Late night?
Bangur grumbled lightly to himself as he whisked a wet cloth over the top of one of his club's tables. It was late, far past closing for the evening, almost five in the morning. The lights were dimmed, save for the soft neon glow of some of the parlor lights and decorative lights. He'd shut them off before he left. He'd sent the waitresses home early after a particularly rowdy evening of customers, even if it meant he'd have to pick up the slack of making sure the club was clean before he left to finally head home and get some sleep. He didn't mind though, he didn't have to work the next day and it was worth it to spare his coworkers and friends the hassle for a bit longer. Plus, truth be told, he didn't really want to go home anyways. He never really found comfort there, not the same way he did here, in this place with people and lights and the business of having work to do. He didn't hear Gemini come into the main room. Walking in from one of the back rooms near across the club even Bangur's usually on point hearing couldn't pick up her approach until she was beside him. "Hey dad. You still working?" she asked him wistfully.
Despite himself, he jumped a bit. But seeing it was just his daughter he sighed out "Oh. Gemini, you startled me..." he said, reaching to rub his arm across his forehead to try and play off the start that she'd given him. She only offered a smile "Sorry..." she said. "Something on your mind?" she asked as she slid into the seat at the table he'd been cleaning. He looked distracted, she couldn't help but wonder if he was bothered by something. She didn't know him particularly well yet. He offered a weak smile in return "Don't worry about me, what are you still doing here?" he asked her, sitting across from her in the booth he folded his hands on the table in front of him. He was reluctant to admit it even internally but being able to sit was a welcome break. Sure he was fit and kept up with his body well enough, but his age showed in aches and sores he preferred to pretend weren't there. Gemini shrugged at his question "I was doing some work in the back. You work too much, I wanted to help..." she twiddled her thumbs mindlessly in front of herself.
Bangur frowned "You don't need to help me..." he said. His daughter was long estranged through her childhood...since they'd reunited as she'd become an adult, and his employee. Clearly he'd said the wrong thing, because her brows furrowed in annoyance. His frown deepened as she snipped at him with some impatience "What if I want to? When does work stop?" she asked "You brought me here so we could...I don't know. Get to know each other....make up for lost time..so I could have a real dad. But you never stop working. Mom said that's why she left you in the first place. You don't get to say you've changed, when all you've done is traded one vice, one 'job' for another..." she said. Even if the comment was accusatory it was clear it was something that had been on her mind for some time. Bangur's eyes widened as his eyebrows raised at the inquiry. He leaned back in his chair with a soft groan. He'd known this talk would come....sooner or later.
"...Work stops whenever you want it to stop." he said. Trying to give the most simple answer, in a last ditch effort to avoid this conversation. She didn't seem pleased, and the scowl of disappointment on her face told him he better keep talking. He sighed as he leaned forward again, looking down at his hands instead of his daughter in front of him. "You're an adult now. You deserve to know the truth..." he said "Back when you were young, I was a criminal. I hurt a lot of people." he said. "..Not new information...but you should hear it from me" he was certain his ex-partner had told her of his sorted past. "But the fact of it was, back then, I couldn't go home. Because leaving behind the kind of job that I had just...wasn't possible. That wasn't something you... take off at the door and set aside. Bad people follow you. So instead, I worked too much. I got deeper and deeper in a hole I'd dug myself, hoping that eventually something would break. That I would magically have some sort of idea where I could do what I was doing...and have my family, and my happiness too. I kept telling myself I'd sacrifice one....to focus on the other, and that somehow the other would always be there for me. I was naiive. I believed too much in blind love...and" he let out a scoff "...Things working out in the end. But they don't. I was barely my own person...let alone a parent. And for that I'm sorry..." he said to her. "You deserved more than that..." he assured in addendum that he understood that.
"...So ultimately I'm glad your mother left. She was more than right to divorce me." he said "And I won't ever argue that. I wasn't a good man. And eventually...those things I feared caught up with me. My life as a criminal came to a halt...and when there was no one left-I think that part of me died that day." he said, earnestly, rubbing his thumb against one of his palms. He couldn't look at her as he tried to somehow explain something even he found unjustifiable. It wouldn't make up for his choices....only offer her closure. He owed her that. "...And I started the long and lonely route to becoming who I am now." he said.
"A man who works too much, because 'home' feels hollow, and I'm scared to go back and find that there's still no one on the other side of the door. A man who's too much of a coward to face the very chisel that shattered him, the very thing I feared the most that stares back at me from those empty walls and silent rooms, every day." he said. "So I work... I work until I'm too tired to think of it, and in the process..." he laughed a bit at his own expense "You're right... I do the same damn thing I always did. I run. I run from the thought that I'm just as alone and dangerous to those around me that I've always been. The only difference is that this time there's no one chasing me" he said.
Gemini listened to his words in silence, thinking on them with quiet regard she waited for him to finish and fall to a pensive silence before she spoke up "You're not." she said. He glanced up to meet her gaze sheepishly, "You're not the same person you were. You're not a coward." she said. "I won't pretend...that I'm not hurt by it all, that I...didn't grow up doubting my father cared about me...that my mother didn't put words of the boogie-man in my ears about all the things you'd done... but" she offered a light shrug "I don't think the same man who left us to beat up thugs in an alleyway would have ever admitted he was a coward." she said. "I think.." she sighed "You're a little lost, and scared...But" she considered, smiling lightly in encouragement "Maybe we can fix that...together." she said. "You don't want to go home alone? Maybe we can hang out there sometimes,we can make some nice memories...board games or family dinner or even invite some of the waiters for a game night or something." she suggested.
"It might not make the past go away, but you said it yourself...you were barely your own person and you never stop growing as one, I think." she said. "I might not know all the answers...but I want to be able to figure them out together. That's the most important part of having a dad for me...you don't have to be perfect or know all the answers. I'm not a child who needs to be raised." she said. "I'm an adult...who wants the chance for guidance, guidance that goes both ways. And sure, maybe most of the time it's as my boss..." she rolled her eyes a bit "But I've appreciated it all nonetheless..." she said.
Bangur couldn't help but smile at his daughter's words. Only nodding to her. He was trying not to tear up-he was too proud of her not to. She'd grown into a young woman who could very much teach him plenty, and showed that to him at every opportunity. She wasn't the tiny cub he remembered pulling on his pants leg and asking to get carted around. "Yes..." he said "That would make me happy.." he continued.
"I'd love to have a home again."