Work Text:
“They’re going to make dodos,” Joe said when Methos put a new round of beers down for them and a glass of red wine for Duncan and sat down.
“Who, watchers?”
“Scientists.” Joe turned his phone around briefly as if that’d enable Methos to read the article he’d opened.
Methos picked up his beer, not bothering to lean in and pretend to read. “Good.”
Joe looked back at his phone. “What will they think of next?” he muttered.
“BBQ sauce,” Methos said and at Duncan’s scowl gave an indignant shrug. “What? They were terrible.” He took a drink, added, “But, now that I think of it, perfect birds for nuggets. Sweet-sour, then.”
“You ate a dodo?” Joe asked him. He’d put his phone down and grabbed his pint glass as well. It was very early afternoon, the bar wasn’t officially open, yet, but Methos had just arrived, Duncan had picked him up from the airport, and Joe wasn’t often manning the joint anymore, anyway, so he’d agreed to having a little welcome back-get together (and presumably call it an early night).
“One?”
“That’s why they went extinct,” Duncan muttered into his glass at the same time Joe asked, “Better or worse than mammoth?”
Methos ignored the question, fixing Duncan with a wry glance. “Yes, Mac, I ate the last dodo. Plural. Two. They even told me, These are the last male and female, and I said, Fuck it, I want a small bucket of wings, you can throw away the rest. I’m that evil.”
“Seriously, what did they taste like?” Joe asked.
“I didn’t mean you,” Duncan said, “in particular, but because people ate them all, they went extinct.”
“Okay, a,” Methos said, “that’s not true and b, like you never ate an extinct animal.”
“But what did they taste like?” Joe asked.
“I didn’t.” Duncan frowned. “What even?”
“Haggis?” Methos took a drink.
Duncan rolled his eyes.
“Like chicken?” Joe asked.
“Yes,” Methos nodded at him. “Really crappy chicken. Shitty chicken. Barely edible. I had one,” he suddenly added, like it’d just come to him from the depth of memory. “As a pet. Well, my son did. Step-son.”
“A chicken?” Joe asked at the same time Duncan asked, “A dodo?”
Methos pointed at Duncan while swallowing another mouthful of beer. “Polly.”
“And did you eat her?”
“Yes. Didn’t tell the kid, though. We told him we sent her to a dodo sanctuary up north, by the coast.” He pursed his lips. “I may have invented that. Huh.”
“Well,” Joe said, “you just said you ate-”
“No, the ‘farm upstate’. 1673 or 74. Maybe seventy… uh… oh well, late 60s or so. I may have been the first parent to use that. I should have it trademarked.” He grinned, drank some beer.
“Figures your attribution to child-raising would be ‘lie to your kid about the important things’,” Duncan said.
Methos cast him a stern look. “Jan really loved that dodo. I would’ve liked to see you tell him.”
“I wouldn’t have eaten my son’s pet,” Duncan said with a smug little nod and sipped his wine as if for an exclamation point.
“Hm, right.” Methos nodded. “You’ve never been around children naming a piglet, or a baby goat. Bunny. Never.”
Duncan took a bigger gulp of wine.
“Thought so.”
“Why did they go extinct?” Joe suddenly asked. “Dodos. If not cause you people ate them all?”
“There were other factors," Methos said. "A lot of them just got sick, or the rats ate their eggs. Pigs, too.”
Duncan grinned into his glass. “And who brought the rats and pigs to Mauritius?”
“Listen.” Methos glared at him. “I’m not the only Dutchman who ever went to Mauritius on a rat-infested ship and ate some dodos, okay. You weren’t even fucking born, yet, so you can stop with the snickering, don’t think I don’t see it! In his lifetime,” he pointed at Joe, “they managed to make thousands of species go extinct, or more, I don’t know, so don’t give me grief about Polly, Polly had a good life!”
“I can’t believe you ate Polly,” Duncan said at the same time Joe asked, “‘They’?”
“She was a member of the family,” Duncan went on, but Joe was casting Methos such a look he felt compelled to reply, “Well, you know.”
“No. I don’t know. ‘They’ who? Sorry. Us. Us who?”
Methos rolled his eyes. Took a drink.
“Mortals?” Joe guessed.
“No,” Methos said, sounding like, yes, that, mortals, “not… you know. Humans.”
Joe smiled at him.
Methos groaned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, US then. Us humans. We all, all of us, made thousands of species go extinct. Happy?”
Joe was still smiling. “Sure.” He took a drink of beer, his was still mostly full, while Methos drained his. “You more than me, but sure.”
“I didn’t eat every dodo.”
“I was born about 300 years after the last one was eaten by whoever,” Joe said.
Into the ensuing silence Duncan snorted. Sipped his wine.
Methos blinked at Joe, flomped back against the backrest of his chair. “Are we having an environmental impact discussion? Is that what this is?”
“I’m just saying,” Joe said, “I never ate a dodo.”
“I’m one man!”
“I never ate a dodo, either,” Duncan said through a grin, Joe talking to Methos over him, “Who’s been alive for five millennia. You’ve created a carbon footprint as big as mine just by farting.”
Methos guffawed and when Duncan didn’t join in, looked – wide-eyed – from Joe to him and back. “I REMEMBER clean air and the taste of the Thames when it was just drinking water! I’m the one person here,” he made a wild gesture to encompass the table, “who actually-”
“You’ve been flying all over the planet since commercial flying was invented,” Joe cut him off.
“Because everybody… MacLeod has homes on two separate continents!”
“Didn’t you tell me that story about how you invested in coal mi-”
“MacLeod has Amazon Prime!”
At seeing Duncan duck his head and quickly pick up his glass, Joe threw him a scowl, but quickly turned back to Methos, “I love you,” he said, “but when they say we’ve been using up more resources than we can afford, they mean you most of all. As an individual.”
Methos opened his mouth.
“And just cause you remember living off the Earth and using every part of the saber tiger you killed or something doesn’t mean you’re not one of ‘us’. You’re MOST of ‘us’, buddy. If you ceased to go anywhere but by foot, you’d probably still have the carbon footprint of ten thousand rocket launches.”
Duncan snorted, but quickly lowered his head again when Joe turned his to look at him. “And when did you start taking planes?”
Duncan drank some wine to have his mouth full.
Methos finished his beer. “I’m sorry I ruined your planet,” he said as he put his empty glass down. “At least dodos are coming back. Let’s drink to science, I’ll get another round.”
“I mean,” Joe said, “I don’t give a fuck, I won’t have to live through the droughts and storms and floods, or eat cyber-meat or whatever.” He drained his glass with one big gulp and put it next to Methos’. “You reap what you sow, right?”
Methos and Duncan looked at him, then at each other.
“You staying long?” Duncan asked at last.
“Nah,” Methos said and got up, grabbing their glasses, “gonna fly to Seoul on Sunday, I got concert tickets, and then I’m starting a new job in Lille. We can meet up when you’re back in Paris. Both of you.” He cast Joe a wry smile.
“Sure,” Joe grinned, “I love Paris. I’ll switch to wine, too, thank you.”
Methos gave a mock little bow, collected their glasses and headed for the counter.
“Would you eat a dodo?” Duncan asked suddenly. “If they manage to bring them back?”
“Oh, absolutely. 100%. Wouldn’t you?”
“Totally. Mammoth, too.”
“Same,” Joe said.
THE END