#Mr Ketch | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

holylulusworld · 2 months

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Summary: Broken hearts are hard to put back together. 8 years ago, Dean lost something he didn’t even know he had in the first place. Will he get a second chance?

Pairing: former AU!Dean Winchester x fem!Reader; Arthur Ketch x fem!Reader

Warnings: angst, language, implied break-up, time jumps, strong reader

A/N: This was an alternative idea for the first chapter of my Bucky story: Monster-in-law masterlist. I decided to use it for a story with Dean.

Time is a funny thing. One moment you look at old pictures of the love you lost to reminisce, and the next moment, the life you knew is long gone.

A heartbeat later eight years are gone, and you are sitting in an airplane leading back to your old life.

You take a deep breath, and exhale sharply, feeling Ketch’s eyes on you.

“Y/N, if only you told me about this earlier. I would’ve asked someone else to come with me. I should’ve known better than to ask you to face the man breaking your heart.” Ketch became our closest friend over the amount of eight years. He’s your son’s godfather and the big brother you never had. “Are you sure this is okay?”

“I’ve got this, Arthur,” you glance at your laptop to check on the timetable for the meeting with Winchester & Singer Inc. once again. “I’m not the girl he left.”

Arthur sighs deeply but ignores the anxiety clawing at his chest. The last thing he wanted was to force you to face your past. “If you want to stay at the hotel, I can go to the meeting and tell them you got sick.”

“Your designer didn’t get sick. This is my project and won’t stay away from the meeting only because there is a slight possibility that I will run into that man!”

He gives up but worriedly watches you squirm in your seat. You still hate flying but try to put a brave face on. You’re fierce and strong-headed. Only one of the many things he likes about you.

“If you want me to, I’ll break his face after we sealed the deal,” Ketch casually says. “I’m not scared of getting my hands dirty.”

“No,” you grab his hand and squeeze it. “He’s not worth it, Arthur. After all these years I know Dean never felt anything for me. Even his brother tried to contact me years ago. I wasn’t very nice to Sam, but it had to be done.”

A split second can change your life. Dean never believed in fate or karma. But when you step inside the conference room, another man by your side, he’s suddenly a believer.

You take his breath away. Even if you aged, you did it with grace and grew even more beautiful. You carry yourself like no other woman, and he can barely keep himself from pouncing on you.

“Y/N?” Sam is the one rising from his seat first. He does what Dean wants to do. Sam wraps you in a hug, ignoring the man next to you. “It’s really you, Y/N. How have you been?”

“I’m good,” you pat his back, unsure how to react to Sam’s friendliness. “I hope you have been good too.”

Sam finally releases you. He apologizes for not greeting Ketch and shakes your boss’s hand. “Welcome, Mr. Ketch. We are glad you are willing to meet up with us.”

“My pleasure,” Ketch curtly replies. He shakes Sam’s hand while you look around the room. Dean’s eyes meet yours, but you act like he’s one of the people in the room you do not know. He’s only someone you used to know now.

“Daddy, daddy," you freeze when a little boy storms into the conference room. For a moment you watch Dean's reaction. His eyes are trained on you as his brother picks the boy up.

“And who is this young man,” your features soften for a moment, and you look at the boy in Sam’s arms. You blink and put a straight face on. Showing weakness is not in your plans. If this gets too intense you can cry in your hotel room, but not in front of Dean. Never in front of him.

"Y/N, this is Samuel, my son," you nod, turning your attention back toward Ketch, and the papers on the conference table.

Dean took the chance and stepped toward you and Ketch. He greeted your boss, and now he’s staring at you, eyes sparkling as you try to ignore his existence.

"Don't you want to greet Sam's son," Dean wonders but you remain stoic. "Y/N?” He questions. You loved kids, and always played with the children of your friends. Now you ignore the cute boy right in front of you. “What’s wrong with you?”

"I'm not into kids, Dean. What shall I do? Faint?" you huff and sit down, claiming the next best seat at the conference table. You unlock your phone and try to ignore Dean is standing right next to you.

"This isn't you, Y/N," you whip your head toward Dean, face still stoic. “Where is the quirky and lovely girl? Where is the girl who wanted kids and love?"

