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wander-over-the-words · 2 years

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BioFluff Week 2022 Fic #6

Title: One True Purpose

Prompt: Pre-Canon/Post-Canon

Summary: The one where Delta is invited to teatime.

Characters: Subject Delta, Eleanor Lamb, Masha Lutz, Gil Alexander, Julie Langford, Augustus Sinclair; mentions of Mariska Lutz, Andrew Ryan, Splicers, Grace Holloway.

Pairing: No romantic pairings, just some father/daughter fluff between Delta and Eleanor.

Warnings: blood consumption (Little Sister stuff y’know); mentions of death and violence.

Notes: Sixth submission for BioFluff Week, with an answer to the specific prompt ‘Pre-Canon’! I put a stupid amount of time and effort into researching what Arcadia looks like for this lmao.

All material belongs to Irrational Games.

Fic also available on AO3.

…

His footsteps making the ground shake, Delta heads towards the vent up ahead, a single-mindedness in his mission to get to it, as there is a pinging sensation in the back of his head that tells him he needs to go and collect his child. It gets stronger and stronger the closer he gets, so he knows this is the one she’s waiting at.

Once he reaches the vent, Delta wastes no time in slamming his fist against it.

Thump. Thump.

He drops his hand and waits.

There’s the tiniest moment where nothing happens, then comes the sound of something moving around inside the vent, the brief clattering of something metallic, then he sees little hands and brown hair and glowing eyes and the syringe waiting for ADAM.

“Good morning, Daddy!” Eleanor exclaims as she pops up, crawling closer until she dangles out of the vent.

Delta doesn’t reply, just slots his hands under her armpits and lifts her out of the circular opening, turning around to deposit her on the cobblestone beside him.

“Why, thank you, Daddy,” Eleanor says with a giggle, curtsying to him once he lets her go. Her yellow-glowing eyes seem to shine all the brighter as she grins and gestures for him to follow. “Let’s go find some friends together, Daddy!”

Delta, as always, obediently follows.

Eleanor starts to lead him through this area of Rapture, hopping down the three steps behind him, onto the grass.

This place is so green and so lively compared to all the other places they’ve been. He has no idea where he is - he recognises areas of the city, but never remembers names - but he’s fairly certain they’ve never been here before.

Eleanor seems fascinated too; as she walks, she looks left and right, at the trees, the shrubs, the vines and the clumps of long grass, letting out a fascinated “Ooooh…” as she goes. She even stops to lift her foot and run her fingers through the blades of grass that had been beneath her, to observe how they try to stand again after she’s just stepped on them, turning back to Delta to point down and exclaim, “Look!”

He’s looking, sweetheart. Fascinating, isn’t it?

“Mama! Mama!”

Delta whips around at the sound of a child shouting; she’s obviously not Eleanor and she’s obviously not calling for him - he is ‘Daddy’ - but something about the fear in the child’s voice makes him look.

There’s a little girl standing in front of the Securis door that has RAPTURE METRO above it, holding the hand of a woman that looks a lot like her and trying to hide behind her skirt. She’s pointing up at the trees.

“What is that?! What is that?!”

Delta watches them as the woman tries to settle the girl; clearly, not everybody finds this place as pretty and fascinating as he and Eleanor do. Accordingly, he turns back to where Eleanor is standing, and watches as she approaches a tree without fear and taps at it with one of her tiny hands, letting out a little awed coo at the feeling of its bark.

That’s his girl - Eleanor’s not afraid of anything, besides when strangers approach her. Heights? Nope. Trees? Nope. Just strangers. His girl is brave like that.

A surge of affection goes through him, and he watches as Eleanor sniffs at the air, then gasps and stops to excitedly gesture to him.

“This way, this way! Hurry!”

She goes scarpering off, Delta watches her go, then he continues to follow, as he’s supposed to.

(“She is yours…to protect, Delta,” the man had said to him, the one that’s been there since he first woke up as he is now. Delta sees him whenever he has to go back to the place where they’d let him meet Eleanor; he has a moustache and he speaks much like Eleanor does. “That is your one, true purpose now: protect her. Keep her safe from…the dangers out there.” He’d smiled. “I’m sure you can…manage that, can’t you? You are, after all…the best we have to offer.”)

Protect her. Keep her safe. He knows his job - and he’s good at it.

