Just a not so quick oneshot! I actually started this fic back in September, got really busy, and forgot about it until now. I guess you could call this a semi fluffy, more friendship ish type fic. But, like anything, it depends on how you look at it. Anyway, I hope this isn't too boring, because it's kind of long. There are a couple laughable moments, though ;) And to anyone currently waiting for the next chapter of Fading, I'm workin on it! XD

He could hardly move his fingers. Thinking back on that moment, Odd grimaced as he remembered the way the polymorphic specter had tossed him aside like a sack of potatoes. He had tried to catch himself by putting his arms out, but that plan had backfired. The loud snap that followed still echoed in his mind, and he winced at the horrible sound. What was worse, Jeremie couldn't do a return to the past so he wouldn't have to suffer through a stupid broken wrist and fractured forearm. He didn't blame Einstein, though. Xana had been getting too powerful lately, and he knew it wasn't worth going back in time just to fix. There was too much at stake.

He stared down at the cast that was keeping his hand still. Keeping his hand captive was more like it. He couldn't have picked up a pencil if he wanted to. And unfortunately for Odd, he really wanted to. How was he supposed to be able to draw like this?

It was infuriating just sitting there in class listening to the teachers drone on and on without the use of his hand. Even though everyone assumed he wasn't paying attention when he doodled in his notebook, he had to draw to remember what the teachers said. He couldn't just sit and listen and remember. His hands had to be doing something so his brain had something to connect the lectures to.

What annoyed him more was that being unable to draw left him with no way to express himself. Sure, he could listen to music, but, as Jeremie might have explained it, music was the input, and art was the output. If he didn't get the chance to let the art out, it would all just get bottled up inside and mess him up, make him angry. That was what happened when he trapped his emotions inside himself.

Odd picked up his pencil in his left hand, trying to ignore how awkward the shift from one hand to the other felt. He didn't care how weird it was, he had to draw something. He had come out here to the forest to just sit and relax, but now he realized how badly he wanted, needed, to draw. Maybe this could work.

He shakily drew the pencil across the paper, and before five minutes had passed, he was already chucking the offensive instrument at a nearby tree.

"I can't do this!" He growled at no one in particular, rubbing his good hand roughly through his hair and yanking at a few strands.

"Can't do what?"

Odd jumped, having not noticed the sound of leaves crunching behind him. He looked back and saw a flash of pink hair. "Jeez, Aelita, you scared me!"

"Oh. Sorry Odd! I didn't mean to scare you... So... What were you saying?"

Odd just sighed and stared at the pencil which now rested a good twenty feet away from the two of them. "I was trying to draw."

Aelita looked at him, eyes wide. "But you're not supposed to be using your hand. You might damage it more!"

Odd just rolled his eyes, a grin on his face. "Don't get all excited princess, I wasn't using that hand. I was trying to draw with my left hand, but obviously it's not working." He held the sketchbook up for his pink-haired friend to see.

This time, Aelita sighed, and sat down next to him as she stared at the thick, shaky, and uncertain pencil markings that littered the page. Odd's drawing ability had gone from excellent to third-grader, perhaps even worse.

"Well, you can't expect it to be just as good as any of your other drawings. You've been using your right hand your entire life, it's not realistic to think that you can switch and still be a decent artist." She told him, trying to be the voice of reason.

"I know that. But I'd at least like it to be halfway decent, and I can't even do that much."

Aelita watched his gaze shift back to the pencil on the ground, an anxious and defeated expression crossing his features. Never before had she seen that look on his face. She hadn't known that drawing meant this much to him. Sure, she'd known he liked to draw, but she hadn't realized what effect taking his hobby away from him would have. She hated seeing him so distressed, especially when he was always the one trying to be optimistic on any other occasion. Maybe there was a way she could help...

But then again, she didn't have much artistic experience. Other than the crayon drawings (more like scribble collages) she had made all those years ago before her father had ever invented Lyoko, she hadn't really drawn much. A few worthless doodles on her notebooks here and there, but otherwise nothing.

