Sans AU One-Shots

SwapDream Nightmare || positivity.

Pairing: SwapDreamtale Nightmare Sans x Female Reader
Prompt: Nightmare enters an AU overflowing with positivity - despite it actively hurting him - to find and stop Dream from killing people by driving them mad with positive emotions. And in it, he finds someone worth fighting for.
Type: a day in the life of Night (poor baby), SD Dream being himself, toxic (past) relationship, Night getting to save the day
Length: 5.6k words
Background: Reading through SwapDreamtale's wiki gave me some ideas and irl issues helped me add some flavor to the idea, and this is the result. (Seriously. The wiki made me feel so bad for Nightmare 😭 someone please give him a hug)
Notes: It's kind of crazy how toxic a situation can be without you realizing while you're in the middle of it, and it's not until years later that you realize just how bad it was and come to grips with how awful people can be. Everyone has the capacity for good in them but that doesn't mean everyone wants to be good, and toxicity comes in many forms, some less blatant than others. It's good to help people, but when it's at the cost of your own happiness or they bring you down at every opportunity, it's time to get yourself out of that situation because you aren't helping them, you're just hurting yourself. Not everyone deserves your time and not everyone deserves to be in your life, and it doesn't make you a bad person to set boundaries or cut off 'friends' that are only draining you. You can't help someone that doesn't want to help themselves, and throwing out a 4-year relationship doesn't make it a waste of time - you learned how to respect yourself and how to better allocate your time to people that matter as well as learned what to look for in a person so you can steer clear from the bad ones. You live and learn, as they say, and you can only try to do better next time since mistakes will be made regardless, so you might as well learn from them.
Where'd all that^ come from? Coming to grips with how toxic my ex was, which I'm only just now realizing (years later), and how bad of an idea it was to let him stay in my life when he could ruin my mood with the snap of his fingers. You know it's bad when the dude's best friends are telling him he fucked up, but I digress - you likely don't care. I'll let you read the one-shot now 🫶 The details on the ex in the story is left vague so you can put whatever face/name you want to him. 

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The wave of positivity hit Nightmare like a tidal wave as soon as he entered the AU, and he nearly retched as nauseous hit him next. Being in such a positive AU hurt like hell, but despite that, he pushed the agony to the back of his mind in order to focus on why he was here. There were reports of his brother somewhere in this AU, turning the already cheerful populace crazy with positivity, and even though he knew Dream just didn't understand what he was doing, he'd long ago come to terms with the fact that that wasn't truly his brother anymore. That thing needed to be stopped before it hurt more people, so with that in mind, he grit his teeth to persevere through the pain.

He was in some kind of park outside the main city so the positivity wasn't overwhelming here, and the thought of getting any closer to the hubbub of nauseating emotion made his stomach turn uncomfortably. There were soft tunes playing through a speaker as a young woman danced next to a grill – this park had old grills that residents could use if they brought their own food, utensils, and charcoal to burn – and he recognized the smell of brats cooking. She was singing and dancing around, exuding positivity in every sway of her hips like it was the very reason she felt the urge to get up and project her joy into the world, and he found himself smiling at the display. Even if it hurt, it was still lovely to see someone not driven crazy due to his brother.

The woman turned in his direction, tapping her foot to the beat as she spotted him – the only other park enjoyer around on this lovely day. The sun was on its descent so it wasn't blazing, but he figured there'd be more people around, at least until the sky turned into beautiful shades of purple and pink.