Every year it was something different. Every year, Castiel would pull an even more extravagant prank for April Fools' day.

One year Nathaniel had walked into the Student Council room to find water being dumped on his head, followed by a large metal bucket.

Another year the furniture had been glued to the ceiling, upside-down.

That had actually impressed Nathaniel. It had been annoying, yes, but impressive.

He was pretty sure Castiel knew that, too.

Last year, the walls in the Student Council room were covered in vulgar images. He could hear Castiel's laughter from down the hallway as he had slammed the door and walked out, beet red.

Castiel had been suspended for two weeks. He came back, still chuckling whenever he saw Nathaniel for months afterwards.

This year was just plain bad.

The other years had been relatively harmless fun. They'd taken a while to clean up after, but they hadn't actually hurt anybody.

This year Castiel's prank had almost killed him.

When he walked into the Student Council room, he began sneezing almost immediately. His eyes began to water and swell up a bit. The reason was immediately obvious.

The Student Council room was filled wall-to-wall with flowers.

He sighed, feeling around in his pocket for his allergy medicine.

Of course.

Today, of all days, he'd forgotten it at home.

He groaned, figuring he may as well carry the plants back out to the gardening club. The club members would be wondering where their plants went, and the sooner the plants were out the sooner his allergies would die down.

Of course, that was only if he didn't have too bad of a reaction.

And, just his luck, he did.

The pollen concentration in the room was really high from how many flowers were in the room, especially since they'd been in the closed room for nearly 24 hours.

He slowly found that he wasn't able to breathe through his nose, since it had gotten so congested, and his eyes had gotten so puffy and watery he could barely see.

Castiel was probably having a field day at how awful he looked.

He continued going back and forth between the Student Council room and the greenhouse, carrying the infernal potted plants outside.

By the seventh trip, however, his throat had begun to close up. He frowned, making one last trip. As he was walking back to the Student Council room this time, however, he found that his throat was beginning to close up completely. He wheezed, frowning as he tried to draw air in.

Castiel picked that moment to show himself.

He emerged from his hiding spot in Classroom A, watching with mild concern as Nathaniel stood there, struggling to breathe.

"You alright there, Golden Boy?" he asked, trying and failing to sound indifferent.

Nathaniel shook his head. He was beginning to feel a bit dizzy.

Castiel walked over, frowning at the wheezing noises coming from Nathaniel. "Are you dying?"

Nathaniel nodded slightly. "Might... be..." He choked out.

Oh.

That could be bad.

Castiel's eyebrows furrowed together as he tried to figure out what to do. There wouldn't be many people at the school at this point and Nathaniel couldn't breathe and he hadn't actually anticipated this outcome.

And then Nathaniel passed out.

Castiel cursed, gritting his teeth as he caught Nathaniel and lowered him to the ground. "Is anyone still in the school? Because we need some help here!"

Lysander showed up. Ah, Castiel thought, right. It's his turn to set up the basement for practice today.

"What happened?" Lysander asked, staring first at Nathaniel's unconscious form, then at Castiel.

"I might have possibly put several hundred flowers in the Student Council room as an April Fools' joke," Castiel said slowly, "and he might possibly have started having a serious allergic reaction..."

Lysander frowned, kneeling beside Castiel and Nathaniel and checking for Nathaniel's pulse. "You're an idiot, first of all," he said, addressing Castiel. Castiel looked away, pouting slightly. "Second, he's still alive, but he needs to get to a hospital, and I'm going to drive him, and you're coming too."

Castiel halfheartedly grumbled out a "fineee," standing up and following Lysander as he carried Nathaniel out of the school and laid him down across the backseat of his car.

Castiel got in on the passenger side, occasionally glancing back at Nathaniel in the rear view mirror. Lysander smiled to himself, pretending not to notice Castiel's obvious concern for his rival.

They brought Nathaniel into the hospital, where he was carried away on a hospital bed while the two of them answered various questions- yes, it was an allergic reaction; he's allergic to pollen; no, we're not joking, he's actually that allergic.

They were allowed to visit Nathaniel a bit later, when the doctors had cleared up his airway and he was breathing properly again.

Nobody really said anything for a while. Nathaniel just stared at Castiel from the bed, and Castiel just stood there awkwardly. Finally, Castiel mumbled something, too quietly for Nathaniel and Lysander to hear.

"Can you repeat that?"

"I said I'm sorry," Castiel growled, a bit louder.

"I almost died and all you can do is just give me an insincere apology," Nathaniel deadpanned. Lysander began to inch out of the room.

"Okay, no, look, I didn't know- I was just trying to pull a prank, and I didn't know your allergies were that bad and I didn't expect you to forget your medicine and all the other things that you did wrong," Castiel said, glaring at him. "I just stuck a bunch of flowers in the student council room. You did the rest."

Nathaniel shrugged. "Yeah, but you were still the catalyst."

Castiel groaned. "Well, you're not dead!" Castiel twirled a finger through the air in mock celebration. "Whoop-de-flipping-do! But of course, you just have to start something. I'm trying to apologize for almost getting you killed here and you just have to make things difficult!"

"I'm not the one-"

"Forget it," Castiel said, turning to leave. He started to tell Lysander to follow him, then realized Lysander must have escaped the room.

Shaking his head, he walked out of the room, not caring when the door slammed shut behind him and caused the hospital staff to look at him disapprovingly.