Stiles Stilinski-Gilbert

Chapter 24

When Stiles wakes up, he feels annoyed. Annoyed with himself for starting this stupid run at the ass crack of dawn routine. All he wants to do is close his eyes and sleep. Pretend that the world doesn't exist for a few more hours.

Unfortunately, of him, when he wakes up, he truly can't get himself to go back to sleep again and seeing as he's up he might as well run. He hates his brain.

He gets up from his bed and heads towards where he has placed his running gear before putting it on and heading down the stairs and out the front door. Stiles walks down the driveway and gets to the pavement, at which point he stretches.

One of the worse things in the world is pulled muscles, he thinks.

Once completed he sets off for his morning run. He evens out his breath, finds his pacing and allows the thump, thump, thump of his feet hitting the pavement to ground him as he allows his mind to go quiet. Stiles has gotten a lot better at this the longer he's done it. He can find the warm glow behind his ribs easier now.

He reaches out for his magic like he always does and like it always does, it hides from him. Backs away into the corner. Refuses to let him touch, to let him embrace the magic. But he remembers his discovery and thinks about it. He hasn't really been aiming to embrace the magic, don't get him wrong he has been willing to embrace but being willing to do something and actually doing it are two very different things.

So, Stiles stops reaching out to his magic, but he doesn't wait for it to come to him either. He knows from experience that, that doesn't work. He imagines it, instead. He imagines the magic coming to him, he imagines it embracing him as he embraces it and then...then he believes. He believes that his life will be better with the magic, that he will be able to do many great things with his magic. That he will be able to keep those he loves safe and protected. He believes in the magic.

And just like that the magic comes rushing at him. Hitting him so hard that Stiles has to stop running and try to get his balance back. He feels warm and as he looks down at his hands, he could swear that he's glowing. Stiles does his best to breathe through the sudden...everything before he starts running again.

The joy he feels that it finally worked is great, but he knows it's not over yet. Now he has to figure out what it is exactly that he can do. Maybe he should borrow Bonnie's grimoire and try out a couple of spells.

He knows now that belief is a large part of what makes his magic work, but he isn't sure what his exact limits are. He knows that when he gives orders to vampires, the younger they are the more his commands affect them. He knows that he can also command witches, but he needs to put a lot more force in his words. Theoretically he should be able to command werewolves, but he has no idea if they will be easier to command of harder.

He should start small with what he believes will happen, he thinks. What did Bonnie start with when learning...? A candle? He thinks it was a candle. Okay so he will borrow one of Jenna's candles and believe that he can set the wick alight. Easy.

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Turns out it's not as easy as it looks. Stiles ended up setting a bunch of papers on fire as well at the wick of the candle. He's lucky that he didn't set of the fire alarms, but he was quickly able to extinguish the fire. With water not with his mind, he was too freaked out to even think about trying to extinguish the flames with his mind.

Apparently one of the problems with having embraced his magic is that he embraced all of it and is now unsure how exactly to get it to dial back a little. So, the first step is to still set a candle alight but this time to make sure to only set the candle alight. He will be practicing doing magic outside from now on...just to be safe.