Disclaimer/Author's Note: I'm not Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Sir Arthur, or even Steven Spielburg. To them be the glory. Thanks for reading! The opening quotation about lies and half-lies is taken from Robert Bolt's screenplay for "Lawrence of Arabia." This was originially written for the "Half-Truth" challenge at sherlock flashfic.

Crusade

"A man who tells lies has misplaced the truth, but a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it."

Sherlock was not a sociopath. His brain was not a hard drive that deleted extraneous memories at will. And Mycroft was not his archenemy.

The brothers conveniently misplaced these facts by mutual consent, but neither forgot where they'd put them.

In 1989, they'd gone to the cinema.

It was an anomaly in their relationship, not really worth remembering, but both remembered. The film had been a bit of American froth, a long string of improbable chases and gunshots, explosions and secret treasures. Mycroft, nineteen, had been mildly horrified by the gross historical misrepresentations involved, and Sherlock, twelve, had threatened loudly to vomit during the kissing scenes. Neither approved of the improbably named hero, though they were in no position to throw stones where improbable names were concerned. The story's eventual descent into mysticism was a relief, as it spared them the necessity of attempting to mentally reinstate the laws of physics.

All in all, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had been a waste of brain cells and should never have been spoken of again.

Yet, three weeks later, in the course of unpacking his travel case on the night he returned to university, Mycroft found a folded note tucked into the toe of his Persian slipper (the cigarettes he normally hid there were missing, naturally).

It read: 'You left just when you were becoming interesting.'

Mycroft kept it, though he couldn't say why.

Eight years later, Sherlock had gotten himself thrown out of Oxford after a long string of improbable chases and gunshots, explosions and secret treasures. X never, ever marked the spot.

Mycroft did not share his brother's flair for the dramatic, but he did cultivate a bureaucratic brand of combat. The small-time criminals harassing Sherlock found their tax returns audited with vicious attention, and they could hardly settle into a new hideout before the building was condemned or the street outside shut down to be repaved. Home loans were withheld, insurance claims disapproved, oyster cards wiped of funds on a regular basis and before long the London underworld learned to think of Sherlock Holmes as bad luck, plain and simple.

Superstition was a flimsy shield, of course; bound to fail. Sherlock was twenty-two the first time he nearly died on a case.

Mycroft took the call from hospital, handled the paperwork, broke the news to Mummy, cried for just under half a minute in the loo and then washed his face thoroughly. Before ascending to Sherlock's room he stopped at the gift shop on the ground floor and his eye caught on an overlarge umbrella.

For a moment he was nineteen again, sitting in a chilly theater with Sherlock miserable and safe beside him, watching Sean Connery run across the screen flapping a black umbrella at a flock of birds. He watched while they took flight and jammed the propellers of a German warplane, bringing it down before its bullets could touch the ridiculous young hero. "I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne," Connery drawled. "Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky."

With a sense of inevitability, Mycroft bought the umbrella and leaned upon it as he took up his place at the foot of Sherlock's bed.

His brother was sleeping the sleep of the just, bruised and drugged and victorious, while police officers hovered outside, waiting for the chance to wrap up their loose ends.

"You call this archaeology?" Mycroft asked softly, and Sherlock smiled in his sleep.