Title: Take Me For What I Am: Ring
Rating: G
Summary: Two fans of the Supernatural series.
Pairings: None.
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 39

MJ's phone rings. "I found this great place for the con," Becky says. "It's this hotel with a ghost story, and I thought we could LARP a hunt!"

"Tell me about the ghost," MJ says.

"Her name's Leticia Gore..."

Title: CLW 19
Rating: G
Summary: Madison loves her job. Both of them. Really. For purimgifts.
Pairings: None.
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 380

Madison loves her job. Both of them. Really.

"Here's the scenario," Madison says. "Dalton, Peters, and Latham have formed a limited partnership in Alabama under the RULPA. Latham is the limited partner. The partnership's written agreement neglects to discuss sharing of profits and losses, nor does it mention withdrawal of a general partner. The three contributed a total of a hundred thousand dollars to the partnership, forty from Dalton, thirty-five from Peters, twenty-five from Latham. Everyone got it?"

Several nods and a couple yeahs.

"First question. The limited partnership certificate was filed but has a typo such that the last date for the partnership to dissolve is a century later than intended. How does this affect the partnership?"

Dead silence. Madison is getting used to dead silence.

"It doesn't, really," Valerie finally says. "Unless they meant to dissolve the partnership on the original date, in which case they could still all agree in writing to dissolve the partnership."

"Very good," Madison says. "Next question. Which of the listed activities are permissible for Latham?"

Silence again.

"Decorating the partnership offices with the contract," Emily says. "Because Latham's a contractor for the partnership and limited partners are allowed to be contractors for the partnership."

"Yes. Next one."

Silence.

"Guaranteeing the loan to the partnership," Valerie says.

"Yes, because limited partners are allowed to be guarantors of partnership obligations. Next one."

"Everything on the list," Shaniqua says, flipping through her book. "Except maybe leasing a new office for the business. But I think that one too."

"Cheater," Madison jokes. Shaniqua laughs. "Okay, next question. The partnership made two hundred thousand dollars in profits this year. How will they be divided among the partners?"

Every Thursday night, it's the same thing. Not a single person in Madison's commercial law class is willing to let less than a minute go by between Madison asking a question and somebody providing the answer. Madison wants to get through the material and go home early as much as any of the students do.

Madison does what she does not because teaching is fun, not because fetching her boss's coffee is enjoyable in any way, shape, or form. Because she loves corporate law. And she really loves her job.

Okay, mostly she loves that they pay her.

Title: Sophisticated Lady
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jo loves research. For purimgifts.
Pairings: None.
Warnings: Mentioned character death.
Word Count: 310

Jo dives into research with a will. The victims are Natalie Sperling, Adrienne Munson, and Annette Winkle; female, white, twenties or thirties, died in house fires that pinged Ash's radar, all have Ns in both first and last name; what else do they have in common? Or are they unrelated, mundane incidents?

The case should be a straightforward one, Jo thinks, more so if she could leave the Roadhouse to investigate in person. Which would be doable if any of the cases were in Nebraska. Arizona, California, New Jersey, all far too far for Jo to get there and back within a day. Or, well, airports, but she doesn't dare bring weapons in one, and she won't go anywhere naked.

Googling Natalie pulls up hits on Facebook from Alabama, California, and Pennsylvania; the Natalie Jo wants is in Arizona. There's a much older Annette Winkle in Ohio, which also isn't helpful, but with Adrienne Jo hits paydirt: a resume with Adrienne's California address on a job-search site. Adrienne was looking for work as a medical transcriptionist, work from home sort of deal, after several years as a medical laboratory scientist. So what changed in Adrienne's life to make her want to work from home?

Jo hits up the Fontana Herald News, and six months before the date of Adrienne's death is a birth announcement. Adrienne Munson and Lashanda Pierce welcome their new daughter Dayo.

Jo checks, and six months before Natalie died there's a birth announcement for Kimberly Sperling. Six months before Annette's death, she welcomed a bundle of joy named Damian.

There's the connection, then. Fire, and infants. Jo starts looking into fire elementals that eat babies.

"I know someone who's been chasing that hunt for twenty years," Mom says when she finds out. "You'll never find it."

Twenty years, huh? That just gives Jo a new avenue of investigation.

Title: Hamsa
Rating: G
Summary: Rufus wears a Hand of Miriam pendant. For purimgifts.
Pairings: None.
Warnings: Referenced character death.
Word Count: 300

Rufus wears a Hand of Miriam pendant. It used to be Marianne's. Rufus gave it to her at her bat mitzvah, explaining the symbolism: five fingers for the five books of the Torah, five fingers for the five senses used to praise G-d, and an eye in the center to ward off the evil eye.

