‼️DISCONTINUED‼️ Drowning Olympian - DSMP olympic water sports AU

Chapter 15: Relax and Regroup

Sally POV:

When Sally came up to breathe from her under, she saw Wilbur, standing awkwardly by the edge with Techno and surveying them. She needed to talk to him, needed to let him know she wasn't upset. She should let him relax a bit first.

So, she simply watched as she continued her laps. Watched as Wilbur hesitantly joined Ranboo, Tubbo and Fundy, with Techno dutifully following behind him. She watched, her gaze softening, as they included him, but always made sure he knew when he was about to be tagged, rather then the surprise attacks they had sometimes been doing. She watched as he visibly relaxed, and she was glad to see it. Wilbur seemed calmer, less anxious when he was tagged by Fundy, become It for the third time. That was good.

"You ok, Sally?" Eret asked from behind where she sat doing eggbeater and watching her team from a distance.

"Eret, hi-" she laughed, startled by their sudden appearance, "Where did you come from?"

"Hah, I just got in, was part way through a warm up lap and wanted to check in on you."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm ok, just worried about him."

"You should go join in on their game."

"I'm not sure he wants me there..."

"He does Sally. He was scared at breakfast, but he does still want you, trust me on that."

Sally nodded, knowing Eret was right. Of course he was. This was Eret talking after all. Nervously, she moved to join the game, and of course they instantly involved her.

If she didn't tag Wilbur, it was because he was never an easy target, or at least, that's what she'd tell everyone and herself. It wasn't that she was scared he'd flinch away from her. It wasn't because of anything like that. Definitely. He was just... never close enough to her. That's all.

———

Wilbur POV:

Wilbur did his best to ignore the way Sally was avoiding him. She was probably just stressed, but he couldn't help but feel like she thought he was disgusting. He knew logically that didn't make sense, she had always known his past and never minded, but the thought kept sneaking up to the surface.

Every time it did though, someone got close to tagging him and suddenly he was back focused on the game rather then his worries.

"Alright team," Puffy's voice over the underwater microphone called, "Let's get some training in, shall we? Everyone do the warm up, then we will do a full for Free team, no highlights, ok?"

Wilbur nodded, and pulled himself underwater, practising a perfect vertical before surfacing at a good height, holding for twenty skulls and then spinning down 720°. He repeated this a few more times, before moving to Elevators 360°s, and then Barracuda 360°. He made sure each spin was immaculate, and for any mistakes he took a moment to work out where he had gone wrong and fixed it. He hated spins, and knew he was the only one who spent this much time on just spins, but he had learnt to accept that.

They all had their strengths and weaknesses. Techno often trained his artistic impression during warmups, whereas Wilbur couldn't remember the last time he really had to train that. Sally would swim laps underwater, testing her lung capacity for fun whereas Eret, Niki and Fundy trained it because that was something they struggled with. Everyone was different. He had learnt that in this team. He wasn't weak because he fell in his spins more often then the rest of his team. It just meant he had to work harder at that.

Once Puffy called an end to the 10 minutes of self driven warmup, they headed onto deck, finding their positions as naturally as anyone could. Wilbur counted, his voice strong and firm, as they moved from deck into the dice, and then again counted them on when to come up and hold their position in the water.

Puffy as always have some small notes, partially to force them to hold the post ion longer incase the referee took longer to blow the whistle, and then the music began. And Wilbur allowed his body to flow through the movements that had been ingrained in his mind thousands of hours of training ago. Instead he focused on his height, legs working hard to push him high out of the water. His face naturally fell into the expression that matched the music, the one he had helped Techno learn earlier that year. When he pulled himself under into the figure, his mind wove through his whole body, making sure everything was perfect, Olympic level.

His height was stunning, and Puffy's voice over the microphone noted that, before reminding him to flick out slightly more there, and then moving to correct Tubbo. Wilbur focused in when the move repeated, and this time Puffy's voice came again, cheering for the improvement.

Wilbur loved how Puffy coached, sometimes letting them do the routine and correcting after, and other times talking over the music so they could think as they went. She always balanced it perfectly. This training session had been more relaxed, and as such she was keen to focus her team in on perfection, to remind them of where they were, but also why they were the ones here.

They trained for another hour, working hard and truely training, sometimes with music, sometimes with counts, and sometimes individually. Puffy made sure everything was perfect, and when the third figure had issues, she made them go through it piece by piece, despite the amount of times they had done it, and she made sure every single person knew the counts and was hitting them.

By the end of the hour, Wilbur was exhausted. He slumped into the pool wall, resting against it slightly. Puffy has worked them hard, but no harder then they could take.

The door to the pool opened, and as one they looked towards it, wondering who it was.

Words: 1000

A/N: feel free to ask me about any of the terminology if ur interested, I'm very willing to ramble, and I know I mentioned a lot of technical terms in this one haha