A/N : Fixed a few things here and there, and updated the warning section.

Warnings! : AU. Human characters. Set in 1950s New York City, violence, language, Teutophobia, homophobia, abusive father/son relationship, mentions of war, mentions of Nazis, racism, other somewhat questionable content, and bad things happen to good dogs.

Pairings! : America x Germany (to clarify, that IS the correct order), some hinted PruSpa. Other characters are: Prussia, Canada, fem!England, fem!Italy, Romano, Spain, France. Some Canada x Fem!Italy and Romano x Fem!England later on.

The LOVELY cover is artwork for moi by the LOVELY Kissos. (kiss kiss)

ALSO : Wonderful OrangePlum has turned this story into a comic! Please go look at it and offer her your support, because it is AWESOME! accelerationwaltz (.tumblr) .com

Also also, if you need something stupid and far less serious, you can get on youtube and check out the AW Telenovela : youtube .watch?v=89kt6rCCqLY

I am purposefully not physically describing Alfred's father, so that way you can superimpose whoever's face onto him that you want. Why, you could even envision your own father, if your relationship with him is so lacking. Personally, I'm envisioning a generic racist father plucked out of cliché football movies like 'Remember the Titans' and 'Radio'. XD

ACCELERATION WALTZ

Chapter 1

Emperor Waltz

Alfred had only been ten years old when the fires raging over Europe had finally calmed.

The war ended in '45, but it hadn't been settled right off. Another year, another long wait, and he remembered clearly the day that his father, after five long years of maddening not knowing and loneliness, had walked back through the door.

He would never forget the feeling.

A dark, stormy night in the summer of '46, and his father had stood there in the door frame, tall and dark and barely standing straight, unshaven and covered in old scars. His uniform had been well-worn and dirty, and when Alfred had rushed forward and embraced him around the waist, he took in his aroma; gunpowder and beer.

A long silence.

His father had pressed a heavy hand down onto his head, muttering something incomprehensible, and Alfred's heart had soared. Hadn't ever felt anything like that, not ever, not like that exhilaration. And when his father had staggered forward and collapsed into his chair, Alfred had burst into tears and tried to crawl in his lap. A sharp, impatient cuff to the side of his head had deterred him from doing so, and his father had only grunted, "Stop cryin'," before passing out in exhaustion.

Alfred, undaunted by the blow, tidied up the house and tried his best to make dinner, and the smile on his face had never once waned.

That was the best night of his life.

Even if his father had been too dazed and tired and strange to respond to Alfred's attempts at affection. A little out of it. A little off. It was alright, and beyond understandable. No one ever came back from war quite the same.

His mother had died long ago, and even though he had spent the war years under the care of his maternal uncle, he had missed his father more than anything else. Even if his uncle was kinder and gentler, soft-spoken and calm, and let him get away with absolutely anything, it just wasn't the same. His uncle was his uncle, but his father was his father.

He had never been prouder of anything in his life as he was of his father.

Once things had settled down over the next few days, Alfred got to know his father all over again. He had only been five when the old man had left, so there was only so much that he remembered, and the war-years had spent dreaming about him and telling everyone that his father was a hero.

Well, then. Time to actually meet his father.

It didn't take long to get a feel of him.

Foul-mouthed, loud and crass, he got what he wanted, when he wanted, and anyone who stood in his way would face his wrath. He bullied, cursed, pushed, shoved, shouted. He showed no empathy, or sympathy. Hard, and masculine in every sense. The women fought for him. He knew no shame, and his pride was overshadowed only by his narcissism.

Alfred was fascinated.

To a kid, a man like his father was very close to a real-life comic book hero.

Alfred sat up at night, schoolwork abandoned in the firelight, as he listened to his father regale his friends over his war victories and exploits. He spared no gory detail, not even about shooting German paratroopers who had already surrendered (he was proud of it!) and Alfred drank it in, knowing immediately that he wanted to be just like him.

That man.

To be respected and honored. To know no fear. To be a war hero, blazing in glory on the fields of battle, driving back evil and repression.

An American hero.