Eleanor leads him up some stairs and into another grassy, tree-dotted area, and though Eleanor is less distracted now that she’s finally sniffed out an angel, Delta is still observing the area around him.

There’re people everywhere, usually paired up, chatting and smiling. They get out of Eleanor’s way as soon as they spot her, and they especially scramble to get away when he walks by; he looks at a couple as he passes them, turns at the waist to stare as they watch him with frightened eyes, holding each other like he’ll snatch them if they don’t.

They’re dressed in nice clothes - the man in a blue, pinstriped suit, with a white hat that has a blue band, and the lady in a long pink dress that’s all poofy at the short sleeves, her blonde hair tied back in a low ponytail - and he looks them up and down, wonders if he might be allowed to dress in a suit like the man has. He’s never worn anything that isn’t this thing he has on now, which might as well be his skin.

His attention goes back to Eleanor and he makes sure he is close behind the entire time that Eleanor goes on her merry way, leading him uphill to a door that’s labelled ARCADIA GLENS.

They pass through the flower-patterned screen doors and walk - and then, up ahead, on a wooden walkway, comes the sight of a fresh corpse. Bludgeoned, by the looks of it, but Delta’s never really paid much mind to where the ‘angels’ come from.

Eleanor runs over and points down at it, looking back at Delta with a wide smile.

“Look, Daddy! It’s the angel!”

Eleanor kneels and there comes the squelching sounds of a needle stabbing into flesh, as Delta walks over and stands behind her, keeping guard, on the lookout for any danger to Eleanor’s safety.

Fortunately for everybody involved, nobody comes by, so Eleanor is left unbothered as she collects and drinks down the ADAM.

“Mmm!” She giggles as she rubs her tummy, bouncing on the balls of her feet happily. She takes another sniff at the air, only to look disappointed. “Don’t any angels want to come and play with us?” She sighs sadly, then reaches up to tug on his finger. “Let’s look over this way, Daddy! The angel might be hiding from us after all!”

Sounds good to him; he follows, as he should.

Eleanor escorts him down the walkway, back onto grass as they pass a Gatherer’s Garden; they walk by another clump of people that Delta observes - a group of friends, they seem like, judging by the animated conversation and the laughter and the booze - and only two of them nervously watch Delta as he passes, while the rest ignore him.

The daddy-daughter pair ascend a small flight of stairs onto another wooden walkway, where Eleanor stops to sniff the air. She must not detect another angel because she frowns sadly, looks at the options in which way to go, then chooses to go right, leading Delta down another small flight of stairs and through the doors marked TEA GARDEN.

There’s more lush greenery around them, and Delta becomes distracted by noise coming from his right; he turns at the waist to investigate.

There’re people nearby - in the area with a low ceiling, where there’s no grass and no stone, just dirt, and people are milling around with bags of soil and wheelbarrows and pots. They must work here because unlike the people before, they’re not happily chatting and sharing kisses, but talking animatedly about this going there and that going here, and none of them are wearing nice clothes, just white lab coats over basic shirts and trousers. Uniforms.

Delta watches a blonde-haired woman in a white and green dress appear from around the corner, her voice carrying over the others’s as she barks an order at one of the coat-wearing people about how much a flower needs to grow before they can take it to be planted over in the Rolling Hills, so it doesn’t get trampled on when it’s still just a seedling. She must be in charge around here, because they do as she says without question.

“I shouldn’t have to explain this…” she mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose, then she lifts her head and does a double-take as she spots Delta watching her. She huffs and adds, “Ugh, what is one of those things doing down here? Nobody’s keeping its Little Sister from it, are they? That’d be just what I need right now…”

(They’d better not be.)

She really must be in charge around here, then. Beneath the work-oriented part of his brain - buried deep, deep down, so far that it’s a blip on Delta’s radar - Delta would like to ask her some questions about this place, about the plants.

“Strangers!!”

Delta whips around, then goes charging across the grass, through the archway and under the wooden, bridged walkway, sights set on the screen doors on his right; the doors don’t open quickly enough for his liking and Delta crosses an arm across his chest as he barrels through them.

Pieces of the doors go flying - he hears water splashing, a woman screams nearby, and behind him, the lady in charge shouts an expletive and there’re thuds of footsteps as she and her team come out of their workplace and check what he’s done. The lady starts angrily lamenting that she now has to call Mr. Ryan to send someone to come and fix the doors, but Delta doesn’t pay the damages nor her meaning any mind as he immediately turns to where Eleanor is.