Her eyes widened, and a grin stretched across her face, the proverbial lightbulb coming on in her mind.

She leapt to her feet, and pulled Odd up with her by his good hand.

"I've got an idea!"

Odd didn't have time to ask what the idea was before Aelita was off and running. He scrambled to snatch up his pencil and sketchbook before pelting after her.

"Wait up, Aelita!"

Aelita just turned her head back at him, gave a lighthearted grin, and ran faster. "Come on, Odd, you can run faster than that!"

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see when we get there!"

He didn't have to run long, although he was still panting when Aelita finally stopped in front of the Hermitage.

"What..." he gasped for breath. "What are we doing here?"

Aelita just smiled at him and walked inside.

Odd could do nothing but follow. Aelita stopped in front of the doorway to her old room, and turned around to face him again. "Stay out here. I want this to be a surprise."

Odd let out an annoyed sigh, but complied. He could hear Aelita opening a drawer, pulling something out of it, and walking back into the hallway. He didn't get to see what she was holding because she was already racing back down the stairs. "Come on, Odd! You're gonna love this!"

"Love what?" He rolled his eyes and followed her into the basement of the Hermitage.

"Close your eyes."

If he were on Lyoko, he knew his tail would probably be swishing back and forth in annoyance right now. "Just show me what you've got. You're testing my patience, Aelita."

"I didn't know you had any patience," she replied with a snicker. "Fine, come here."

Odd smirked and walked over to see countless bottles of paint spread out on a table, along with a stack of large sheets of paper that seemed to be quite a few years old. His smile fell a little. "Not to burst your bubble, Aelita, but I don't think I'd be very good with a paintbrush either."

"Who said anything about a paintbrush?"

"But..." Odd was dumbfounded. How were they supposed to paint without a paintbrush? He smacked himself with his good hand as the idea came to him.

"How about finger painting?" Aelita asked, seeing the understanding on Odd's face.

He grinned and gave a shrug. "Why not?" At least now he wouldn't have to bother with mastering the precision of a pencil. This just might work...

Aelita smiled back at him, glad that Odd already seemed to be in a better mood. He started setting up the paints on a palette made of a piece of cardboard.

Odd reached for a jar of red paint, braced it against his side with his cast, and tried to twist it open with his left hand. The lid didn't budge. He pursed his lips and tried again, to no avail.

Aelita was watching him by now, and he mumbled something to himself and turned away from her, still trying to open it. "Need some help, there?" she asked, a smirk on her face. Odd turned back to her and handed her the jar stiffly, staring at the ground in embarrassment. She opened it with a single twist.

Odd gave the jar a skeptical look. "I loosened it for you," he stated, picking up a jar of purple paint that, luckily, opened far easier than the last.

"Just keep telling yourself that, Odd." Aelita grinned at her friend, and he, of course, grinned back.

She turned to one of the shelves and noticed an old battery powered radio. Surprisingly, it still worked. After a little tinkering, the small radio flooded the basement with the melodies and rhythms of their favorite techno music.

With the palette set up between them, and music to work to, they both started on a piece of paper.

Aelita settled on trying to make Mr. Puck from memory. A few minutes later, she bit her lip at how badly she was doing on the anatomy and crumpled up the paper. She switched to more abstract art, just mashing colors all over the page, after her second attempt ended as badly as the first. Most of her pieces ended up being varying shades of brown, but she couldn't care less. It was fun to be a kid again, get her hands dirty, just like she had done all those years ago.

Lost in her memories, it took her a few moments to realize how much time had passed. A voice on the radio announced that it was four thirty before continuing on into some random radio talk show. Had it really been an hour and a half already? She stole a glance over at Odd. He had only used two sheets of paper, one for wiping his hand on and the other as his actual canvas. His side of the table looked organized compared to Aelita's endless assortment of brownish finger paintings.

She had to stifle a laugh when she got a look at his face. There were smudges of paint of various colors swiped across his forehead and left cheek, and even a few streaks of green and blue in his hair. Odd himself was oblivious to both her and the paint on his face, focused so intently on his sheet of paper that he didn't even seem to notice that she'd turned the radio off.