He bragged to his friends at school about his brave father, and when he was fourteen, the school had suspended him for bringing one of his father's war trophies to school for show and tell: a bloody, mottled German soldier's helmet. The bullet hole in the back of it had made his teacher retch. Alfred hadn't understood what all the fuss was about, and apparently his father didn't, either; the next day, his father had raised holy hell, and had even gone so far as to punch the principal in the face. Alfred was overwhelmed with admiration, like always, even if he too had gone back to school with a black eye for 'causing so much goddamn trouble in the first place'.

He vaguely remembered from childhood that his father had always been something to awe and fear, but not in the same way. Before the war, his memories of his father were hardly more than gentle pats to his arm when he did something wrong, little more than the normal chastising of a father.

Before the war. Something had messed him up, yeah, but Alfred took it for what it was, because his father fascinated him.

Now his father's volatile temper knew no bounds, and his hatred for Germans had reached almost obsessive levels, and every spare breath was spent cursing them. Something in the war had flipped off the switch in his brain that dictated self-control, and sometimes Alfred would come into a room and find him spinning the barrel of his gun absently, as he stared off into space.

None of the other men had come back the same, so it wasn't his father's fault.

Anyway, this brash recklessness was nothing that Alfred was ashamed of, and he took his beatings proudly when they came. His father was his hero. His idol.

God.

Life was okay.

The years passed, step-mothers came and went, some days were better than others, and when Alfred was seventeen, something suddenly happened that had shaken his faith in his father, and himself.

Unexpected.

It had begun as a normal day, and he and his friends had been hanging around the block after school, as they so often did, when someone had started screaming. Screaming. He would never forget the sound as long as he lived; shrill and anguished and heartbroken, as though someone were beating a dog who did not understand why. The most godawful shrieking he'd ever heard in his life.

Too curious for his own good, Alfred had followed the source of the sound, even though his best friend (poor Matthew, he would later regret above all else) had begged them not to go. Couldn't really help it.

Good god, that sound.

He would have never shaken it from his head if he didn't find out what it was.

They jogged off, nosy, Alfred at the head of the pack, dodging corners and pushing through the crowd. When they reached the street at the end of the block, where most of the European community could be located, somewhere that Alfred never went on a normal day, they found themselves frozen in place, and Alfred's stomach had twisted.

Shock, more than anything.

The house at the corner belonged to an elderly couple, German immigrants who had lived in the same place long before Alfred had even been born. The Schulzes. He and his friends often made a point of walking by their house, because old Mrs. Schulze would always slip them homemade marzipan bars if they showed her their good test scores. Hadn't ever met his own grandparents on either side, so she was comforting to him, in her own way. The old man usually just watched from the door and smiled.

And even though they were German, even though Alfred scarfed down the candy before his father could see it, they weren't really German, were they? They were nice. Normal. Just nice old people, plain as could be. Never stood out in any way. They weren't really German. Couldn't be. Germans were easy to pick out, immediately obvious. His father had made that clear. That man could smell a German a mile away, or so he claimed. They weren't like that. Not the monsters that his father had told him stories about. They didn't wear swastikas on their arms, they didn't scream. They didn't have those cold, frightening eyes that his father had described.

Somewhere in his mind, Alfred was fully aware that, yeah, they were German, because otherwise he wouldn't have been sneaking about them in the first place. Still, though, easier to pretend they weren't, because then he didn't have to think so damn much.

Not real Germans.

And yet there he had stood on that sunny day, as Mrs. Schulze screeched her agony to the skies on her front step, and down below on the sidewalk was her husband, being kicked and punched and stomped into a bloody, quivering mess. And above him, wild-eyed and shouting the foulest slurs he had ever heard, was his father.

Alfred had shaken his head to clear it, certain that his eyes were deceiving him. Couldn't have been his father. Not his. Someone else's. When he looked again, he felt his heart hammer wildly in his chest as nausea jolted his stomach, and something hit him in the gut. Something that felt alarmingly like horror. Guilt.

It was his father, alright.

A moment of silent incomprehension. Couldn't really grasp it, even though he saw it plain as day.

His father.

Felt like the world had stopped, for a second. Blurry.

He remembered that beside of him, Matthew, gentle as he was, had lurched oddly, as though torn between running forward or staying put. Matthew hadn't wanted to come; shouldn't have had to see it at all. Matthew had wanted to stay put. A horrible look of helplessness, a terrible shadow on his face, but Matthew's bravery was short lived, and he whirled around on his heel, covering his mouth with his hand and shutting his eyes.