She’s scrambling back as soon as Delta’s made his entrance, away from the couple, who in turn are hurrying to their feet from the pink blanket laid out on the grass, jostling the tea set and the tray of biscuits and scrunching up the fabric. They’re so quick to stumble away from him, they nearly lose their footing, dangerously close to falling down the hill they’re situated on, and instead end up knocking into the table and pair of chairs behind them, and the woman nearly crushes the man’s fedora, which lays on the blanket beside the teapot.

Eleanor hurries behind him to hide as Delta stares down the couple; the man throws his hands up in the air and the lady grasps the man’s bicep as she cowers behind him.

Both look terrified, and the man works through a dry mouth to shout, “We weren’t touchin’ her! She came over to us, okay?! We swear!”

Delta keeps staring; he’s not sure he believes them, but it doesn’t matter. They were near Eleanor, and that simply won’t do.

He holds out a hand, showing them his palm, in a clear message: Stay back. Keep away from her.

The couple are sweating, and the woman shakes her head.

“Forget it, Eddie!” she exclaims. “I don’t wanna stick around with one of those things marching around here!”

She releases the man’s arm and holds up the skirt of her yellow, flower-dotted dress as she runs for it, crossing over the river via the wooden bridge.

“Wha - Cathy, baby, where ya goin’?! Come back!” the man calls as she runs.

They watch as the woman doesn’t even reply or look back, just continues racing along the offered path leading to a pair of more metallic doors that take her away from this scene she finds so terrifying.

The man splutters nonsense, flabbergasted at being abandoned, then he turns back to Delta with a scowl as he says, “Why you -”

Delta steadies his shoulders, sensing that the man might try to start a fight, and the scowl on the man’s face falters, betraying his fear.

“Oh - Just -” His confidence gone, the man turns and runs in the direction his lady love left in. “Cathy, wait! He’ll go away in a sec, just wait!”

The doors at the other end of the room shut behind the man, and the situation has been dealt with.

With that, Delta leans down to Eleanor, setting a hand on her head gently.

Safe now.

Eleanor peeks out at where the pair had been standing, checking for anymore danger, then grins up at Delta.

“You rescued me, Daddy!” she exclaims excitedly, then she hugs his leg, nuzzling her head against his knee.

Delta gives a couple of gentle pats to her head, then straightens up as Eleanor leaves his side.

He expects her to sniff at the air again or tell him they’re going to look for more angels, but instead, she looks toward the abandoned tea set the couple had left behind.

“Oooh!” Eleanor exclaims, padding toward the ceramic cups and saucers and teapot. “Look, Daddy, look!” She laughs happily. “It’s teatime!”

Delta feels a little puzzled. So what? This isn’t what they’re supposed to be doing.

Eleanor kneels down on the blanket, setting aside her syringe. She picks up one of the fallen cups, which drips tea as it’s lifted; evidently, it’d been full when one of the people knocked it over, as its contents has stained the blanket.

Eleanor holds the cup, turning it over to observe the delicately-painted picture of a purple flower. She holds it up to the light, letting out another soft, “Ooooh…” as she continues rotating it to get a good look. She turns around, then places the cup carefully down on its matching saucer, gently, as if the cup will shatter into thousands of pieces. She tilts her head, brushes her hand over the tray of biscuits, then grins and looks up at him.

“Let’s have a tea party, Daddy!” Eleanor says, and Delta is taken aback.

This isn’t what they did in training, back when the man and the other people in lab coats would send them out and speak to him through the radio in his helmet and review the footage they get from the camera on his head. They would just get the ADAM, and any time Eleanor would complain that she was tired or cold, Delta was encouraged to get her back on track.

Eleanor stands up and goes to him, taking hold of his finger and continuing to give him a toothy little grin.

“Will you be a guest at my tea party, Daddy?” she asks innocently. “Please?”

Delta stares down at her.

He’s supposed to say no. He’s supposed to tell her they’re on a job. She has to get ADAM for the man and the others, back at the place they first met in. They said he’s not supposed to allow her to play or to stop until she’s ready to return to her vent, when her belly is full of ADAM-infused blood. It’d been one thing to let her observe the nature around her, but to abandon her syringe entirely? He’s not supposed to allow that.