"Well," you slowly get back up to glare at Dean, a cold smile on your lips, "this is me after you." He inhales sharply, taken aback by your words. "Designed by pain, betrayal, and broken trust. Don't you like your creation?"

His jaw goes slack, and he flinches at your words. Dean doesn’t find his voice, and he swallows thickly.

You don’t wait for his reply. Instead of waiting for him to tell you that you are in the wrong, you sit back down and focus on your job. You’re here to sign the deal of the century, not to entertain Dean Winchester.

Dean can’t believe you have changed so much. Yes, eight years have passed, and he didn’t see you since he fucked things up. Still, you are so different from the girl he loved.

You’re not quirky and bubbly any longer. Maybe you told him the truth. Your new you got designed by pain. The pain he caused so many years ago.

“Did you listen,” John hisses at his eldest son. He clears his throat and tries to pull Dean’s attention toward business and away from you. “I know she’s still a hot piece of ass but get your shit together. You can dick down some bitch later.”

You wrinkle your nose. John is not very subtle. He whispered his insults, but you heard every word. Some things never change. John Winchester is still disgusting and sleazy.

“Shall we come to an end then,” Bobby Singer raises his voice. “I think we are all tired of talking about details. We should sign the papers and have a drink.”

You smirk. Bobby Singer owns a special place in your heart. Not only because he was the one getting you the job in London, but for having your back for years.

He covered your traces and made sure no one was able to find you. Not even Sam Winchester who tried anything to get in touch with you.

A single phone call was all it took to make him stop. You told him that you were about to marry and that you never loved his brother.

“Y/N, wait,” Dean puts his hand on your shoulder before you get the chance to follow Ketch out of the conference room. Your boss is engrossed in a conversation with Bobby and doesn’t see your face fall. “Can we at least talk? It’s good to see you.”

“Why?” You swat his hand off your shoulder but turn around to face him. “You didn’t want to talk after you embarrassed me in front of your family. I gave you a choice Dean. I left a note, almost begging you to not let me down.”

“You didn’t leave a note. All I found was the engagement ring!” He gets louder. “After all these years you lie to me?”

“I left a note on the bed and placed the ring on top of the note. You didn’t call or come around. That’s all I needed to know. You wanted your ex, and I had to take care of…whatever.” You shrug and turn back around. “Who cares about the past? You had your reasons for not trying to fix things between us.”

“There was no note,” Dean says, a little confused about your behavior. “I swear there was no note. You must remember wrong.”

“I remember every single word I wrote, with tears in my eyes and trembling fingers,” you bitterly reply. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t you think?”

And just like that, you grab your bag and leave the room. Dean watches you leave, just like that night.

“She didn’t leave a note,” he crosses his arms over his chest. Dean tries to recall that night. He remembers brushing Lisa’s advances off. He walked upstairs to apologize, and for make-up sex, only to find the room empty. “There was no note.” He shakes his head, remembering that the ring was lying on the bed, but no note.

“What’s wrong? Why did you let her go again?” Sam asks. “Dean?” He places his hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“Y/N said she left a note, but there was none, Sammy. I swear there was no note, only the ring,” Dean shakes his head. “I don’t know why she’s lying.”

“What if she doesn’t lie, Dean,” Sam wonders. “Why should she lie about leaving a note? It’s been eight years, and she won’t get anything out of it if she lies.”

“You’re right.”

“So, who had the chance to sneak inside your shared room? Why would anyone take the note and leave the ring on the bed?” Sam wrinkles his forehead. “Let’s recall that night, Dean. What do you remember? Who went upstairs before you? Did you see anyone?”

Dean huffs. ”Mom went upstairs because Dad spilled his drink over her dress. I can’t remember seeing anyone else walking upstairs. I wasn’t sober that night, though.”

“Mother went upstairs,” Sam frowns deeply. He knows that Mary invited Lisa to the party. “That makes sense.”

“What?” Dean grunts. “Nothing makes sense anymore, Sammy. What was right is wrong and…” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s been eight years.”

“I didn’t take you for a quitter,” Sam taunts. “Why did you never marry, or have a relationship lasting longer than a week since Y/N is gone? You have been waiting for her all those years, and now you want to let her slip through your fingers again?”

“No…but…no…” Dean sighs deeply. “Y/N hates me, and I can’t blame her for it, Sammy.”

