It had been a long time. For Basil, at least.
The stairs were wood, expertly constructed, and waxed with a fine polish. Which is a combination Basil had never walked on before in his life, and at the age of four it was a really horrible time to experiment wile wearing socks and almost hopping down each step.
So down he had gone, hitting his head and freefalling towards a likely fatal collision with the floor below. On almost the complete opposite end of the room, someone had noticed and broke into a sprint, colliding with - and through - the expensive and ornate railing, and slamming into the stair wall just in time to save him from his self-prescribed fate. That someone was his father.
After that Basil couldn’t remember many of the details. There was an awful fight, with lots of yelling and threats, and his family had to pay through the nose to avoid a lawsuit. His father never said a word to Basil on the topic, being characteristically stoic and gentle, for almost a full year since the incident occurred. When he did comment on it, is was a very soft-spoken reminder to grow from your failings and to never falter again, with some mentions of wisdom and smarts and other oft-repeated topics.
Now, however, was not the best time to reminisce on past guilt, but to try and stop from colliding with the concrete floor and smash your skull to smithereens. Sadly, Basil couldn’t really do too much in the blanket.
Miles was significantly closer, catching Basil perfectly upright, and possibly noting how light he was. A split second later, Jung bumped into him, not with enough force to disrupt his attempt, but just enough that Miles had the option to be annoyed if he so desired.
Basil creaked his head around to find himself facing a purple tie - not that he could tell what the color was since he was so close - and sharply pushed away, slipping out of Miles’ grip and slamming rather painfully into the hard concrete steps behind him. He looked up at Jung and Miles, who were in his mind almost hovering over him at this point, almost anticipating a strike from one of the pair, when his peripheral vision informed him of something truly horrible.
His hand was exposed.
Basil sucked it back into the mass of cloth, partially refusing to accept that everyone in the whole room had more than enough time to get a very good look at it, and ran a pair of frightened, questioning eyes from Miles to Jung and back again, hoping to the highest of heavens that he would wake up soon.