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At first Luka doesn't realise that Adrien must have had the Snake Miraculous before him.
Luka knows that Adrien knows that Luka's Viperion, and that's a strange sort of relief, but it takes him far too long to think about how Adrien had been the one to suggest him for it, or why Adrien had been there beside Ladybug before Luka had even arrived.
Or why Ladybug had thanked Adrien for saving her life 'so many times.'
And then one day Luka's relaxing on the deck after a jam session, with Adrien there long after the rest of the band's gone home since Adrien obviously doesn't want to go home and it's not like Mom is about to make him, and he sees the way Adrien keeps swiping at his wrist.
Luka recognises the way Adrien keeps swiping at his wrist.
His own hand twitches towards the beaded bracelet he'd had to start wearing, after.
Luka's not Viperion now, not after whatever had happened with Miracle Queen had... happened, but he's noticed the way using a Miraculous always seems to leave a mark on people.
It seems, somehow, like Adrien's been marked more deeply than Luka is.
By the violent twist Adrien suddenly gives his wrist when Rose dashes by on her way belowdecks, he's marked a whole lot more deeply.
Luka stops playing, letting his chords die away into the resulting silence, and waits for Adrien to react. Adrien, who Luka's learning slowly is much better with people than he thinks he is, doesn't take long to look up.
(Adrien didn't learn normal social cues. Luka- and for that matter, Kagami, Rose, and probably several more of Adrien's friends- don't have normal social cues. Theirs, Adrien does just fine with).
This isn't an easy topic to broach, but between them it's not actually a secret. Luka slots his guitar onto his back so that he can grasp at his own wrist, locking eyes with Adrien as he does.
Adrien swallows hard, not looking away. It's not long before Luka has to look away, but he knows his point got through.
"Maybe we should go inside," Luka says, softly, and Adrien nods without saying a word.
Once they're in Luka's room, Luka's privately a little disappointed that Adrien arranges himself on the floor and leaves the bed to Luka. He should have expected it, because the dying sunlight stripes his floor and not his bed and he knows by now where Adrien will always gravitate, but he'd still have preferred Adrien closer for this conversation.
Adrien usually prefers to be closer.
Adrien's pretending to be calm, but he's not. It's a novelty for Luka to be able to tell, because he gets his sister and he gets Rose and he's starting to get Marinette, but for the most part other people are frequently mystifying to him. Mom says not to worry about it, that she's generally just as baffled as he is, but Mom is also raising them on a ship that's illegally sailing the Seine, so. Maybe not the best example.
(Mom says it's legal. Juleka's checked; it's definitely not.
But also, it's not like anyone seems interested in stopping them).
Luka doesn't give the silence a chance to settle in around them. He plays something old and slow instead, something that can fade into the background the way his concentration fades into the notes.
Adrien rests on his stomach in the sunlit strip, his head on his folded arms, and listens. He doesn't look as sun-drunk as Luka's sometimes seen him, but he does look like he should be downright purring, with the way his eyes are half-lidded and his head is tilted towards the sun.
Luka likes to sun himself, too.
He didn't before.
They probably should have had this conversation earlier.
They're taking long enough to have it now, with neither of them willing to break the not-quite-silence of Luka's guitar. Eventually, regretfully, Luka has to speak up or risk Adrien falling asleep on him, or risk falling asleep himself.
"I don't know how many tries it took me," he admits into the still room. Adrien stirs, just barely, and something flickers against his shirt. It's gone in a moment and Luka dismisses it as a trick of the light. "I know I'm older, but I don't know by how much."
Adrien rolls over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, clearly not seeing it. "I hadn't been thinking of it like that." He shivers. "I don't feel older."
"I don't either." Luka switches up his music, though he stays to something soothing. "I don't think it works like that, but I couldn't stop thinking about it after. That I'm older than I was, even if no one else remembers it. Even if almost no one knows."
Adrien swallows, eyes falling shut. "I know you said you didn't know, but..."
Luka doesn't need clarification. "By at least a couple of weeks. Not enough to matter, or not to anyone but me." He rests his guitar at his side to reach for his bracelet again. "I guess maybe to Sass, but he seems pretty used to it. He would be, though, wouldn't he?"
"...Yeah." Adrien's eyes stay shut. His breathing seems shallow, and he's not chasing the shifting sunlight like he normally would.
"Adrien?" Luka leans forward, cautiously.
Adrien doesn't move.
"Yeah."
He doesn't open his eyes, either.
Luka slides off the bed, landing beside his friend with a soft thump. Even with Luka trying to be as careful as he can, Adrien still flinches. "How much older does it make you, Adrien?"
Adrien swallows, hard, and Luka reaches back for his guitar again.
Not to play, this time. Just to have.
Just to give himself an anchor for whatever number Adrien gives him.
Adrien's answer, when it comes, is so quiet that Luka probably wouldn't have heard it at all if he'd still been on the bed.
"M-months. It was... " Adrien blinks, unseeing, at the ceiling, and exhales a heavy breath. "It's by months."
That dark flicker is back, curving somehow from Adrien's pocket up towards his neck, where it vanishes again. Whatever it is doesn't seem any more likely to hurt Adrien than it ever has, so Luka ignores it in favour of his friend's words.
His friend's words, which have shot ice down his spine and rattled him far worse than he wants Adrien to know.
Luka's counting in weeks because he'd had more than one battle as Viperion. Adrien's counting in months when he'd only had one battle.
"Adrien..." Luka trails off, because he doesn't know what to say to this. It's an old feeling, but one he's not used to with Adrien.
Adrien's mouth moves, but he doesn't say anything. He starts to roll over again and stops on his side, and Luka thinks at first that it's because completing the motion would take him out of the sun, but that tiny spot of darkness fades quickly out of sight again and Adrien would have landed on it if he kept rolling.
(Luka has suspicions, but he's keeping them to himself).
He doesn't ask Adrien how many times. Adrien tells him anyway.
"Twenty five thousand, nine hundred and thirteen," Adrien says into the carpet, and Luka's heart stops.
One battle. Adrien had been- had had the Snake Miraculous for all of one battle, and he'd aged the span of months in what should have been five minutes.
Does Ladybug know? Does anyone know?
(Does Chat Noir- Well. But).
Nothing Luka can say will make this better. Nothing Luka can play will make this better.
But he can't sit here and do nothing, he doesn't have it in him, so he unclasps his bracelet and offers it to Adrien. "Sometimes this can help, a little. The beads. Clicking them." He shrugs, a little self-consciously. "The noise helps, but it's more the... clicking it into place, and having nothing happen."
Adrien blinks up at him. "This is yours."
"I can make another. You need it more than I do." Luka keeps his hand extended, offering the bracelet to Adrien.
It doesn't take anywhere near enough convincing for him to put it on, which leaves Luka feeling even more like he probably needs it.
Luka sees the way his friend's vicious twists at his wrist turn to much gentler tugs at the bracelet over the next week and can only wish he'd caught on sooner.