Jimmy arrives at the doctor's door at two in the morning, humiliated beyond words to be disturbing his boss at an ungodly hour for an inappropriate and personal and outright awkward reason.
But the need outweighs the doubts and the concerns, the shame and the embarrassment, so he rings the doorbell.
Ducky answers shortly after Jimmy rings the bell, dressed in his pajamas and clearly having been awoken from his sleep. He stares at Jimmy for a long moment, taking in his sweaty face and the way he can't just bring himself to stand still for another moment.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, Ducky thinks. Letting Jimmy go was for his own good, because there were young and normal women to fawn over him, because what they had could not last. Because Ducky would die or Jimmy would grow tired of having an old man.
The girls can't give Jimmy this, not when Jimmy wont admit it to any of them. They can't stop him from descending into this anxious and painful state, no matter how much Ducky has tried to reason with him to just talk to someone else in his life about it.
Jimmy had always answered "this is between US, Doctor Mallard. It wont work with anyone else." and Ducky had always dropped the topic, even after he told Jimmy that he was under no circumstances going to continue groping that girl in his autopsy and then come home to him as well.
He had hoped Jimmy would pick the girl, and he had.
But now Jimmy is here, and back, and Ducky can't resist giving him what he needs. "Strip." Ducky says, gesturing to the ground.
Jimmy knows what to do. He methodically removes his clothing, blushing at Ducky seeing him this way again after so long. He lays down on the carpet, with his chest pressed flat against the rough texture, and his body already itching from it.
Then Ducky is just THERE, strong arms pushing down his shoulders and knees digging into his thighs and rough palms pressing down on his back. Ducky scratches him with his nails for minutes when Jimmy whines out after a quarter of an hour that he wants more, and eventually runs into another room to find a coarse rock meant for thinning thick calluses to rub Jimmy bloody with.
Jimmy breathes when Ducky finishes, when he cleans up his work with all the care he'd use with a patient, and then Ducky guides him into his bedroom and all but tugs him into the bed, covering him with a blanket before getting in on the other side. Ducky wraps an arm around him, cool and soft against his hot and grated skin.
Jimmy breathes. "Not again, Doctor Mallard. No more letting me run wild with girls, no more telling me that suffering without you is for my own good. No more. This is where I belong, it isn't just the action, its you."
Ducky thinks that he's known this for a very long time, and knows that he'll have guilt waiting to deal with him in the morning. For now he pulls Jimmy closer. "Of course, Jimmy."
They fall asleep like that.