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The first time Buck finds a duck on his jeep (a shiny gray thing that matches the paint job of his Jeep) he’s a little confused. He’d been in the grocery store an hour because the line at the meat counter had been long. He should’ve just done all his other shopping while he waited his turn. But he picks up the duck, and puts it in his glove compartment, and thinks someone must’ve just found it in the parking lot and put it on his car because it matched.
The second time, he thinks it’s a coincidence. The little yellow duck has a cowboy hat. It’s amusing. He puts it with the other one. He’d been in the pharmacy for 20 minutes picking up Chris’s medications. He thought maybe he would give the ducks to him when he got home.
The third time is when he actually looks around. He doesn’t even notice the other jeep at first. He’s looking for Hen’s car. Or Chim’s. For anyone he knows who might be playing an elaborate, albeit harmless, prank on him. Then he notices the Jeep with about 50 tiny ducks on the dashboard, and he laughs. He laughs because it’s another one of those Jeep things he’s behind the curve on.
He puts the newest addition. The sparkly pink duck, in a row with the other two on his dashboard. Then he takes a sharp turn onto Eddie’s street and realizes he’s going to need something to hold them in place.
He goes online and orders museum putty, and a 100 pack of firefighter ducks, and an LAFD car decal that night.
Two days later they arrive at the firehouse.
“Why?” Bobby asks when Buck opens the box.
“Apparently it’s a thing.” Buck says. It’s slow enough that everyone had come over to see what he ordered. “It’s called ‘ducking’.”
“It’s called what?” Bobby asks, but then puts up a hand before Buck can say it again.
“So if this was with deer figures-” Chim begins.
“Bucking.” Hen says with a snort before doubling over to laugh.
Buck rolls his eyes, “I’ve already been gifted like 3 rubber ducks.”
“Really?” Eddie asks, picking up one and examining it. It’s got the black and yellow turnouts on it, “Wait so do you have to like? Trade?”
“It’s more like, if you see someone’s jeep you just drop a duck off?” Buck wasn’t exactly sure of the etiquette. But he thought it was a nice gesture.
“So random people just gave you ducks because you were duckless?” Bobby says, picking up another one of the ducks, it’s got a little number 2 on its hat and a mustache.
“Yeah,” Buck said, “the first one was the same color as my jeep.”
“I’m gonna get you a couple of pride ducks.” Hen says, “you want me to find the bi flag?”
“Oh-” Buck makes a face for a moment, thinking of it, “I mean, if you want to. If you get a bunch I’ll put them into the mix.”
“Awesome.” Hen says, smiling.
That’s how it starts. Buck drops off maybe five rubber ducks when he sees jeeps, but more often than not, he misses the people who put ducks on his car.
Hen and Chimney keep track of how many he has. When he gets to 20, he can at least say he’s given out a few more of his firefighter ducks. Though, the three to the triplets with the exhausted mom in the parking lot of target probably don’t count. Or the 6 he made into keychains for the firefam kids.
But he doesn’t feel as bad.
Then he spots the Jeep that’s bright yellow in the firehouse parking lot and the teenager sprinting to put a giant firefighter duck on his car.
For once he actually gets to trade. They take one firefighter duck, and one pride duck, and they get a selfie with most of the shift.
Buck proudly carries around the giant firefighter duck until the next call. He stores it with his turnouts until the end of shift.
Eddie buys him another cowboy duck when he visits his family in El Paso. This one is dressed in the Texan flag.
Bobby gets him one that looks like a zombie.
Chim gets him a zebra one.
Maddie had been delighted by the ducks the first time she saw a full dashboard of them. She’d bought him a multipack of glitter ones to ‘duck’ other Jeeps.
Hen got him a duck to put on his antenna.
Athena got him a cop one. Her coworker apparently asked to pass it on, and Buck gave her a firefighter one to give back. He didn’t mention it when he saw it in her own car, sitting in the little place where she usually kept her phone.
Christopher had become obsessed with ducking other cars. To the point where he sometimes asked if they could pull into a parking lot cause he thought he saw a jeep. Buck obliged most of the time. When they weren’t running late.
The few months Gerard was in charge, he threatened to have Buck ticketed for having an obstructed view while driving. But a woman came in with a trans pride duck and asked Buck to put it next to his gay pride duck, and she heard the offhanded comment Gerard made, and a week later they had another interim captain before Bobby finally returned.