Alfred was too horrified to look away. Stuck in place and staring.

That screaming. She wouldn't stop screaming. Too loud in his ears. The old man on the ground was begging and pleading and crying, but his father did not stop.

He didn't stop.

Why? Why wouldn't he stop? There were people everywhere! The entire street had been crowded, and passersby had averted their eyes as his father beat a defenseless old man into the pavement with his boots. And for what? What had the hapless senior done to invoke such wrath? Had he been speaking German to his wife when his father had just happened to be passing? Had he mouthed back at being called a Kraut or Fritz or Jerry? Had he sent his father a look that hadn't been appreciated?

Or had he done nothing at all?

Alfred remembered looking around, dumbly, waiting for someone to intervene. He couldn't. How could he? He could not disobey his father.

Someone help. That old man hadn't done anything to anyone.

But no one acted, and as he searched the street, he caught someone's gaze.

A pair of ice-blue eyes bored into his own, and he recognized another occupant of the European block; another German, he realized, with a stir of anxiety. A young man, barely older than himself, who rarely ventured outside and kept completely to himself. Alfred had seen him sometimes, though, walking around the park with his dog. They hadn't ever spoken, not once, though they had crossed paths many times. Didn't know his name, didn't know anything about him, and hadn't ever cared to.

He was peering out of his door from down the street, tall and wary and face completely guarded, his brow low in severity. Maybe fear. Looked anxious. Agitated. As if, like Matthew, he had wanted to come forward but had lost his nerve.

Alfred didn't miss the flit of emotion that ran through his eyes as they stared at each other:

Fear. Accusation. Hate.

Alfred had been recognized as well. Everyone knew Alfred's father. Especially the Germans. In turn, they knew Alfred, too, and avoided him as much as they did the old man. Like father, like son, as they said.

They stared.

Alfred hadn't been able to stand that unwavering, contentious gaze for long, and bowed his head, as the old man's cries faded into whimpers, and then moans, and then nothing at all.

He felt sick.

Half an hour later, the police came, and escorted his father away. Mr. Schulze had been rushed to the hospital, where he would die that night, his wife at his side.

Nothing happened to his father. Not a damn thing. His sin went completely unpunished. No one cared. As the old man had slipped away in a hospital bed, his old man had been sitting in a police station sharing beers with sergeants and laughing, as they neatly cleared him of all wrong doing.

Alfred had bolted home and stumbled through the front door, barely making it to the bathroom before he had vomited. He was aghast at what he had seen. His father had killed tens, hundreds even, of Germans in the war, and Alfred had always imagined it to be brave and heroic. The way his father had spoken about it, the way he had described it, it had sounded so spectacular.

So brave. Glorious. Those stupid old notions of victory and heroism.

There was nothing glorious about what he had just witnessed, nothing spectacular, nothing brave, and he could still hear the old woman's shrieks reverberating in his ears. That was never how he had envisioned death, never how he had imagined it would be. Never had known that it could seem so long, so drawn out, so painful. That it was so brutal.

Couldn't take the sight of it. Couldn't stand the sound of it. Couldn't stomach the notion of it.

Death.

Felt stupid. He was shaken to his core, everything suddenly seemed so different, and he realized, with a lurch of horror, that he had seen his real father emerge for the first time. He had finally seen the very thing that he had so longed to become. Had finally really gotten to know the old man.

His hero.

Yeah, brave, alright. Had to be brave to beat a defenseless old man. Had to be brave to take on someone who could have been your father. Had to be brave to hit someone who couldn't even fight back.

As he had gripped the edge of the sink, staring at his pale, yellowish reflection in the mirror above, he couldn't help but shudder.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, it hadn't mattered anymore. Hadn't mattered to him, none of it. No matter how many medals his father had won. No matter how many people called him a hero. No matter how many women fawned after him. No matter how many things he got away with. No matter how many men still saluted him. Didn't matter.

His hero.

Didn't matter.

