Fanfic / Maybe Sprout Wings

Maybe Sprout Wings by Casually Neurotic, edited by Hesitate Disintegrate, is a Supernatural fic that imagines an A/B/O universe in which no supernatural creatures exist but a human Castiel rescues Dean from sexual slavery and nurses him back to health. The author takes many of the supernatural tropes from the show and grounds them in realism, especially the concept that Dean spends years being tortured in Hell in order to save his brother Sam. Prior to being rescued by Castiel, Dean was owned by a brothel called Hell and has been viciously abused by its proprietor Alastair. Castiel is estranged from his family of wealthy slavers, which includes Michael and Lucifer while Dean wishes to reunite with his brother, Sam, who is a Stanford-educated anti-slavery lawyer. Fan-favorite characters Bobby, Pamela, Benny, Jody, Claire, Kevin, Charlie, Gadreel, Crowley, Meg and especially Balthazar play supporting roles in the story.

Maybe Sprout Wings is ongoing as of September 2022, with 76 Chapters and over 532,000 words. Additionally, the author has written a prequel story about Balthazar's escape from slavery called Heretic Pride (notable for being over 150,000 words of intensely dramatic Omegaverse without any Ship in sight^note Castiel and Balthazar have no sexual or romantic interest in each other) and several other in-universe stories. Maybe Sprout Wings has also inspired a number of fanfics of its own, which Casually Neurotic has enthusiastically encouraged, including for all the love I found in you by Naomi Leyers and Honey & Milk by mslilylashes.

