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So, a nice little fun-fact for all the Chris McLean fanboys, fangirls, and others out there, he couldn’t swim. This was not at all public knowledge, barely known at all. Most, if not all of his fans believing that he in fact, could swim, due to the movie scenes where he’d be in water.
But, unsurprisingly, considering these were swimming roles in movies. Most of the were fake, recorded in shallow water so that the cameras could catch every angle. Especially the scenes with CGI, those were always filmed in a fake ocean. And by that, it was some big sort of studio-room, practically a pool in the center of it being surrounded by green-screen walls. And the pool involved was always shallow.
You’d think by now he’d just learn how to swim, but it gotten to a point where he’d had been expected to known considering his actor status, and that most adults just knew how. Not him though, his parents had never bothered to teach.
Not knowing this simple knowledge began to get even harder when he suddenly got sent away for the summer to spend some time with his Mother’s family, more specifically his Mother’s brother , who had a son. Chris’s cousin, Jerd. Who of which, liked to spent a lot of time out at sea. He was also one of the only ones to know of his lack of teaching.
But that’s what life-jackets were for! He’d never been too fond of boats in the first place, but at least when he was on one, he knew he’d be safe. Any other time, he decided on spending it at the dock, sitting and fishing. Fake fishing, that is. He’d never been fond of hurting animals for sport.
To put it shortly, he’d guessed he’d be able to survive about five seconds in the universal deathtrap before he’d start flailing his arms like a lunatic, as he’d attempt to grasp onto anything else that wasn’t the infinitely stretching water. He hadn’t had an experience like that in years , so he was absolutely positive he’d never be in a situation like that again.
Until he was.
He hadn’t wanted to be in this situation, not at all. Who would want to willingly subject themselves to something they didn’t know how to do? The whole thing was stupid, but yet it was happening anyway. All because of some stupid oversight.
Chris McLean was never one to go and personally test out his challenges, whenverer there was a new one prepared, it almost always looked dangerous. And if it appeared too dangerous, it needed to be tested out. Tested out with real people, no fake dummys, no guessing that it’d be okay, actual proof. And whilst Chris would usually go ahead and fetch Chef or one of his unwilling interns to go and give it a go, he couldn’t seem to find any of them.
Right now, the show really wasn’t in need for yet another court case, so this would need to get sorted out soon, now preferably. Despite the prior statement on how the challenge needed to be tested, hopefully it would end up being fine. It was a simple challenge! One that took place real close to where the cliff-diving one was. Each contestant would need to swim out to sea and reach the brightly coloured buoyes in the distance.
From there, they would need to grab onto it and swim downwards, gathering one brightly coloured badge and returning. Then it would repeat. The reason he wasn’t so keen on testing it out himself was because of how deep it was. As if the height of him times four. Not the words in the world, but something he definitely didn’t want to experience.
The contestants would probably be fine , because all of them could swim! That was a big part of even getting onto the show, something signed proving they knew how to do it. But as he’d finally had enough thoughts with all the swimming and water, he stared out towards the beach. Looking to where the challenge would set place, only in a few days.
A sudden hand lying on his shoulder nearly jumped him out of his skin.
“Jeez-! Chef, don’t do that , dude!” He snapped, suddenly as he turned to his partnerer who was currently ecstatic with how well his accidental jumpscare had been. Trying to hold back a laugh at the response.
“My bad, my bad.” He hummed out, long since removing the terrifying hand from Chris’s shoulders. He bagan to starte forward, out to where Chris’s eye’s glazed at, also looking at the soon-to-be new challenge. “Huh, that looks like It’s gonna be difficult.”
He didn’t like those words, he couldn’t lie if he said they weren’t bothering him a bit. Not that he let it show, of course. But what did Chef mean by difficult? The other could swim really well, far better than any of the contestants. So to hear him say that was concerning. Would it be too much for them?
And if any of them began to drown , it wasn’t as if he could go ahead and jump in and save them.
“On second thought, I don’t think that this challenge is extreme enough.” Too dangerous, more like.
Chef only agreed.
The next lovely instance with the terrifying ocean is whilst he’s standing on the dock. The same dock where he’d previously got thrown into the shallow sea. Luckily for him, he’d gotten chucked into the part which wasn’t that deep. An amount where he’d barely be able to touch the ground with his foot.
He was currently here because only two days until the new competitors would be arriving. And despite doing all this before, he still wanted to get a good grasp on how this was all going to play out. They only got one take for this shot, because almost everything in this show was genuine, no stupid scripts.
No scripts except for the ones he had, as he looked through the cue cards he began to rehearse mentally, and outloud as he decided on what he was going to say. He froze in terror as he felt get knocked into the water bellow.
