trouble's gonna fall like shit from the monkey cage and it's not gonna stop."
"Disgusting."
"But give it a few years, Ro', and I bet we can top it."
"I am going to hold you to that, Ghost."
He does.
And they do.