Maybe Sprout Wings contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: John Winchester is a neglectful alcoholic who physically and emotionally abuses his omega son.
• The Atoner: Castiel feels tremendous guilt over the source of his family's fortune, and he's dedicated his life and portion of that fortune to buying, rehabilitating, and freeing slaves.
• Author Tract: The story is one long, righteous diatribe against slavery and a scathing critique of the idea the slavery could ever be sexy. The author does take care to separate slavery from other concepts often mixed up with it, such as D/s dynamics.
• Best Friend: Balthazar isn't just Castiel's best friend, he's his only real friend. He tells Castiel the unvarnished truth when necessary and encourages him when necessary.
• Big Brother Instinct: Dean is highly protective of Sam and was his caretaker/protector to the point where Dean is willing to give up his freedom to protect Sam.
• Big Damn Reunion: Dean decides to wait until he is free before contacting Sam, but Sam has other ideas and when he finally tracks Dean down, it leads to an intense and emotional reunion. Shortly afterward, Dean is reunited with Bobby for another emotional reunion.
• Big Fancy House: The majority of the action takes place in Castiel's lakefront mansion, which is luxurious and filled with books.
• Blackmail: Alastair sends Castiel a package addressed to his birth name, Castiel Morningstar, and it includes pictures of Castiel's family. It's clear he intends to use this against Castiel and NNR.
• Broken Bird:
  • Dean may not have literally been in Hell but he's still been through Hell and is traumatized.
  • Claire is one of the center's more difficult cases, but she bonds with Dean.
  • While in South Dakota, Dean meets Max, a fellow survivor of slavery, who is barely verbal and severely traumatized.
• Catching Up on History: Dean has spent eleven years as a slave, and he has to catch up on both technological advances like smartphones and historical events, especially progress in omega rights. He uses the smartphone Castiel gives him and google to catch up.
• Chekhov's Gun: After it is removed, Castiel puts Dean's slave collar in the safe in his house. He specifically says he doesn't want to destroy it because that would send a signal to the authorities. As it turns out, Alastair tracks Dean to Castiel's house using the collar, causing Dean, Sam, Castiel and Balthazar great distress.
• Cry into Chest: Dean does this to Castiel when Castiel removes his slave collar.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Even before selling himself into slavery, Dean's life was a dark pit of neglect, teen prostitution and self-hatred. There were bright spots, such as his love for his brother and his confidence in his ability to fix cars, but it was mostly pretty grim.
  • When we meet Balthazar, he's the highly competent and professional director of a rehabilitation center. We get hints that he was once enslaved and at a backstory in which he tried to kill Castiel even after Castiel worked to free him. All of this portrayed in the prequel fic Heretic Pride.
• Deadpan Snarker: Balthazar functions as this, especially in early chapters. As Dean gets his humanity back, this side of himself surfaces.
• Desperate Plea for Home: Dean remembers crying and begging to go home in the days after selling himself into slavery. His pleas were ignored.
• The Determinator: Sam is a stubborn alpha and once he realizes where Dean is he does not stop until he sees him, without realizing Dean isn't quite ready for the reunion.
• Engineered Public Confession: This is Dean's plan when he goes to see Alastair. He gets Alastair to admit breaking slave law while his phone is recording, but Alastair has Dean arrested before Dean can play the recording for anyone.
• Fantastic Caste System: Omegas are on the lowest rung of society, while Alphas are at the top and Betas in the middle, but there is an Omega rights movement that Jo is involved with, as well as Sam, even though he is an alpha.
• Fantastic Racism: When they stop at a gas station on the way to South Dakota, Sam gets a hard look at how Omegas are treated in this universe. He tells Dean that it is different in California, but Dean informs him that it is the same everywhere, it's just that Sam didn't notice.
• First Kiss: The story is a slow burn, so much so that Dean and Castiel do not even kiss until Chapter 59.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: As Castiel nurses Dean back to health, they fall in love.
• Heroic Sacrifice: This is the reason Dean signs himself into slavery. He thinks he's saving Sam from a similar fate.
• Homosexual Reproduction: This being an A/B/O AU, homosexual reproduction does exist, and at one point Dean worries that is why he's been purchased by Castiel. Dean, however, has been sterilized by his previous owner and so it's not a major factor in the story.
• Human Traffickers: While slavery is legal in this universe, human traffickers bend and break what few rules there are for profit.
• Hurt/Comfort Fic: Castiel provides as much comfort to Dean as he can, both physically and emotionally.
• The Idealist:
  • Sam is making a career of rescuing enslaved omegas and no matter what has happened to Dean, he wants to reconnect with and, if necessary, rescue his brother.
  • Kevin Tran volunteers at NRR because of his anti-slavery beliefs and genuinely wants to help the residents.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Dean admits he often wished for freedom while a slave, but he never thought it would actually happen. Even when he ran, he expected to be recaptured.
• Intimate Healing: Once Dean and Castiel scent bond, something that is unusual for omegas in Dean's situation, close contact actually helps Dean deal with his anxiety. So there's lots of cuddling.
• I Will Find You: Sam's subplot in this story. Dean was enslaved when Sam was only twelve, but at twenty-three he's still searching for his brother and sets out for Washington State as soon as he gets a lead on Dean.
• Lets Wait Awhile: Dean and Castiel are very attracted to each other, love each other, and live in the same house. However, they both agree that it would be morally wrong and a bad start to a relationship if they have sex while Castiel still legally owns Dean. They agree to wait until Dean is freed, which might be a long time.
