an au where there is no evil nightmare that tells him to eat the apples, and the apples have no actual effect on one’s morality when eaten.
in this au the tree/ apples are the source of the twins’ magic, meaning that without the presence of either the twins have no powers.
nightmare, finally fed up of getting his butt handed to him, picks one of the apples while dream is in town like he always is. he’d been thinking about it for a while and maybe he was extra grouchy from a fight earlier, so he tests his theory that he can cast magic without being near the tree if he brings an apple with him.
he was right.
the next time some people decide he looks like a good target they find a nasty surprise, and nightmare teaches them a lesson they won’t forget.
nightmare becomes more confident, and feels safer in town than he’s felt in a long time. he’s eventually pushed to eat the apple, probably by a close call related to losing it or almost getting caught by his brother.
he starts pushing the other teenagers around (particularly the ones that used to bully him), and eventually starts discouraging them from spending time with dream. if dream has no friends in the village, why would he go so often or stay as long?
dream is understandably upset when everybody suddenly seems too busy to hang out with him and all his friends won’t talk to him. he confronts one of his closest friends about abandoning him, finding out that nightmare has been scaring people away from dream.
dream has a fight with nightmare and his brother finally admits that he’s jealous of dream and his friends, albeit while shouting at dream.
dream makes a point of avoiding nightmare for the rest of the week (not hard, since nightmare is basically chained to the tree if dream won’t stay behind to keep an eye on it) and tries to figure out what’s been going on by talking to the villagers.
meanwhile, the villagers clue in to the fact that dream is at odds with nightmare and decide that now is the time to get rid of nightmare for good and drive him away from the village. a mob forms. things escalate from there.
dream notices something’s up and shows up just in time to see the first punch thrown. nightmare, who had gradually been eating more apples since the first time he used magic to defend himself, eats the remaining negative apples because while he’s a lot stronger than he used to be, he can’t face down half a village single handed.