Over the Tracks (MxM)

16-

Chris stepped back into the office after a quick survey of his sector, just to confirm that there was nothing of alarm. Quick often meant an hour or two, though, so it was nearly noon by the time he returned. Jason looked up at him in acknowledgement as Chris dropped into his chair. "So how'd it go last night?"

Chris sighed and shrugged. "He was scared, but he admitted it. And you're right, by the way."

"Hm?" Jason raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "Right about what?"

"That I'm bi."

Jason chuckled at that, giving a satisfied look to which Chris responded with a glare. "What, upset that I know you better than you do?" Jason smirked.

"Whatever," Chris huffed, turning to his computer and turning it on to note the nonexistent finds of his check-up on the sector. He relaxed back in his chair after that, only to decide to do a little researching for the next hour until his half-hour lunch break that came before the second half of his day, when he was supposed to deal with the regular city police. He began lazily browsing through the database of the private website, looking up halfblood, something he previously never found the need, nor want, to search.

Of course, few files came up. They had very little information on halfbloods, outside of the obvious fact that they were somewhere between vampire and human. Most, if not all of the files, were shared ones given to them by other regions of the country and continent as a whole. The first file he opened, and the largest one, showed the most basic information, mostly how they were created. It was the same process as creating a vampire; another vampire had to start by sucking the blood of a human. There were four outcomes, all without needing any extra steps, but instead depending on the amount of blood the vampire drank. Death of the human was the most common of the four, when all of the blood had been drunk, or too much for the victim to survive long enough to turn. When barely any blood was drank, nothing happened, or the human passed out. If the vampire drank the human to nearly the point of death, but left a small amount of blood remaining, the human would have a 50/50 chance of being turned into a vampire, or dying. Halfbloods were created when just enough blood was drank to start the turning process, but not enough to complete it. It was an extremely difficult balance to reach, thus the rarity. The rest of the files repeated the same information, with varying amounts of detail. The only other information currently available was that a halfblood's senses and abilities were typically halfway between the level of humans and vampires.

As Chris finished skimming the last file almost an hour later, bored of the repetitiveness, he backed out to the search results page, but before he cleared the search, he paused, the cursor moving to hover over something on the screen. A new file? How could there suddenly be a new file? But it was true; another file had appeared at the bottom of the list, newly added. Curious and confused, he clicked it.

The new file was dated to the current date, and contained different information than all of the other files. It showed that halfbloods were also easily damaged by fire and light, like vampires, but had more of a resistance to it. They also could be injured in the same way as a human, although not as easily. It noted the ability to switch between dull human teeth and nails and the much sharper vampire ones, as well as the ability to eat both races' diets. It also added more new information, such as aging and effectiveness of specialized weapons still in testing, but it was lost to Chris as he just stared at the screen.

"Something wrong?" Jason asked him, waving a hand in front of Chris's face to snap him out of the pondering daze he had just entered. When Chris's attention snapped back into focus, he looked at Jason, who said, "Alright, tell me what's off."

Rather than tell him right away, Chris pointed to the file on the screen still, silently telling him to read it. Jason glanced over it, unamused until he saw the date and that it was only uploaded mere minutes ago.