• Made a Slave: Dean's arc in the story. Like many in this universe, he's manipulated into signing himself into slavery. Prior to being purchased by the brothel Hell, he was a rebellious slave who often ran away. Castiel is horrified to even think of what must have happened to Dean to break his spirit.
• Manly Tears: These occur as Dean comes to terms with what happened to him, and Castiel realizes the depth of Dean's trauma.
• The Medic: Pamela Barnes is a physician at NRR, and early on, she makes a house call to determine Dean's condition.
• Meet the In-Laws: Sam tracks down Dean by crashing NRR, and he is immediately suspicious and angry toward Castiel. He eventually cools down, and Castiel joins Sam and Dean on a road trip to meet Bobby, who is also highly suspicious of Castiel.
• Mistaken for Imprisonment: When Dean first arrives at Castiel's home, he doesn't comprehend Castiel's intentions are to free him. In fact, it takes him a significant amount of time to accept the fact that Castiel means him no harm, let alone wants to free him.
• The Nose Knows: As befits a A/B/O universe, Dean, Castiel and the other alphas and omegas in the universe have highly sensitive noses. Early on, Dean and Castiel form a scent bond where their moods and scents affect and even amplify each other.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: The terrorists who bombed the brothel Hell claim to hate slavery, but they also hate the sex slaves inside because they had to have signed themselves into slavery. This is why they don't mind killing them along with the slave owners and customers, and the only reason Dean didn't die is that he was chained in an outside shed at the time of the explosion.
• Not Used to Freedom: When Dean first arrives at his house, Castiel tries to treat him as a houseguest, which terrifies and confuses Dean. Balthazar explains that Dean is so conditioned to slavery, he will need structure and orders, at least at first, in order to feel secure.
• Opposites Attract: Dean and Castiel come from wildly different backgrounds, with one the victim of the slave trade and the other the guilt-ridden beneficiary of the slave trade.
• Parental Substitute: Bobby is the parental substitute for both Sam and Dean, even though he hasn't seen Dean in over a decade when the story begins.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Dean is plagued by nightmares of his time with Alastair.
• Promotion to Parent:
  • Like in canon, Dean practically raises Sam.
  • Bobby is far more of a parent to Sam and Dean than John was.
• Rescue Romance: Castiel saves Dean from slavery, and they gradually fall in love.
• Recursive Fanfiction: In addition to the author-written prequel, several other authors have written fanfic in this universe.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The story does not gloss over what happens to sex slaves, including Dean, and it's portrayed as terrible and traumatizing. When Sam shows some denial about what happened to his brother, Castiel gently has to remind him of the truth that Sam already probably knows deep down.
• The Shrink: Benny is a therapist in this AU, and he helps both Castiel and Dean.
• Slave Liberation: A major theme of the story, with Castiel using his fortune to liberate slaves. He owns Novak Rehabilitation & Reintegration, and he personally takes Dean on as a foster with the intent of freeing him.
• Slave Market: Castiel purchases a battered Dean from a slave auction house, and he must control himself and his anger at the conditions so as not to tip off the slavers of his real intentions.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Dean is a recovering Sex Slave, as are many of the other omegas in the story. Castiel's fortune comes from Slave Collar patents, and the story is unambiguous about slavery being ghastly and wrong.
• Slut-Shaming: Omegas in this universe get this a great deal, and Dean suffered from it before he ever sold himself into slavery. It only got worse, much worse, afterwards and part of Dean's healing is having to cope with the feelings of self-loathing that result from it.
• The Stoic: Castiel has withdrawn from the world, and he rarely shows emotion. From the very first chapter, the fact that Dean manages to evoke emotion in him is unusual and unnerving to him.
• Thought They Knew Already: Castiel mentions to Sam that Dean sold himself into slavery in order to protect Sam. It turns out that Sam did not know this was the reason for Dean's action, much to Castiel's dismay.
• Titled After the Song: Named for a song by the Mountain Goats.
• Trauma Button:
  • The sound of hair clippers whirring turns out to be a trigger for Dean and causes a major panic attack.
  • Alastair's scent causes Dean to have a huge meltdown. In turn, Castiel, upon he realizing Alastair was on his property, becomes enraged.
• Traumatic Haircut: Dean gets one of these when he is first sold into slavery, leading to traumatic memories.
  • Balthazar has appeared very calm and in control of himself and seems recovered from his ordeal as a slave, but when he sees images of his former master's funeral, it triggers a panic attack.
• White Sheep: Castiel has rejected his role in the Morningstar family's slaving empire, using his fortune to fund a rehabilitation center for slaves.

Heretic Pride contains examples of:

• Bonding over Missing Parents: Castiel's mother died and his father was distant, while Balthazar's mother abandoned him in adolescence and his father abandoned him before he was born. The two men bond over their absent parents.
• Family of Choice: The final chapter ends with readers finding out Balthazar's last name, which is not revealed in Maybe Sprout Wings. It's Novak, which he took at Castiel's suggestion not because Castiel once owned him, but because they see each other as brothers.
• Interclass Friendship: Castiel is wealthy, well-educated and aristocratic while Balthazar is a street hustler and prostitute. They turn out to be the best of friends.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Castiel grew up isolated, with a deceased mother and distant father, raised by nannies.
• Odd Friendship: A rich young alpha becomes genuinely, if platonically, attached to a homeless, hustling omega.
• Tastes Like Friendship: Not only does Castiel bring Balthazar food, but he tries (and fails) to cook for him. Balthazar ends up cooking for Castiel.
• Recruited from the Gutter: We know that Balthazar becomes the director of a rehabilitation center, but this is the story of how he was rescued, and in turn rescued, Castiel.