“Well then, let’s talk to mother. She has a lot to explain...”

Tags in reblog.

#dean winchester #dean x reader #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x you #business au #Designed by pain (2)

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burningvelvet · 10 months

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Every Instance of Lord Byron Hating On John Keats, Listed in Chronological Order.

“No more Keats I entreat — flay him alive. If some of you don’t I must skin him myself.”

To his publisher John Murray, 12 October 1820:

“‘I’m thankful for your books dear Murray / But why not send Scott’s Monastery?’ the only book in four living volumes I would give a baioccho to see, abating the rest of the same author, and an occasional Edinburgh & Quarterly – as brief Chroniclers of the times. — Instead of this – here are John Keats’s piss a bed poetry – and three novels by God knows whom [..] Pray send me no more poetry but what is rare and decidedly good. — There is such a trash of Keats and the like upon my tables – that I am ashamed to look at them. [..] – I am in a very fierce humour at not having Scott’s Monastery. – You are too liberal in quantity and somewhat careless of the quality of your missives. – [..] No more Keats I entreat – – – flay him alive – if some of you don’t I must skin him myself. There is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the Mankin. – – – – – [editor’s note: ‘dashes degenerate into scrawl’]”

To his publisher John Murray, 4 November 1820:

“They Support Pope I see in the Quarterly. [Let them] Continue to do so – it is a Sin & a Shame and a damnation – to think that Pope!! should require it – but he does. – – – Those miserable mountebanks of the day – the poets – disgrace themselves – and deny God – in running down Pope – the most faultless of Poets, and almost of men – – the Edinburgh praises Jack Keats or Ketch or whatever his names are; – why his is the Onanism of Poetry — something like the Pleasure an Italian fiddler extracted out of being suspended daily by a Street Walker in Drury Lane – this went on for some weeks – at last the Girl – went to get a pint of Gin – met another, chatted too long – and Cornelli was hanged outright before she returned. Such like is the trash they praise – and such will be the end of the outstretched poesy of this miserable Self-polluter of the human Mind [editor’s note: ‘untranscribable scrawl’]. W. Scott’s Monastery just arrived — many thanks for that Grand Desideratun of the last Six Months.”

Note: “onanism” refers to masturbation.

To his publisher John Murray, 9 November 1820:

“Mr. Keats whose poetry you enquire after — appears to me what I have already said; such writing is a sort of mental masturbation — he is always frigging his Imagination. I don’t mean that he is indecent, but viciously soliciting his own ideas into a state which is neither poetry nor any thing else but a Bedlam vision produced by raw pork and opium.”

Note: “frigging” was slang for masturbation.

To his publisher John Murray, 18 November 1820:

“P.S. — Of the praises of that little dirty blackguard Keates in the Edinburgh — I shall observe as Johnson did when Sheridan the actor got a pension. ‘What has he got a pension? then it is time that I should give up mine!’ — Nobody could be prouder of the praises of the Edinburgh than I was — or more alive to their censure — as I showed in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers — at present all the men they have ever praised are degraded by that insane article. — Why don't they review & praise ‘Solomon's Guide to Health’ it is better sense — and as much poetry as Johnny Keates.”

To his publisher John Murray 26 April 1821:

“Is it true – what Shelley writes me that poor John Keats died at Rome of the Quarterly Review? I am very sorry for it – though I think he took the wrong line as a poet – and was spoilt by Cockneyfying and Surburbing – and versifying Tooke’s Pantheon and Lempriere’s Dictionary. I know by experience that a savage review is Hemlock to a sucking author – and the one on me – (which produced the English Bards &c.) knocked me down – but I got up again. Instead of bursting a blood-vessel – I drank three bottles of Claret – and began an answer – finding that there was nothing in the Article for which I could lawfully knock Jeffrey on the head in an honourable way. However I would not be the person who wrote the homicidal article – for all the honour & glory in the World, – though I by no means approve of that School of Scribbling – which it treats upon.”

To Percy Shelley, 26 April 1821:

“I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats — is it actually true? I did not think criticism had been so killing. Though I differ from you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor all unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the highest peak of Parnassus than have perished in such a manner. Poor fellow! though with such inordinate self-love he would probably have not been very happy. I read the review of ‘Endymion’ in the Quarterly. It was severe, — but surely not so severe as many reviews in that and other journals upon others.