Rufus used to wear a kimiyah, with the names of the three greater archangels, Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, and the seven lesser archangels, Sariel, Raguel, Remiel, Zadkiel, Jophiel, Haniel, and Chamuel, written on parchment and tucked inside the leather pouch worn on the same chain as the Hand of Miriam. After hearing about the angels' involvement in the Apocalypse, after hearing that the extinctions in Key West that he told Bobby about were angel-driven, Rufus doesn't wear the kimiyah anymore.

2559 Maple Street in Canaan, Vermont has a mezuzah on the right side of the door frame. People tend not to notice, because that's the side of the door the hinges are on.

Rufus doesn't wear a tefillah on his forehead, because that's too obvious a marker of Judaism and because there's too much of a chance it'll get in his eyes. He does wear one on his arm, for with a strong hand did the Lord bring him out of Egypt. His are square and flat, not cubical, and worn under the sleeve, again because it's hard enough looking black without also looking like a Jew.

Rufus never goes anywhere where ritual cleanliness or lack thereof is relevant, if he can possibly avoid it. He's a hunter. Dealing with dead bodies is what he does. He kills them, he digs them up, he burns them, he sits shiva for them. No amount of ritual purification will wash him clean.

Rufus isn’t religious. He's just prudent.

Title: Yellow
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Azazil is an evil vizier if anyone is. For purimgifts.
Pairings: None.
Warnings: Character death.
Word Count: 330

On January twentieth, 1973, Mae Macfarlane traded an unnamed price to a yellow-eyed man in exchange for some way of lifting herself and her baby Dora out of poverty. On January twenty-second, 1973, James Hauser Jr, owner of an established and prosperous town business, proposed marriage to Mae. On January twentieth, 1983, Dora became big sister to James Hauser III. On July twenty-first, 1983, Dora noticed smelly yellow powder on the floor by Jamie's crib.

On June thirtieth, 1973, Holly Beckett, then eight, traded an unnamed price to a yellow-eyed man in exchange for getting her mother and herself away from her mother's boyfriend Jack. On July first, 1973, Jack was murdered, brutally. Holly had nightmares the rest of her life. On June thirtieth, 1983, Holly gave birth to twin boys, placed immediately for adoption, because Holly knew damn well Mom had only been sleeping with Jack because Jack made good money, better than a high-school dropout with a little girl to think of could ever hope to make. The babies, named Andrew and Ansem by their respective adoptive families, grew healthy and happy. On December thirtieth, 1983, Joanna Gallagher woke when someone entered the room where she and her husband and son were sleeping, and that same night, Ansem's adoptive mother Marcia had a nightmare about a man with yellow eyes.

On October eighteenth, 1973, Emily Macon traded an unnamed price to a yellow-eyed man in exchange for a good job, one that wouldn't fire her for the constant distraction she couldn't help displaying. On October nineteenth, one of the resumes Emily had sent out crossed the desk of a man who recognized the Macon name and didn't mind giving the daughter of his good buddy Joe a job. Later, Emily married and had a daughter, Megan, and on October eighteenth, 1983, Emily had another daughter, Kimberly. On April nineteenth, 1983, Emily went looking for the Easter egg she'd obviously hidden for Megan in the girls' room and forgotten about.

Title: Gardening
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Dietitians and gardeners focus on the health of the organism. For purimgifts.
Pairings: Jess/Sam, Jess/OFC
Warnings: Referenced non-con.
Word Count: 320

Jess is majoring in biology because Stanford doesn't have a pre-med major, though she does belong to the Stanford Premedical Association. She wants to be a doctor because she wants to save people. She never could tolerate blood; that's all right, there are plenty of ways to be a doctor that don't require being a surgeon.

Biochem is fascinating, in particular the ways it translates to nutrition. Jess is vegetarian and thinking about becoming vegan, and she can be absorbed for hours in descriptions of what exactly methionine does in the body and what foods contain it. Also intriguing are food allergies: it's possible to be allergic to enough legumes at once that it's physiologically impossible to be a vegetarian. Dietitian, then, that's Jess's career goal.

Or gardener, perhaps. Jess has always been a city girl, so the ability to grow flowers, herbs, lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, anything that fits in a pot, is a skill she's delighted to discover she has; there were never plants when Jess was growing up, because neither of her parents could keep them alive worth a damn. When Jess and Sam buy a house, she wants it to be somewhere Jess can have a big garden. Failing that, there's square foot gardening.

It's weird, what happened with Jess and Sam. Jess spent years thinking she was a lesbian, until Brady introduced her to Sam and she fell head over four-inch heels. She's actually bisexual, she supposes, but it's still odd that Sam is the only man she's ever felt attracted to. Jess loves making love to Sam, but she remembers loving sex with Amy better.

Amy is a part of Jess's life that Jess has had to prune away, the way she pinches off the shoots that spring up between leaf and stem of her tomato plant, for the health of the organism. Dietitians and gardeners focus on the health of the organism.