But even back then, during training, he’d wondered…why? Why isn’t she allowed to do all that? She’s a child, she’s…supposed to play. She’s supposed to take part in this…tea party. Why shouldn’t she?

(“That is your one, true purpose now: protect her. Keep her safe from…the dangers out there.”)

The work-oriented part of his mind fights back against the part of him that just wants Eleanor to smile, and he points toward the doors on the other side of the room, where the couple had left through.

“Nooo!” Eleanor whines, pulling at his finger as if she could drag him over to the tea set. “Daddy, please, I want to play here!”

Delta’s not sure what to do. The man would want him to pull Eleanor away from the tea cups, hand her her syringe and make her walk.

But…he doesn’t want to do that. That would upset her. She might…cry. And the thought of her crying, that hurts more than anything a Splicer has thrown at him. He doesn’t want her to cry, or be sad. And what is the harm in letting her play? He doesn’t get it, nobody would tell him why that was bad. They’d just made him pick her up or pull her away from what was distracting her, told him “Well done,” when he’d managed to get her to focus, but they’d never said…why that was good…

“Please, Daddy…?” Eleanor says.

Delta stares into her glowing eyes -

(“That is your one, true purpose now: protect her. Keep her safe from…the dangers out there.”)

- and he starts to walk toward the tea set, hearing her gasp happily as he lets her tug at his finger.

Because as far as he’s concerned, he is keeping her safe. Maybe not from Splicers, but from sadness, and that sounds like a pretty damn good job to him.

If the man or any of his colleagues are watching through his camera and have an issue with it, they can take it up with Delta when he gets back.

Eleanor releases him and goes running over to the blanket, bouncing excitedly as she watches him come over. She sits down on one corner, tilted slightly due to sitting on the curve of the hill, and crosses her tiny legs, and she’s so small compared to the slightly-crumpled square of pink fabric, he just knows how silly it’s going to look when she inevitably wants him - big as he is - to sit with her.

As if on cue, Eleanor pats the spot across from her. “Sit down with me, Daddy.”

Delta steps over obediently, then gets to one knee and gradually sits himself down, legs spread out before himself, one foot beside Eleanor and the other dangerously close to knocking over the teacup Eleanor had just placed on its saucer.

Eleanor grins so happily, another surge of affection rushes through Delta’s system.

She goes to pick up the teapot when she stops as she looks back to Delta, like she forgot something. She looks around, then spots the man’s abandoned hat - a blue fedora with a purple band - and she gasps and snatches it up from the ground. She stands up and holds it out to him.

“Here you are, Daddy! You have to dress pretty for the tea party!”

Delta takes the hat from her, looks it over, then reaches up and pops it on top of his helmet. It’s probably covering his camera, which will displease the man, but he doesn’t care.

Eleanor giggles, then looks around for something for her to wear. The lady had left nothing behind when she’d fled, so Eleanor is without pearls or any expensive makeup, and neither of them think those pieces of the demolished screen doors floating in the river will cut it as any sort of nice outfit, even if the material and pattern are pretty. Over Delta’s shoulder, however, she spots a vine-like plant growing on the wall and gives a small gasp at the sight of its flowers.

She runs over to snatch one from the vine, takes a moment to run a finger over its wide, pink petals, staring into the face of the flower where the petals become white and lead down to pale-coloured stamen. Once she’s satisfied, she tucks the flower into the collar of her dress and shows off to Delta.

“There,” she says, smiling, “now I look pretty too!”

She rejoins him on the blanket, going to her knees, and uses both hands to pick up the teapot.

She purses her lips and puts on a serious face as she asks, purposely thickening her accent, “Would you like some tea, Mr. Daddy?”

Delta looks down at the teacup near his foot; it’s tiny compared to his boot, and to his hands, and it’s delicate. But he’s got to do his best here, for Eleanor.

He reaches down and carefully takes hold of the cup, using one finger and his thumb to hold the cup around its edges rather than trying to take it by its handle. He lets out a whale-like sound as he holds the cup out to her.

Eleanor leans over and there comes a little clink as the spout of the teapot touches the edge of Delta’s teacup; she tips it and pours a small amount of tea into his cup.

“There you are, Mr. Daddy,” she says in her play-voice. “Enjoy.”

Eleanor pours herself some tea, then sets aside the pot before she picks up her cup - by its handle, since her hands are much better-suited for these little cups.

