The son of Aladdin and Jasmine

Chapter 37

Car rides were always stressful for him. He could usually manage better if it were just him, but with his parents in the car with him? That was a different issue. No one spoke, that much Aziz had expected. They had gotten him out of the asylum almost three months ago, and none of them had said more than a word to each other at all. The most they had gotten was an apology, but even then, it sounded half-hearted. 

He hadn't expected for them to pull them out early, he'd expected to be there much longer than 5 months, but they hardly made it 2 before they pulled him out. It caught him by surprise and his parents had refused to tell him why they had a sudden change of heart, but he had been nosey and the envelope he had found in his mother's office had really put all of that together.

Though, all things considered, he wasn't complaining all that much about the silence. He was perfectly content trying to keep his shaking to a minimum and fiddling with the hard leather cuff secured tightly around his wrist.

"Aziz," His father said, finally breaking the silence and drawing Aziz's attention away from the window, "Are you sure you're ready to go back to Auradon prep? If you're not, you can come back to Agrabah, and we could just hire a tutor for you."

"Is this you actually giving me a choice?" Aziz asked, his tone rather blank as he tilted his head, "I wasn't aware that I had that right anymore."

"Aziz," His mother warned, raising an eyebrow at him, "Do not speak to your father that way."

"Or what mom? What are you going to do?" He asked, "Lock me up in the asylum again? I'm sure that the doc would love that, huh?"

"Aziz, we didn't know-"

"Oh bullshit, I told you!" Aziz snapped, "So many times, I begged you to believe me, and you refused!"

The car fell silent again after that, Aziz's gaze dropping back to his hands to avoid looking at his parent's guilt stricken faces.

"I want to go back to Auradon," Aziz mumbled, slouching a bit in his seat, "I can handle going back."

Aziz heard some shuffling before something was gently placed in his lap.

"We got your phone fixed for you," His mother said gently, "I was... quite damaged when we took it from you."

Aziz picked it up, observing the now fixed phone screen, the cracks no longer being present.

"Is this your way of apologizing?"

Neither of his parents said anything to that, so Aziz decided not to push that subject any further.

"Does Jesna know you got me out early?" He asked, looking over at them, "Feels like something you should have told her about."

"We did intend to," His father said after a beat of silence, "But it had slipped our minds. We wanted to make sure you were ok before we told her you were back."

"And Jay?" 

"We haven't gotten an opportunity to speak to him yet," His mother told him, "About anything really."

"And even if we had gotten the opportunity to, you are our top priority now, Aziz..." His father started, "And we truly are sorry that we didn't listen to you."

"It's fine. Not many people want to listen to the nut job," Aziz said rather bitterly as he turned his head back towards the window.

The silence stretched on for a good couple of minutes until Jasmine finally spoke again, "We're almost there. We'll take you in, we don't want you to be alone right now."

Aziz made a humming noise in acknowledgment, his hand going back to twisting around the cuff on his arm.