Being on the carousel with Mido felt oddly fitting, all of the unpleasantries in the world around them blurring until it was just his face, those painted horses and Nyla, alone together. Sometimes Nyla felt like they were eternally sitting in a broken bathtub they’d drained most of their feelings from, but meeting Mido had been like pulling on the plug only for the water to work in reverse and come back out of the drain, insistent on keeping them warm despite how adamant they’d been to sit there, dry, with their knees hugged close to their chest. They didn’t realise this was going to be one of the last times before the water ran cold, Theo considered, but even if they did they’d probably plan on staying in the bathtub no matter how many goosebumps it rose or how much it made them shiver, because even if the thought of Mido was going to become a sad one, it was still Mido and that made it worth it. Nyla was riding a white horse someone had doodled into a demonic vessel with a red Sharpie, sockets overtaken by a furiously scribbled nib, but they were hugging at it’s throat like it was second coming, like they’d never met any horse nicer. Pink hair had been tossed up inside of a glittery rainbow scrunchy. Baby hairs stuck to their neck, on the verge of dissolving in the gleam of the heat like candy floss. With their rainbow boots and their little white dress, they looked like they’d been summoned from a kid’s crayon doodle. “If you shut your eyes it kinda feels... like flyin’,” Nyla proposed then did just that, head angled at him without looking but still studying his face, emblazoned onto the backs of their eyelids from all those nights spent in baking, dimly lit streets. Nyla’s memory failed them, for the most part. They weren’t sure how Mido had stuck. “I know, ‘cause I was a bird once. We’ve all been there. A parakeet. They eat real borin’ seeds... I missed burgers.” Opening them again, never too comfortable being shut inside of their own head for long, Nyla smiled at him -- the slow, melting kind that felt a little like it’d been dripped onto their face by candle wax, burned as much too -- and kept on smiling past it being appropriate. “It’s kinda like... we’re back there, don’t y’think?” Forgetting he couldn’t read their mind -- something that’d become a habit, that didn’t seem as if it was meant to be true -- Nyla only expanded within another few beats, gaze shifting towards his shoulder where she imagined a little fairy wearing pointy clogs, taking a seat and crossing their legs, even saw the sparkling silhouette. “Barcelona, when it’s... you know, when it’s warm like this.” @saboteures