A/N: Hello everyone! So I've actually posted this story before. I had written it in present tense, which I don't do well in but I nonetheless like to attempt every once in awhile. It occured to me, however, that it just didn't work with this story and so I eventually took it down. I've edited it though and it's back now, and, I think at least, better than it was. So, I hope you enjoy!

Please note, however, that this story takes place between the first and second movie, so Magneto is still in the plastic prison where he cannot manipulate metal in any way, shape, or form. Please also note that this story is not meant to be slash. I suppose however, if you stand on your head and squint and you have a certain mindset that you could read it that way, and if it pleases you to do so then go ahead. However, that is not how it was intended.

Disclaimer: The X-Men movies, characters, and situations do not, in any way, belong to me.

Human Emotions

Smoke. So much smoke everywhere. He could smell the stench of the bodies as the flames consumed them, overpowering, clinging around him, choking him. The smoke turned the sky a murky gray color, furling around his eyes, making them sting so that he could barely see. He still caught flashes of the things around him though. Glimpses of the bodies in the fire.

His mother's unseeing eyes staring accusingly at him from the fire, her hair burning, the flames making an unearthly wreath around her once loving face. The heat of the flames and the smoke gave his mother's face the appearance of her skin melting off and he fell to his knees as sobs wracked his body.

The SS had their guns trained on him though and he knew he had to keep working if he wanted to entertain any hopes of living another day in this hell so he struggled to his feet and pushed and shoved another body into the fire. His father's this time. He watched as the body fell next to that of his mother, the flames quickly starting their hungry work, devouring him greedily. His father, who had fought so fiercely when they had been captured, fought to save his family. And ultimately died.

He remembered the officer killing his parents and then turning to him and asking him gruffly in German if he wanted to be a Sonderkommando, saying it would postpone his death and he would have better quarters. He had agreed out of fear, and now his first job was to dispose of his parents' bodies and all the others who had died with them.

Finally finishing, he at last gave way to his tears, falling to his knees and letting the sobs come.

"Get up Jewish swine," a guard snarled in German, kicking him viciously in the ribs, causing him to cry out in pain and curl in on himself. The guard laughed cruelly, "Get up or you'll join them in the fire you useless wretch. You see how it consumes them?"

The guard's face was twisted into a feral snarl, his eyes glinting meanly, a cruel amusement shining through as Erik struggled to his feet, smoke, terror, and grief numbing his mind a bit, but he could still hear his mother's terrified screams, her pleading voice begging for his life. "No, please, not Erik! Not Erik!"

With a strangled yell Magneto jerked awake, gasping as the images from long ago still rolled through his mind with a terrible clarity.

Just a nightmare.

A nightmare of things that had actually happened.

Shuddering, he forced his eyes to focus and as his plastic prison came into sharp relief he couldn't help but groan in dismay. He hated being confined at the mercy of others. It reminded him far too much of the death camps.

The nightmares are something he has been blessedly free of in recent years though. Here, however, kept in a mild isolation as he is, and away from all metal, confined like he hasn't been in years, he finds he can't avoid them. They creep up on him in the night and leave him feeling vulnerable and just short of panic-stricken. As he trembled and tried to get himself under control he prayed almost frantically that there was no one observing him at this time of the night. It was quite bad enough to be in this situation in the first place, it would be worse still if someone were to see him.

Now he desperately tried to remember how he used to calm down in the days when these nightmares were a normal, if not a regular thing for him. His mind only comes back with one real answer though, whispering a name he'd really rather not think of right now.

Charles.

The telepath had always known when Erik was in the midst of a nightmare. In the years before their split Charles had always striven to ease him from the horrors in his mind as gently and calmly as possible, not even having to be in the same room and never mentioning it afterward unless Erik himself started the conversation. It was one of the only times Erik didn't gripe about the intrusion of his mind.

Charles had used different techniques when helping his friend, depending on the severity of the dream. Sometimes he would enter the dream himself, providing a comforting and calming presence, gently urging his friend to wake up, telling him not to believe the dream, that he was safe.

Other times he would envelope Erik's mind in a soothing peacefulness, pushing the bad memories out and projecting better, more pleasant images. What Erik had always been impressed by was that Charles hadn't always need to wake him up to shoo the bad dreams away and make him feel calm once more, stopping the nightmare and seamlessly starting more soothing dreams. Such times Erik had often only realized later that Charles had been the cause and he wondered now how many times this had happened that he didn't know of or remember.

Now, once more in the present of his transparent plastic prison, Magneto sighed and ran a shaky hand through his hair. The years have decreased his nightmares, sure enough, but they've also separated him from Charles, so that now, in an environment that brought back the bad in his life he longed for Charles' comforting presence.

He knew though, that if he were to shout loudly enough in his mind and concentrate fully enough, that despite the miles between them the telepath would hear. Furthermore he knew that Charles would, despite everything, answer his call. For a moment the urge to call out to his old friend in his mind almost overwhelmed him, and he wavered on the brink of giving in to the desire.

It ashamed him though, to have this weakness, to feel this way, to feel the need for Charles in this way, and his pride wouldn't allow him to call out, however much he missed the man in question. Especially in moments like these.

Magneto sighed again, struggling to relax his tense muscles. It angered him to miss Charles. He didn't want to miss Charles. He wanted such human emotions to be beneath him. Such weaknesses to be beneath him.

Charles and his eternally calm and thoughtful expression, the damned gentle caring and acceptance in his eyes that had always made Erik feel warm and welcome. Something he had never entirely felt with anyone else. And he wanted that now more than anything in the world and it made him cringe in shame and self-loathing. Those were weak thoughts, thoughts for lesser mortals. He was a very powerful mutant, not worthy of such disgraces.

Eventually, concentrating on his anger at his self-presumed weakness instead of on his residual fear from the nightmare he managed to relax once more.

He didn't need Charles. Charles was his past. He was Magneto, Master of Magnetism and he was stronger than that. Even in this wretched confinement, he was stronger than that. He didn't need Charles.

'I don't need you to sing me a lullaby anymore, Charles. I don't need you.'

As calmness descended unto his thoughts and enveloped him he could have sworn he heard a response in his mind. A response in a calm and gentle voice, tinged with amusement and a tired resignation, and he frowned ever so slightly as he drifted off to sleep, riding on the calm, peaceful waves.

'Of course you don't. You wouldn't lower yourself to such a human emotion as needing someone would you, Old Friend? You're just fine all by yourself.'

The End

A/N: I hope you will review, as it would truly make my day, and really, how am I supposed to know what you thought and how I can later improve if you don't?