Author's Note: So I posted this on AO3 back when Mudad week was going on, which means it's been written for a while. I'm posting it here too because I might as well, since not everyone reads things from both sites. This was the first thing I've been really excited about writing for a while, and I finished after working on it for 5 or 6 hours straight. Warnings for mentions of alcoholism, child abuse, and violence. Now without further ado, enjoy.


The bar was loud, and in combination with the laughing men and screaming drunkards surrounding him, Giorno was developing a headache. The place reeked, and the alcohol they served was not only of terrible quality, but also tasted foul, as though in the aging process it had become home to while swaths of bacteria that were looking to wreak havoc on his body. If Giorno had any choice, he wouldn't be there. He'd much rather drink at his personal bar back in the headquarters at Naples, or even the small hole-in-the-wall place he'd found while digging around in Florida.

But he didn't have a choice. If he wanted someplace to drink and get a meal, this was the only place open in the area. That area being London, 1878. Perhaps "only" place wasn't the best way to put it, but it was the only place he was willing to enter. The rest were far too shady or dirty for his tastes. Mafia boss or not, he still liked to avoid such places when he had the chance. Not to mention that he was completely out of his element, so being somewhere he could sit down and not worry (too much, at least. It was inevitable, and he never could completely calm down his senses) about being mugged was in his best interest.

How he ended up in not only another Hemisphere, but another time, Giorno didn't know. Before being transported, he'd been in Florida, 2012. He suspected it was the work of another Stand User, but he just couldn't wrap his head around how another Stand User could do such a thing. Moody Blues had trouble going back 15 years for a memory. To go back over 130 years, not just to replay a memory but to transport an entire person, was unreal. It shouldn't have been possible. Yet there Giorno was, reading The Times, dated March 21st, 1878.

"Would you like anymore, sir?" a buxom woman asked him, making Giorno look up.

"No thank you, I think I've had enough." Though he'd finished both his glass and plate, Giorno didn't like the food enough to get seconds. The portions were fine, and he wasn't too hungry, so he opted for preserving his health rather than lengthening the amount of time he could go without another meal.

"Well I'll be taking that then! Just call me over if you need any more, mister foreigner!" the woman said in a sultry voice before walking away.

There was another problem Giorno faced. Though he'd managed to get down an English accent to mask his combination Japanese-Italian one a few years ago, the English accent he's mastered was one of the 21st century, not the 19th. So he didn't fit in, despite his best efforts. He'd probably get the 1870s London one down eventually, but for the moment he'd have to stick out more than he already did. Thankfully, he didn't stick out too much in appearance, at the very least.

Giorno had been transported to his current time and location a few hours before, back when it was still light out. After being ignored by everyone he tried to ask for information due to his strange outfit (because there weren't many, if any, outfits that stayed in style for a century and a half), he'd knocked someone out and switched their clothes. They were itchy and different shades of grey, but fit him well enough.

His hairstyle had made him the target of a few japes as well, so he'd undone the frontal curls and put the rest of his hair in a low, ribboned ponytail. The front of his hair was short enough that it didn't fit in though, so it still curled slightly around his cheeks and neck.

A much different style than he'd had back in his own time, but good enough for the moment. He'd stolen at least a few coins from almost everyone he'd passed that looked like they could spare them, so he could buy different clothes later at the very least.

"Excuse me sir," the woman from before asked, looking irritated, "but if you're not planning on getting anything else, then I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We have other paying customers who would like a place to sit, so if you could free up this space for them it would be much appreciated."

"Of course," Giorno responded, getting to his feet. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

As he headed for the door, suddenly someone bumped into the blond, making Giorno turn around to see a short old man clutching a bottle of whisky sneering at him. Given how many teeth the man was missing it wasn't that intimidating.

"Damn it Dio, haven't I told ya to stay outta my way when I'm drinkin'?!" the man hiccuped.

'...Dio?' Giorno thought, eyes widening.

"Waitta minute… you ain't Dio. You're too old! Stop impersonating my son ya bastard! Seeing him at home is bad enough, I don' wanna see him while I'm at the bar too!"

The man stumbled away, yelling at some woman who was working there. Giorno then felt a large hand clasp his shoulder, turning to face the man who it belonged to.

"Sorry about that, man. The old coot over there's named Dario Brando, and he's always drunk to China and back, causing trouble wherever he can move himself. We'd throw him out, but he spends so much at the bar it'd be bad for business, and it's always funny seeing what kind of problems he gets himself into. With all the money he throws at the waitresses for his next drink, and all the times he's been thrown in jail for not paying bills, stealing, or whatever he's done that time, it's a wonder how he feeds himself, not to mention that kid of his. He's gotta be 10 or 11 now, that Dio. A growing boy needs to eat good to grow big, so I feel bad for the boy. His pop's short as it is, so the boy ain't gonna get tall from his parents. Some of us think the man's beating the poor kid, too, which definitely ain't gonna help him grow up strong. People don't get that many bruises from being clumsy, ya know?" The man sighed.

"Oh well, it ain't my problem. Just don't worry about Dario and his drunken rants, they don't mean anything. Anyway, see ya later, I gotta get back to my own drinking buddies!" the man said with a laugh.

With that the man walked away and Giorno left the bar, furious.

A drunk father who beat his son, huh. How familiar that sounded. Images of his own stepfather came to Giorno's mind, and the phantom pain of slaps and kicks echoed on his skin. That was a situation Giorno couldn't stand for. No one deserved that treatment.

But it wasn't just anyone that was receiving it.

At first, Giorno thought he'd been transported back to some random time and place with no meaning to it. 134 years was a strange number. London, though a big city, was far from where he'd been. But all of a sudden it made sense. Giorno felt like an idiot for not noticing earlier.

From what he'd heard, his father had been born around 1867 or 1868 and had "died" in 1889. Though he'd moved someplace else to join the Joestars, he'd lived in London for the years beforehand. Which meant that here, in 1878, Dio Brando would be a 10 or 11 year old running around London.

The more Giorno thought about it the angrier he got. He took a few breaths to calm down, and stepped into the alley right next to the bar's entrance. There he would wait for Dario to leave and stumble back home so he could get a good look at Dio's condition for himself.

Unfortunately, when Dario did stumble out of the bar an hour later, he only made it about a block before passing out in the middle of the street. Some annoyed passersby rolled him into an alleyway, but the movement didn't wake the man.

As much as Giorno wanted to kick Dario awake and force the old man to bring him to his house, Giorno decided to walk away. As much as he hated himself for leaving, he knew that Dio would survive another day without Giorno's help. He'd lived for at least another 12 years in the original timeline. Hopefully this new one wasn't too different yet.

For the moment, Giorno had to come up with some way to not only get Dio out of his current situation, but convince the boy that he was a good person, and that he should live with Giorno instead. From what Giorno understood Dio was an analytical man, and though as a child he might be slightly less wary, Giorno knew better than to assume Dio would follow him without question. Based off his own demeanor and approach to life after growing up with an abusive father, Giorno knew he wouldn't blindly do so. Which meant he first had to gain Dio's trust. How to do it was the question.