Delta watches her, then starts to bring his cup closer, enough that he can catch a peek of the hat’s reflection in the tea.

“No, Daddy…!” comes the urgent whisper from beside him.

Delta flinches and looks at her.

“You have to hold the cup like this.”

She thrusts her own cup at him, and he sees the way she holds it with two fingers and her thumb, with her littlest finger sticking up.

“It’s polite this way,” Eleanor says insistently, taking her cup back.

Delta doesn’t get it, but nevertheless he looks back down at his own cup. He’s not sure he can manage that pose, but he’ll try.

He sets the cup back on its saucer, then uses his finger and thumb to carefully take it by its handle. As per Eleanor’s instruction, he extends his pinky finger.

Eleanor giggles.

“Now, we put them together, so they go ‘clink’!” she says excitedly, thrusting her cup back out at him.

Delta carefully brings his cup closer to hers, offering it to her; he doesn’t trust himself to do the clinking, he’s too strong. He’ll probably end up breaking both cups.

Fortunately, Eleanor’s happy either way; she taps her cup against his, and despite the fact the ceramic makes the desired noise all on its own, Eleanor lets out a little “Clink!”

“Drink up now, Daddy,” Eleanor says happily as she brings her own cup closer. She takes a long sip from the cup, then makes a face as she pulls it back from her lips. She forces herself to swallow down the tea, then sticks out her tongue in disgust. “Yuck…”

Delta looks back down at his tea. Without his hand in the way, he now sees the reflection of his whole head, his own porthole staring back at him. He brings his cup closer and tries to sip from it.

The tea splashes down the bottom of his porthole, down the curved front of his helmet; he feels a wet patch develop between his pectorals as his suit absorbs the droplets. He holds the cup away from himself, giving a rumbling hum as though he’s giving an opinion on the drink.

Eleanor giggles again.

“Silly Daddy,” she says, then reaches for the tray of biscuits the couple had left behind. “Ooh, look at these! Mmmm - chocolate chip!” She plucks a cookie from the tray and holds it out for him. “Are you hungry, Daddy? Try it, they’re sooo good!”

He is not hungry (he never is), but nevertheless Delta takes that from her too - as carefully as he can, it’s even more fragile than the cup - and holds it up to look at it…and then he slams it against the bottom of his porthole, where his mouth should be, smushing the cookie against his helmet and reducing it to crumbs and the odd chunk of biscuit and chocolate.

The remains go falling down the front of his suit, pooling in the creases and plummeting to the blanket below.

Eleanor laughs, then fixes him with a loving smile.

“Silly Daddy…!”

…

Silly Daddy…!

The radio in his helmet whirrs to life.

“Kid?” Sinclair says in his ear. “You alright there?”

Delta flinches, coming out of his own memories.

The teacup - cracked, with a chip missing from it - remains laying on its side on the murky floor of the Fishbowl Diner, probably knocked down there from his fight with the Splicers that had arrived as soon as he’d picked up that shotgun.

He lets out a wistful little sigh.

“There you are.” Sinclair lets out a soft titter. “Thought I’d gone an’ lost you to your own private musings. Shake it off, kid - like I said, Gracie doesn’t know what she’s talkin’ about.”

That’s right - Grace had just been accusing him again of turning Eleanor into a Little Sister, and Augustus had been telling him she was wrong. He appreciates Augustus taking the time to reassure him, even if he’s wrong in thinking that was what had given Delta pause.

Delta returns fully to reality then; he’s still got to get to Grace’s place. Get the key, get out of here, get to Eleanor.

Not a little girl anymore, but still his girl - and his girl needs him.

(“That is your one, true purpose now: protect her. Keep her safe from…the dangers out there.”)

Stooping down, Delta gently plucks the cup from the floor by its handle, pinky finger extended, then carefully sets it down on the nearest table, rightside up, as it should be. Then he turns and starts making his way out.

“That’s it,” Sinclair says, even when he can’t possibly understand what’s just been on Delta’s mind, “back on the ol’ dusty trail. No time to stop an’ smell the roses when we’ve got young Eleanor ta get to, huh?”

That’s right. No time at all - he’s got to get to his girl, so he can protect her and keep her safe.

And hopefully, Eleanor won’t have decided she’s too old to have any more tea parties with Daddy.

#My writing #BioShock #BioShock 2 #biofluff #biofluff 2022 #Subject Delta #Eleanor Lamb

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