I recollect the effect on me of the Edinburgh on my first poem; it was rage, and resistance, and redress — but not despondency nor despair. I grant that those are not amiable feelings; but, in this world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing, a man should calculate upon his powers of resistance before he goes into the arena. ‘Expect not life from pain nor danger free, Nor deem the doom of man reversed for thee.’

You know my opinion of that second-hand school of poetry. You also know my high opinion of your own poetry, — because it is of no school. [..] I have published a pamphlet on the Pope controversy, which you will not like. Had I known that Keats was dead — or that he was alive and so sensitive — I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry, to which I was provoked by his attack upon Pope, and my disapprobation of his own style of writing.”

To Percy Shelley, 30 July 1821:

[First page missing] “The impression of Hyperion upon my mind was – that it was the best of his works. Who is to be his editor? It is strange that Southey who attacks the reviewers so sharply in his Kirk White – calling theirs ‘the ungentle craft’ – should be perhaps the killer of Keats. Kirke White was nearly extinguished in the same way – by a paragraph or two in ‘the Monthly’ – Such inordinate sense of censure is surely incompatible with great exertion – have not all known writers been the subject thereof?”

To his publisher John Murray 30 July 1821:

“Are you aware that Shelley has written an Elegy on Keats, and accuses the Quarterly of killing him?

‘Who killed John Keats? / ‘I,’ says the Quarterly, / So savage and Tartarly; / ‘Twas one of my feats.’ / Who shot the arrow? / ‘The poet-priest Milman / (So ready to kill man), / Or Southey or Barrow.’’

You know very well that I did not approve of Keats’s poetry, or principles of poetry, or of his abuse of Pope; but, as he is dead, omit all that is said about him in any M.S.S. of mine, or publication. His Hyperion is a fine monument, and will keep his name. I do not envy the man who wrote the article; — you Review people have no more right to kill than any other footpads. However, he who would die of an article in a Review would probably have died of something else equally trivial. The same thing nearly happened to Kirke White, who died afterwards of a consumption.”

4 August 1821, to his publisher John Murray:

“You must however omit the whole of the observations against the Suburban School – they are meant against Keats and I cannot war with the dead – particularly those already killed by Criticism. Recollect to omit all that portion in any case.”

To his publisher John Murray, 7 August 1821:

“All the part about the Suburb School must be omitted – as it referred to poor Keats now slain by the Quarterly Review — [..] I have just been turning over the homicide review of J. Keats. – It is harsh certainly and contemptuous but not more so than what I recollect of the Edinburgh R. of ‘the Hours of Idleness’ in 1808. The Reviewer allows him ‘a degree of talent which deserves to be put in the right way’ ‘rays of fancy’ ‘gleams of Genius’ and ‘powers of language’. – It is harder on L. Hunt than upon Keats & professes fairly to review only one book of his poem. – Altogether – though very provoking it was hardly so bitter as to kill unless there was a morbid feeling previously in his system.”

To Thomas Moore, August 27th 1822:

“It was not a Bible that was found in Shelley's pocket, but John Keats's poems.”

From his poem Don Juan Canto Eleventh written October 1822 and published August 1823. He was going off the popular gossip shared to him by Shelley (who believed it), which was that Keats health had sharply declined due to receiving bad reviews:

“John Keats, who was killed off by one critique, / Just as he really promised something great, / If not intelligible, without Greek / Contrived to talk about the Gods of late, / Much as they might have been supposed to speak. / Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate; / ‘Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, / Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.”

To his publisher John Murray, 25 December 1822:

“As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion, between Leigh Hunt and me, there is little or none. We meet rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled and able man, and must do as I would be done by. I do not know what world he has lived in – but I have lived in three or four – and none of them like his Keats and Kangaroo terra incognita – Alas! poor Shelley! – how he would have laughed – had he lived, and how we used to laugh now & then – at various things – which are grave in the Suburbs. You are all mistaken about Shelley – – you do not know – how mild – how tolerant – how good he was in Society – and as perfect a Gentleman as ever crossed a drawing room; – when he liked – & where he liked. – – – – –“

The excerpts above are taken primarily from Peter Cochran’s transcriptions.

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