Aelita got up and walked over to stand beside him to get a look at his painting. Contrary to her almost careless hodgepodge of colors, Odd had chosen to make a landscape, and an amazing one at that. She watched in awe as he smothered his fingers in a thin coat of greenish paint and flicked it carefully onto the canvas where he had already outlined the branches of a tree. The spray of green soon became flecks of budding leaves.

As she continued to stare at his painting (he still hadn't noticed she was standing there) he wiped the paint off and dipped his thumb into mix of green and yellow before using his thumbnail to make thin blades of grass. She could see where he had used the texture of his fingerprints to make the clouds look soft, and where he had smeared out the gradient colors of a sunrise. "Odd, that's beautiful." She said quietly.

Finally recognizing her presence, Odd looked up from his work in bewilderment. "Oh, uh... Thank you. It's a little messy since i had to use my left hand," He said, his own voice matching her volume.

"It looks great, still. I didn't think anyone could do so much with finger painting."

"Neither did I," Odd admitted, raising his eyes proudly at his work. "I'm just about finished..." He wiped the excess paint onto his scrap sheet of paper and once again dipped his thumb into the black paint.

Aelita didn't get to see what he did next, because he moved so that she couldn't see what he was doing. When he drew back again, she noticed that he had etched something into the bottom left corner with his thumbnail. The first part read 'for Aelita', followed by a very messy version of Odd's artist signature: his name, with an arrow underlining it. She had seen it before on the pieces he had made for their art class, pieces the teacher had asked to keep for the school art gallery. Only the Lyoko warriors understood where the arrow came from, though.

"You want me to have it?" She asked, confused.

"Sure!" Odd said. "How else can I thank you for giving me a chance to be an artist again? Other than letting you keep your croissant at dinner tonight, of course." He winked at her, and she snorted in response.

They left their paintings to dry and started cleaning up the paints. Aelita couldn't help but feel as if she owed Odd in some way. That painting was beautiful, and he was just going to give it away. Her eyes flicked down to the purple cast around his arm and hand, and a smile found it's way onto her face. "Hang on a second Odd, don't throw the paint palette away yet." She grabbed the piece of cardboard from his hands and turned away. She half mixed the pink and purple paint together and smeared it onto her hand, adding a little swirl of pink in the center of her palm for good measure.

She turned back to him and held up her hand. "I just realized we forgot to sign your cast. Do you mind?"

Odd shook his head, holding out his cast for her to "sign". She closed her painted hand around it and then pulled away. Left behind on his cast was a lavender colored handprint.
Odd grinned at the choice of colors. "Perfect."

Aelita smiled too and turned to pick up Odd's painting, being careful not to smudge anything. "Let's get back to the campus. The others are probably wondering where we are."

"Yeah, I guess. Hey, aren't you going to take these with you?" He asked. The table was littered with Aelita's color explosions.

"They need to dry anyway. And besides, it's not like they're any good. I'll probably just throw them away."

"Aww, come on Aelita, this one looks great! I always did kind of like abstract."

"That was supposed to be Mr. Puck..."

"Oh..." Odd's eyes revealed his embarrassment, but he recovered quickly. "Then it's a great Mr. Puck!"

"Yeah, sure Odd, whatever you say!" Both of them chuckled.

"If you're just going to throw them away, can I have one?"

"Go ahead. Why would you want one, though?"

He narrowed his eyes at the paintings before choosing his favorite. "Because it makes a great memory. Oh, and you have to sign it!"

"Okay." Aelita smirked, and she dipped a finger into the lavender colored paint again and signed her name. She took a step towards the door. "Oh, and Odd?"

"Yeah?"

"You have a little something on your face."

Thanks for reading!

Reviews would be well appreciated ;)

Okay, I really wish I could say I got my inspiration from this video, but I didn't. It's still cool though, if you wanna watch it! This is what I was picturing when I imagined Odd finger painting ;) Type in youtube in the search bar, and then this part: watch?v=SgnGDgXxHgY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DSgnGDgXxHgY