Stein sighed, looking down at the mess on his desk. Flecks of tobacco and torn bits of paper littered the top of it, some of it getting between the keys of his computer. The filter was still squeezed between his fingertips.

His hands were itching. A momentary spasm of movement had reduced a perfectly good cigarette to the mess on his desk before him. All shredded and torn apart, just like he would like to do to...

The doctor sighed and leaned back in his chair, rotating around and flicking the useless remainder into the trash bin. His fingers drummed restlessly on his legs, itching for something to do. Spinning around back to the desk, he opened the drawer, carelessly dumping the remains of the cigarette back it; his next patients would be here soon, so he needed this cleaned up.

It was as he was turning over his keyboard, shaking out the bits of tobacco that his eyes fell upon it, caught by the gleam of metal. A scalpel, simple and sharp, lying there among the pens and paperclips like it was just another piece of stationary. It would be so easy, once he was alone with the patient...

At the knock at his door, he slammed the drawer shut, backing away from the desk and spinning about in his chair before coming to a halt facing the door.

"Come in," he called, a bright smile painted on his face for whoever the nurse was escorting. Ah, just a little longer before the day was over...

Ah, last day of work for the week.

Most people might've rejoiced at a three-day workweek, but Stein just felt restless. He'd barely even started and now he was on the last day of the week. Well, at least it looked like they had him double-booked both shifts. Again, some people might have balked, but Stein just found this a nice consolation prize. Four more chances to examine new specimens. Ah, no, that wasn't right, was it? New patients. To help. And examine new problems. Yes, yes, yes.

Taking a long drag off his cigarette, Stein leaned back in his chair, smoke drifting to the ceiling as it poured from his mouth like smoke from a witch's cauldron. Ah, last day of work for the week.

Time to get some work done.

It was nice and sunny outside, a great contrast to yesterdays clouds that had threatened to rain on everyone. So of course Stein had spent lunch shut in his window-less office. Well, at least there was enough ambient nicotine in the air now that he didn't feel the urge to puff his way through more than one cigarette during that time. Besides, it got in the way of eating.

That out of the way now, Stein looked through his files for the afternoon. One of his morning patients had never shown up and he hadn't gotten a straight answer on that. Maybe he'd just be coming this shift instead. The other was a teenage boy... well, Stein was used to working with children, but it's not like was looking forwards to it. Sometimes they were just so predictable.

Well, nothing for it. Sighing and resisting the urge to light up again when a nurse could peek in and scold him at any moment, Stein idly rotated in his chair, the room spinning around him as he waited.

Second day working here, and already he was breaking the rules.

Well, the nurse's rules, anyway. No where in Stein's contract had there been a "no smoking" clause. Still, every time one of those women poked their heads in his office and saw a lit cigarette, there was a stern reminder that, even if they had no right to regulate what he did to his own body - Stein snorted; smoking was hardly the worst thing in that category - they asked that he kindly refrained from subjecting the patients to second-hand smoke.

So now Stein had taken up stealth-smoking as a hobby, quickly hiding the cigarette right before the nurse came in to tell him about this or that. Of course, by the smell in the room, it was obvious he had been smoking, but the nurses apparently didn't wield the authority or the bravery to admonish him for smoking when he wasn't caught red-handed. Still, after the fourth time one of them looked in with nothing in particular to announce but a reminder that patients would be arriving in so-and-so many minutes, he suspected they were trying to catch him in the act.

Amusing. He wondered just what went on in those heads of theirs. His fingers itched just thinking about it.

Stein sighed and exhaled. Right, no, that had been a problem yesterday. Calm down. Breathe. Ignore the noise. He couldn't go around just cutting people up, now could he? Looking at his notes from yesterday, he was reminded to better assess the physical conditions of his patients better before starting; it had been a real killjoy when Frank had almost popped his stitches. Well, live and learn.

Smoking his cigarette and going over the files, Stein read up on today's patients, ready to hide the focus of his addiction the moment the doorknob so much as began to turn. There was no way they'd catch him again.

Stein stared at the ceiling as he leaned back in his chair, head lolling backwards over the back of the chair. He rotated ever so slowly on the chair, which was obviously well greased considering how long his inertia was lasting. As he watched the ceiling revolve around the useless bulb that hung in the lampshade and the trail of smoke coming from his cigarette, Stein thought.

He had almost lost it with his first patient here. He couldn't be doing things like that, not if he wanted to keep his cover. Even the man was on the path of the demon. He was in a secure asylum, it's not like it was in any danger of getting worse. Concentrate on the killer that was still at large.

Mechanical clicking filled the room as he turned his screw, smoke drifting lazily from his slack mouth. Just breath. Breath out the madness and restore order.
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"Dr. Stein?" asked the nurse, knocking on his door. The rotations stopped, both of his chair and his screw, his arms falling slack. His head lolled over towards the doorway. The nurse peering in continued. "Your next patient will be in shortly. And could you please put that out?"

She frowned disapprovingly at the cigarette in his mouth, though putting it now wouldn't help the cloud of smoke around the ceiling and the smell of tobacco that now permeated the air. Still, the Stein obliged, sitting up and snuffing it out in the ashtray on his desk. Satisfied, the woman left to bring his patient in. While she did so, Stein looked over the next file.

"Frank, huh?" he murmured distantly, reading without taking the words in. Maybe this one wouldn't care if he smoked.

There was a new office.

Rather, it was still within the same space and confines as where a certain Vicodin-inhaling doctor had used to practice mental therapy but what was now there could no longer be called the same office.

There was a new desk; it looked like it had been stitched together out of different parts. There was a new interior design; everything was in different shades of gray, also looking stitched together. A not-so-new computer tower and bulky monitor sat on the desk, humming away. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, completely unnecessary given the lighting already installed in the room. There were shelves of books and a table, all covered in flasks and beakers, test tubes and jars. There was a chair, metal framed with stitched-up cushions standing by itself in the middle of the room, a little towards the front. There were even white arrows on the floor, which had been stripped to the concrete, one coming from the desk, making a right angle then pointing out the door and another beside it that came in before turning perpendicular to indicate the lonely chair where the patient was meant to sit.

What there was not, however, was a chair for the doctor to sit in. Nor a a doctor to sit in it.