Tommy gave him a pilot duck on their 3 month anniversary. Buck gave him a firefighter duck keychain. He was finally down to half the ducks he started with, not including the ones he was gifted by Maddie and Hen.
Eventually he had to retire ducks from his dashboard to make room for more.
Halloween rolled around and Buck got multiple witches, zombies, werewolves, and vampires. He put the duplicates into the box in the back for trades and gifts.
When Eddie asked him out, after Buck broke up with Tommy, it was with a tiny duck holding a heart. Buck put it in the center of his dashboard.
They were on the beach when they got gifted a surfing duck. Buck sent a picture to Chris. Chris sent him a picture of his firefighter duck keychain.
Eventually Chris started sending him more pictures of jeeps with ducks from El Paso.
Eddie sent him a care package after they started talking again. Agreeing to let Chris finish the school year, before he had to decide if he wanted to come back or not. Inside was a jeep keychain, and a 12 pack of ducks for Chris to dole out.
At Christmas, Buck found an online listing for string lights that were shaped like rubber ducks. He managed to find a way to string them up on top of his jeep.
Chris’s gift to Buck is a 12 pack of rubber duck ornaments, which end up on the firehouse Christmas tree.
Buck sent him some books, puzzles, and candy. Eddie sends him a few new games for his play station. The one in El Paso. Buck already got him the same ones for out here so they could play multiplayer together.
Eddie’s house is starting to accumulate Rubber ducks the same way Bucks loft had.
Buck jokes that when he moves in, he’ll have to dedicate half the boxes to rubber ducks. When Eddie gets him a new set of keys, a formal invitation to move in, they’ve got a little duck on the key head (It’s not a rubber duck, because Eddie couldn’t find one of those and he looked for 2 weeks).
Chris comes back in spring. Early. With the excuse that he got tired of his abuela cutting up his meals for him. Eddie drove there and back in two days. He texted Buck that he and Chris were staying in a hotel in El Paso.
Buck had a New Mexico duck and Arizona duck when they got home. He put them in this rear window, with the El Paso and LA ducks.
Chris made him stop to ‘duck’ other Jeeps again, and sometimes Buck stopped even when they were running late.
Eventually, two ducks in tuxedos were put on Bucks dashboard, with a little black box nestled between them.
Buck said yes. The two of them got moved to the center of his dashboard.
“What are we doing with 10,000 mini ducks?” Eddie asked, sleepily, three months into planning their wedding.
“They’re for the centerpieces,” Buck explained. Handing him a cup of coffee. It’s early morning. Buck is planning a majority of the wedding. If Eddie had had it his way they would’ve made the drive to Vegas and back.
But Buck wants a wedding because he’s never had one. So Eddie sips his coffee and stares down at the thousands of mini ducks that are smaller than the last knuckle of his pinky finger like it makes any sense.
Chris is happy, though. And insisting they incorporate the ducks into the wedding somehow.
That’s how all the centerpieces end up with yellow flowers with stems tucked into mini ducks instead of glass beads. Buck's mom spent hours making sure each one had an even amount of the tiny things, going so far to pick up more when they ran out. Determined not to be anything but supportive at their Son’s wedding.
The wedding cake has the two rubber ducks Eddie proposed with on its tallest tier.
Eddie smashed a small piece of cake into Buck’s face, and Buck shoved some in his. They took the groom ducks back to their table when they got tired of dancing.
Eddie’s mom asked him why they had a duck themed wedding. Eddie had shrugged and said that Buck had been ducked.
It didn’t help explain it.
They took the jeep on their honeymoon. A few nights vacation in a pretty hotel in Palm Springs. They received several new ducks all along the back of the car where it announced they were “Just Married”.
They gave them all to Chris when they got home two days later (it was a short honeymoon, but they were planning something longer the next summer).
Slowly the ducks stopped showing up. Buck eventually gave away the last of the original 100 firefighter ducks. He cleared most of the ducks off his dashboard, except for the two groom ducks. He kept the El Paso and LA ducks in the back window.
The duck trend faded, but they kept all the ducks in several plastic bins in the garage. They had special memories.
They still received the occasional duck from friends and family. They store them with the others.
Buck finds one in Chris’s boxes a few years later when he’s packing for college. He buys him a graduate duck. And an astronaut duck. And a pirate duck. He sneaks them into his boxes.
A duck with glued on crutches appears on his dashboard after they drop Chris off at the UCLA dorms.
It’s the last Duck that gets added to the collection.
(Chris comes home to visit a week later with laundry.)