Sherlock giggles.

"Minions are sometimes convenient."

"So I see!"

"If you ever want to borrow one, I can ask them how they feel about being loaned out."

"I don't anticipate the need, but I suppose you never know."

"Yep. I did not set out to acquire them in the first place, but they're handy regardless."

"Indeed they are. And sort of cute too."

"In an ugly way. Like those wrinkly dogs."

"Yes, exactly."

"It is pretty weird that they unanimously want to be minions, but it would be unkind of me to second-guess their lifestyle choices."

"Perhaps there's some reason for it. Cultural or otherwise."

"Presumably. I don't feel right about asking pointed questions as long as they're being miniony at me, and they don't volunteer the information when hinted. Maybe I should get Soph to ask them or something."

"Or someone could spy on them. But perhaps you wouldn't feel right about that either."

"Indeed not. Also I'd have to find them talking about it amongst themselves, and they might all consider it such common knowledge as to not be worth discussing."

"Well, I could spy on them."

"I am very curious what you might see or overhear that would lead you to a conclusion about why they like to be minions if they didn't actually talk about it, but not enough to authorize spying."

Nuzzle. "If someone does a template sweep and finds a Sherlock they weren't expecting what do you think the protocol should be?" she giggles.

"Get all the Sherlocks together to talk about how to say hello. It might be a very short conversation, but it might not, depending."

"Sometimes you guys just look at each other and pretend to be telepathic, it's half funny and half eerie."

"Have there been any cases of inter-Sherlock misunderstanding with the Pretend Telepathy Technique?"

"None that I know of. I wouldn't expect any."

"How does it even work, it must be fascinating - Bells get each other more than typical interacting persons do, I think, but we're doing, 'if I were a No Questions Elf with thus and such a traumatic past and a Joker-and-a-half and I was from that world, why would I say that', and I think you're just doing a more efficient version of the same thing you do all the time with everyone, not so much deploying special template knowledge of each other, right?"

"Oh, debatably. What makes it so efficient is that I know very accurately what another Sherlock is going to notice about me, and about our surroundings, so I don't have to waste time with unnecessary explanations. And if I observe them failing to pick up on something, I am very likely to know what it is and deduce all sorts of interesting things about them from there. It's the same thing we do with everyone, but the special template knowledge and the symmetry is what makes it so pretend-telepathic."