It's his own fucking fault, leaning right back on the couch to take a selfie while he watches TV, trying to get just the right angle on his chin, his neck, with the phone lifted over his head and the light from the TV lighting him from below. He loses his grip as he swipes through filters, manages to drop his phone on his fucking face, but it lands with a thump on the carpet behind the sofa.
His second mistake is getting up to reach behind the couch by bending over the back of it -- it's a big couch, and it's bolted to the ground because the landlord is paranoid after renting to college kids for so many years, which given his roommates, Colin can't exactly fault him for.
He's too short to reach right away, but he thinks he can fit into the gap, and he's right... Until the couch cushion shifts and he drops by three inches.
His knees no longer reach the seat and he can't get leverage with his feet: he's fucking stuck with his torso crammed between the back of the couch and the wall, kept from dropping all the way to the floor by his thighs, but he can neither pull himself up by bending his knees from the position nor push himself up with his arms.
He groans and has spent maybe fifteen minutes awkwardly trying to get hold of his phone when he hears the door slam.
Normally he hates it when Caleb and Jack come home early in the evening, knowing they're gonna make a bunch of noise jeering about football or crushing pussy while Colin is just trying to relax, but for once, he sighs in complete relief.
"Hey!" he shouts. "Hey, Caleb, Jack?"
He hears footsteps in the hall, hears them laughing and shoving each other, playfighting like they always do as they come over the threshold.
"Yo, C-dog!" calls back Caleb, and Colin sighs, because honestly, Caleb and Jack -- they're loud as Hell and they're stupid as rocks, both of them business majors and studying more on their athletic merits than because they really give a fuck about academia, but they're not bad guys. They're warm and affectionate and they laugh easily, they frequently invite Colin to parties or give him stupid nicknames, and Colin has it on pretty good authority they beat the shit out of a rival player for calling a male cheerleader a fag. They're -- sweet, in their way. Kinda like big dogs. "C-dog?" Caleb is repeating as he comes into the living room.
"Big C?" calls Jack. Colin has tried to explain to him that the big C is how most people refer to fucking cancer, but Jack had just laughed and said when he says big C, everyone knows he means Colin, because Colin's so fucking little. "You hiding on us?"
"Bro, hide and seek, but as a drinking game."
"Yes!"
"Over here," says Caleb, and he hears them walk further into the room, pause, and then start fucking laughing.
"Oh my God, bro, what the fuck?"
"C, how the fuck did you get like that!?"
"I dropped my phone and I was trying to reach it -- "
"This is going straight on the 'gram, bro."
"Not my fucking ass, Jack, come on!"
He hears them closer and he hears the fucking snapping noise the camera app makes, and then a third voice asks, "So this is your roommate?" Because on top of his embarrassment being put on social media, there just has to also be some other bro in the house witnessing it first hand.
"Yeah, yeah, this is Colin. Caleb, put two fingers up like you're giving it bunny ears!"
Colin closes his eyes, feeling his cheeks burn with heat. "Are you seriously taking a selfie with my fucking ass right now?"
