Here comes the man,
with a look in his eye.
Fed on nothing,
but full of pride.

Elon finally had lost his entire mind, and that put it mildly, Kimbal thought as he turned into the short, curving driveway. As the gate slowly closed in behind him, he marveled at how dark it was under the tree lined avenue, pulling in just beside the garage. The least Elon could have done was hit the lights after he'd come all this way, but he was so used to giving in to his brother's antics that the thought skittered away as quickly as it had come. It didn't do to dwell on what their relationship could be like, he'd have to take his brother as is, and at that moment, that was the concern. As he was, Elon Musk played fast and loose with sanity and even productivity these days. It was open-loop time again.

Kimbal loped up the walkway, headed around the front of the house since the garage door didn't rise. He was already anticipating a cold welcome from Mr Demon Mode and had already raised alarm with the rest of the family. Board members started prodding him to intervene months ago, and he did, from a cautious distance, via text.

He gave a perfunctory knock at the door before walking right in, unsurprised that the door was unlocked. The house was full dark already, and Kimbal shifted his finger to the flashlight mode on his phone. The first flicker of foreboding lifted the hairs on the back of his neck as he crept up the stairs. Downstairs was dead quiet. Hopefully he doesn't have a girl up here, Kimbal reasoned, except it was too quiet for that. Too early for Elon to be asleep, and too dark for him to be gaming or streaming or chatting it up on Spaces. No blue light flickering under a doorway, no muffled thumps. A roll of queasiness clenched his belly. Maybe he just wasn't home, Kimbal thought, grasping for any excuse at this point. But Elon didn't go out. And as he knocked softly and then eased open the bedroom door, he lunged forward as soon as he saw his brother lying across the floor, mouth gaping, catatonic.

Elon had vomited all over himself, turning blue even in the sharp glare of the phone light. Kimbal lurched across the room and knelt by his brother, rolling him on his side and ordering the phone's AI to call 911.

He heard, as if someone else was speaking, his own voice gone tinny and distant saying, "I need help. I think my brother's overdosed."

Elon was deep in a K hole, which in and of itself would not be life threatening, but for two things—first, that as nauseated as he could get from Ozempic, ketamine made it worse, to the point that throwing up could prove dangerous, especially when, as he had done, he took too much and went to deep. Secondly, he had previously undiagnosed heart problems that were exacerbated with heart palpitations from the ketamine. So while he spent time in his head traipsing through an immersive version of a Diablo battle, Kimbal called the family and circled the wagons...once they intubated him and got his vitals stabilized in the ER. Everyone agreed and Elon was simply going to be outvoted. He needed help and had finally gone too far. By the time he was fully conscious again, he was craving a dose, itching to get back in his game one way or the other, and completely unapologetic. Kimbal stepped into the hallway to steel himself before going back in to break the news to his brother that he was about to get a full-time nurse and to choke back the urge to smack him stupid.

"You wouldn't believe the trip I had," Elon croaked, smirking when Kimbal stepped back in, grim faced.

It seemed Kimbal hadn't quite stifled the urge completely.

"I swear to god it's not often I want to strangle you, but this time..." he trailed off as Elon laughed. Kimbal was slightly mollified when the laugh turned to a hoarse cough. Schadenfreude overtook him for a moment before he moved to the bed and hit the button to raise it more.

"I'm fine," Elon shrugged, but offered his brother a placating gesture. "Really. Just went a little too deep too fast, but that's me."

"Yeah," Kimbal replied. "That's what we're going to talk about."

Elon's features darkened visibly as he watched the determination on his brother's face, and then Kimbal said the word he knew Elon did not want to hear.

"They've recommended a rehab."

"No," Elon clipped tersely, "absolutely not, you know better. Fuck off."

"It's 120 days long and in a nice facility-"

"Get out." He said coldly, his face visibly darkening with barely contained rage.

"Fine," Kimball said tersely, "they can't keep you, but they can have you arrested. We'll see how the shareholders handle that."

"I don't care, let them-" Kimbal snapped the door shut smartly as he exited the room, cutting off his brother's sputtering vitriol midstream. Stalking down the hall he found a lounge with a vending machine and dropped his head against the glass before he took a deep breath and swiped his card. He spent an hour calling everyone, giving Elon a chance to come back down to earth and get truly tired of the botheration of nurses in and out checking on him. A harried looking nurse came in after 45 minutes to request he come deal with his brother, but Kimbal, knowing he was recalcitrant for it, let him stew another fifteen minutes.

"I'm leaving," Elon said when Kimbal came back, still glowering as he clawed at the IV, stopping only when a tall black woman in nursing scrubs sauntered in.

"If you touch that IV one more time Mr Musk, I'm going to jab you with a sedative and slide those restraints on myself. Quit it."

He bit back a snarl, said nothing, and dropped his hands. They glared at each other levelly and then she raised her chin, stepped back to the door, and sauntered out as slowly as she had walked in.

"Where's my phone?" he said coldly, staring at a spot on the wall 2 feet away from Kimball.

"I don't know," he said easily, slowly lowering himself into the one chair in the room. "They confiscated everything, so getting your stuff back probably depends on cooperating."

Elon sucked in a breath to eviscerate his brother and Kimbal anticipated it, raising a hand and said, flatly, "you HAVE to stay 24 hours by law so they can monitor you. After that you can check out, but the family has already voted. You either do 30 days in a facility or get a round the clock nurse."

"You said they wanted 120 days," Elon said suspiciously.

"I think we can draw them down," Kimbal said resignedly, "because apparently ketamine is easy to withdraw from physically. It's just the psychological hold. But they'll probably want you to do some group therapy."

"Fuck THAT."