Instantly, Chris was panicking , splashing around like a feral cat in a room full of large dogs. He gasped, terrified as he graped onto one of the wooden beams, as tight as his grip would allow. He’d instantly began to start pulling himself up, once reaching the top, climbing on. He saw Chef, laughing his ass off, once again. God this was humiliating.
“Ha- Now that’s just childish, man.” Chef was cackling, cackling! Chris didn’t find it nearly as funny.
“Don’t do that, ever. You don’t ever do that!” He stressed, loudly. “And thanks a lot. Now I need to go dry off.” He hissed, making his leave. Chef only laughed louder as he seemed to have thought of something.
“Don’t drown!”
As left, pissed off at the world and everyone around him, Chef could only think on how Chris was being a little unreasonable, it was only a joke. One that was borderline harmless, weird.
He doesn’t expect to be questioned on it.
“You know, if you don’t know how to swim I can always teach you?” He thought he was being extra careful with hiding this, not letting people know his stupid flaw.
“Of course, I know how too! I just don’t wanna ruin my hair.” That seemed reasonable, any person wouldn’t be keen to soak what they’re wearing, right?”
“Alright, okay, you can swim.” He assured, non-believingly. A thought crept into his mind, causing him to re-think. “Actually, Chris?” As he got the others attention, Chef pointed his thumb towards the sea.
“Go swim.”
“ What?”
“Go get in the water, and swim.” No, no. That was stupid, he didn’t need to do this. Why was he being asked? He decided that the best answer was to just question back, asking why on earth he’d ever do that.
“I don’t know man, you go ahead and tell me. Seems pretty suspicious that we’re always surrounded by water. We’re on an island where that’s the only way you can get off of it. The only way to your, ‘cottage’ is by a boat. Literally anywhere you need to go requires you to get involved with water, yet you just… Don’t.”
… “Exactly, we have a boat. I don’t need too.”
“Alright, if you say so.” And with that, Chef left. Leaving Chris to mentally praise his quick thinking skills, but at the same time he doubted them. God , he was stupid. He was a fully grown adult , and he couldn’t even do what kids half his age could.
Tonight, he was going to learn.
It was now nightfall, Chef had long since returned to their trailer. The contestants would be arriving in the early morning, so the two of them really did need their rest.
Chris left with the false-lie on how he was going to make sure the cameras were working, along with any last preparations which came with Hosting, he made his way outside.
Chris was heading his way back to the dock, the one he’d been at far too much recently. The sky was beautiful, but the water not-so much. Being out here only felt more terrifying the longer he spent in it.
Was he really about to do this? As he looked around, he saw no one. Not that he could tell anyway, because of how dark it was. He sure as hell wasn’t going to go to his partner to teach him, he didn’t need Chef for this. This was something he had to learn alone.
Into the water he dropped.
Of fucking course , confidence alone would never be enough to make you swim.
All of the confidence he’d gathered before that was since long gone at the realization that he’d jumped in at the wrong part , he could no longer feel the sand beneath him like he’d expected. He couldn’t even feel the ground. And suddenly, all of this became a whole lot more real.
As he kicked out in the water, he could only help but panic as he hit nothing at all, the wooden beams were nowhere near him. And in his worrying, he’d forgotten which direction was back towards the land. He couldn’t tell if his panicked moving was pushing him deeper or not.
He couldn’t feel anything to save him, he couldn’t see anything to know where to go. A small part of him thought, ‘Oh, God.’ I’m going to die alone here, the only people who would discover him would be the boat of teenagers arriving in the same spot hours later.
Minutes passed, and his splashing began to grow hopeless, his attempts to find land were useless. God, he was so pathetic. Chris McLean, world-famous actor. Dies in his thirties, by not knowing how to swim.
He doesn’t know how much longer passed after that, but as he began to feel his limbs cramping up from the repetitive motions, he felt himself slipping. He closed his eyes, the last thing he heard was a splash around him.
He was coughing, coughing violently. Coughs without breathing in water, as he felt himself turn onto his side, spitting salty liquid into the ground, he gasped as he inhaled air. Air, he wasn’t suffocating!
“Chris, what the fuck?” Oh, oh no.
“Man, what the absolute fuck is wrong with you?” The voice stressed, “That was so fucking reckless. What the Hell did you think you were doing?”
Chef was yelling, Chris realised that none of the words were really going in.
As his partner stared at him, he sighed. “You alright?”
“Yeah.”
“You really scared me, man. I thought you were dead.” Oh, that’s funny. He thought the same thing. “What were you doing?” … “If you thought you could get outta hosting this shit-show so easily, you have another thing coming.” Ha, he wishes.
Chris only sighed, turning his head towards the very same body of water he almost died in. Running a hand over his face, why did he have to be so wreckless? If he’d told him-
A realization.
“Chef? Do you think you’d be able to teach me how to swim?”