He never wanted to see himself with that look of uncontrollable hatred upon his face. He never wanted to see himself stomping a life out of existence. Never wanted to see himself looking like that. Never wanted to see himself hurting someone else, for no reason at all. Didn't want that. He didn't, and he longed to say as much, but his will always bowed down in the presence of his intimidating father, and that night, when the elder had slung an arm around Alfred's shoulders and said, 'Guess what I did today?', Alfred could only avert his eyes and listen to the whole numbing story.

Couldn't gather the courage to open his mouth and ask, 'Why?' To ask, 'Did you feel good?' To ask, 'What did he do?'

To say, 'I feel ashamed.'

His chest ached.

So ashamed.

He didn't go to school for the rest of the week, feigning illness. Couldn't face anyone, not then. Couldn't see Matthew, couldn't look him in the eye after that, after Matthew had seen that. Too weak.

But, as it happened, his crisis had only been momentary; after a year or so, he had repressed the incident into the back of his mind. The wonderful thing of being young, the ability to repress. The ability to shove things aside. The ability to move forward yet.

And, hell, after many months of fighting against his guilt, he had actually managed to convince himself that Mr. Schulze had been, after all, just a German. Only a German. His father was still a pillar of the community. No one had even sent him a dirty look since then. Couldn't have been wrong, because his father hadn't been punished.

His hero.

Oh, god. Had to think it, had to, because facing the mirror and saying, 'My father is a murderer' was too hard. Hurt too much. Hurt his pride, his ego, his faith in everything, hurt his love for his father. Couldn't face it.

Instead, he forced himself into the belief that his father was still a man of honor. He had to believe it, because if he couldn't, then there was nothing left for him to believe in. Fathers were supposed to be role models. Fathers did everything right. Men to be admired.

Whenever he felt a twinge of doubt, whenever his conscience tried to fight back, Alfred reminded himself that his father had been through so much in the war. So many years. So many terrible things he'd seen. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't.

Time felt like it dragged.

Soon, he graduated school. His father had given him only an awkward slap on the shoulder for luck, and Alfred had tried damn hard to keep his eyes up. Hard, though, to stand on that stage with that man, after everyone knew what he had done. No one seemed to remember, though, and no one sent them a second glance.

Except for maybe Matthew.

Alfred found a job before long, as he saved aside money to one day go to college. In theory, at least. His self-control was about as good as his father's, sometimes, and he usually blew more than he saved.

Years.

When he turned twenty, he had all but forgotten his father's sin, as fervent as he had been in his suppression. Carrying on with his life, as normally as any young adult. He was tall and handsome, proud and intelligent. The girls flocked to him now, as much as they ever had his father, but he did not keep their fancies for long before he moved on to another. He was a little pompous, a little arrogant, but felt he had the right to be. Egotistical. Sure of himself and feeling as if he were a little better than those around him.

A typical American brat, and he would have it no other way.

He was generally good-natured, though, and happy. Didn't really want to cause any harm to anyone, more content to spend his time feeding his own arrogance and ego. Having a good time. And he thought that he was too strong-willed to ever let anyone boss him around anymore, now that he was grown. Thought he had the strength to stand on his own. That he could speak up for himself.

And he could, absolutely, to everyone.

Everyone except the old man.

God help him...

When his father, seeing that he had become a strongly built adult, took him out around the block and inserted him into the middle of his frequent ethnic bullying, Alfred clamped his jaw shut and went with the tide. Couldn't do much else; even after all of those years, his father still seemed to have an uncanny power over him. Couldn't seem to escape it, no matter how hard he tried.

When the old man was looking at him, he foundered.

Did so many things, so many terrible things, just because his father told him to.

He had, at his father's behest, ganged up and harassed a local German vendor. He had, at his father's urging, broken a shop window of a bakery. He had even, at his father's cajoling, physically forced that pale-haired German, the one that had locked eyes with him that day so long ago, to walk in the dirty gutter rather than on the sidewalk.

Didn't know why.

Wanted to refuse. Why couldn't he? What was it about the old man that kept him from refusing?

And when he had, at his father's command, spray-painted a swastika on the front of old Mrs. Schulze's door (oh, god, how she had cried when she saw it), he had wanted nothing more than to go home, crawl into bed, and never show his face in public again.

Matthew's look of disappointment hurt him more than anything else.

Coward.

He did everything that was expected of him, mechanically, without even raising his voice in protest.

He never said 'no'.

That was his sin.