The son of Aladdin and Jasmine

Chapter 17

Little warning for this chapter:

There are some allusions to Aziz having an eating disorder (or at least starving himself as a form of self punishment) as well as just the general shitty parenting from his parents. There's also Ambr*se, who is a whole warning on his own.

"Hey Aziz, do you want me to bring you breakfast?" Xavier asked, nudging his arm, "Are you even awake?"

"Yeah, I'm up," He mumbled, pushing himself up onto his elbow, "I'm not really hungry through."

"Aziz, you haven't been eating," Xavier said, his eyes and tone laced with concern, "Are you sure you don't want me to bring you anything before classes start?"

"I'm fine, Xavier, promise," Aziz said, "I just haven't been hungry."

He was starving. He didn't think he had eaten much more than the sandwich Jesna had practically needed to force-feed him in the week that they'd been back. He'd like nothing more than to take Xavier up on that offer, but even the thought of eating made him sick.

"You'll eat at lunch, right?" He asked, "You can't just not eat."

He could. He's done it before. Mostly voluntarily, but the asylum had some interesting ways to punish the patients there for acting out. 

He wasn't sure he ever actually acted out, though, he was 8 and was really well-behaved. Maybe the doctor he was assigned just hated him.

"If it'll make you feel better than I will," Aziz told him with a small sigh, "I'll catch up with you later, you go on ahead."

It was a lie, of course. He was hungry and exhausted, despite having just woken up, and the last thing he wanted to do was leave that dorm.

"Alright," Xavier said, though he looked unsure, "I'll see you second period."

"See you then," Aziz mumbled, letting his arms collapse under him as he fell back onto the bed.

There was some shuffling in the room, and eventually he heard the door open and close. As the door clicked shut behind him, Aziz finally brought himself to sit up in bed, taking his phone off the desk. There were more messages from his parents, those were expected, and more missed calls. He was almost grateful for the time difference, his parents had to be asleep by now.

At least that's what he had thought before his phone light up with an incoming call from his mom. Aziz bit the inside of his cheek, glancing at the door before shakily pressing the accept button. 

He knew it probably wasn't the best decision, he didn't want to pick up the phone, but the guilt of just leaving his parents had started to get to him. He didn't want to be a bad son.

"Hey mom," He forced out, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

"Aziz, where the hell have you been?" His mother demanded from the other end, "Do you know how much stress you've caused us?"

"I'm sorry, mom," He mumbled, looking down.

The guilt was already bubbling to the surface, and he could feel tears welling up in his eyes as he listened to his mother. She sounded devastated, like she'd been crying. God, he made his mother cry.

"Oh you're sorry?" His mother snapped, "You're lucky we don't come down there and drag you straight back here."

"You were going to send me away," He whispered, "Back to the hospital-"

"So you ran?" She asked, "You ran away? I've already lost one son, and you expect me to just be ok with losing another?"

"You would have lost me either way," He mumbled, accidentally letting some bitterness into his tone.

"What did you say to me?" His mother snapped.

"Mom, I didn't mean it, I swear," He said quickly, "I wasn't thinking-"

"You never think," His mother snapped, "You've caused so much pain to this family, you should know better."

"I didn't want to be-"

"Sent away?" She finished, "You have a month. We'll give you one month in Auradon then we're coming to get you. You'll be lucky if you're put in the hospital for only six months."

"Mom, please," He said, feeling some tears slipping down his cheeks, "Please don't send me back, I'm sorry I didn't mean to-"

"That's enough, Aziz," His mother snapped, "You're not sorry at all."

Before Aziz could argue, his mother hung up, leaving him back in the silence of his dorm room. He could feel himself crying, and he was vaguely aware of the sobs leaving his mouth, but he could barely hear it over the ringing that had taken over his ears.

He could hear the sound of more texts streaming in as he tried to pull himself back together and stop the tears. Then the calls started. Upon glancing at his phone, he saw that it was his father, most likely trying to rectify what his mother had said. 

He was good at that. Lying to him and trying to lessen the effect of the harsh words,

He declined it almost immediately, grabbing his phone with such a tight grip that he was sure he would have broken it. He held his phone up, ready to throw it at the wall, before another call came in, catching his attention.

Against his better judgment, he picked up.

"What do you want, Ambrose?" He asked, wincing how broken his voice sounded.

"What's wrong Aziz?" He asked, mock sympathy lacing his voice, "You sound awful."

"If you don't get to the point, I'm hanging up on you."

"Fine, fine," He sighed, "You know people are talking about you."

"Thanks to you, when are they not?" He asked.

"They're saying you should go back to the asylum," Ambrose said, ignoring his comment, "That you can't possibly still be sane after being pathetic enough to get kidnapped."

"You think I care?" Aziz asked, slipping off the bed, hissing as he accidentally put too much weight on his injured leg.

"Oh, I know you do," Ambrose hummed, "Your whole tough guy act isn't fooling me."

"Why are you telling me this?" Aziz asked, dreading his answer, "What are you playing at?"

"I can make some of these rumors go away," He hummed, "You'd like that, right? It'll get people off your back."

"I'm not going to sleep with you," Aziz snapped, "I know this game, and I'm not playing it, especially not with you."

"Would you rather it be your sister?"

Aziz could feel his heart pause.

"If you so much as look at her-"

"Mad are we?" He asked, cutting Aziz off, "I knew that'd work."

"Ambrose-"

"I'll come find you later, lynx."

He hung up without another word, and this time Aziz really did throw his phone across the room.