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Most people at the Pentagon have never heard of Major Paul Davis, and that was the way he liked it. Every time someone new learned what he really did, it meant that one more person had been read into the program, and it seemed at times that they were running out of politicians and high-ranked military officers that weren't aware. Other countries had it easier—the funds they funneled into the SGC could easily be marked as research, the technological advancement that came from it more than making up for their investment, and they had far less personnel to manage.
They knew of him in the Mountain, of course. Not what he was doing, and most of the time not even his real name—Major Disaster was a hard nickname to get rid off—but they at least knew that he was doing something to help the program at the Pentagon, and the soldiers and scientists were more than happy to let him deal with politics while they did real work on the ground.
But at the Pentagon, he liked to be entirely unremarkable, and his Guide status helped him greatly in that.
Or, really, his lack of status. It was registered in his file, of course, but most people didn’t care enough to read it, if they even had the clearance to. As a bonded Guide, Sentinels didn’t register him as someone they needed to protect unless he actively made it so—and since he had bonded weeks after he had gotten involved with the Stargate program, few people he crossed paths with everyday had had the chance to meet him before.
Mundanes didn’t think of Guides and Sentinels as separate entities. For them, they came as a pair, and were often easy to identify given how they acted together. Since Paul’s sentinel wasn’t on earth—wasn’t even in the same galaxy, currently—they never wondered about his status at all.
Other guides could tell what he was, but while society had come leaps and bounds in regard to S&G rights in the last decades, they still had some blind spots, and the military was not exempt of them. Guides tended to be relegated to more supporting positions, operating in the background to keep their country safe without risking their life—most sentinels wouldn’t bear it if they did. Which meant that while they were often military-adjacent, few guides directly joined the military.
Consequently, none of the few guides working at the Pentagon were officially in charge of anything. They were assistants, secretaries, the ones who made it possible for everyone else to do their job and rarely were recognized for it. It hadn't taken much for him to befriend them, and they kept his secret without him needing to ask. In exchange, he tried never to make their life harder when he had to interact with their boss.
All combined, it meant that most of the Pentagon thought him mundane. It made it easy for him to use his talents to pass unnoticed and to sooth tempers during meetings—if people knew you were a guide, they were more actively on the lookout for those subtle manipulations. He wasn't above using his abilities if it meant the continued well being of the Stargate program.
And neither was O’Neill, once he had read Paul’s file. It had taken him a few weeks after becoming head of Homeworld Command—unsurprisingly, given how hectic those weeks had been—but once he had, they had had a long discussion on what it meant for his job. As a dormant sentinel since the death of his son, he had some residual instincts to protect the guides in his charge, but as someone who had used his abilities for decades in the service to protect his country, he respected how far Paul was willing to go as well as his limits. He was in a unique position to do so, and Paul was once again glad for the program’s existence and how it had allowed him to meet so many great people.
The two of them worked well together. O’Neill had his reputation—well, reputations, really, as he was seen with vastly different gaze by those who knew of the program and those who didn’t—and Paul was glad that when he encountered too many roadblocks, he could point O’Neill in the right direction, let him lose, and have results by the next day.
With the two of them tag-teaming the Pentagon and every DC politician who tried to interfere with the program, they had earth well in hand. It left them to deal with the mountain and Atlantis.
O’Neill’s friendship with General Landry, as well as his close link with SG1, made it easy for him to stay informed of the coming and going inside the mountain. It was equally as easy for Paul to get news of Atlantis—his Sentinel, after all, had left for the Pegasus galaxy in the second wave, and as second in command of the military he was well placed to give Paul a mostly unbiased view of the expedition.
Evan was aware that O’Neill wasn’t looking for a way to relieve Sheppard of his command, like so many wanted to, and instead only wanted a more up-to-date and less sanitized view of the city than they got in the monthly check-ins through the stargate. Not everything could be put in official reports, and not all that was written reflected the reality of the situation—O’Neill knew well, from his years at the head of SG1, how different situations looked when you put them to paper and had them read by someone safely behind their desk.
It was hard enough to understand the threat the Wraith posed without encountering them; they were too used to the Goa'uld scheming and plotting to consolidate their power that an enemy that simply wanted the consume all life on earth was something they couldn't fathom. O'Neill didn't want their ignorance to delay their reaction if Atlantis called for help, especially given the length of the journey between the two galaxies.
So they relied on Evan’s intel, with the understanding that almost all of it was meant for Paul’s ears only, and what he chose to pass on to O’Neill had to stay off the record.
~~Stargate~~
Distance meant little on the astral plane. Most bonded pair rarely separated for longer than a few hours, but Evan hadn't wanted to give up the stars, and Paul had known that he could do more good on earth, and they had found out that they could live without seeing each other for months at a time.
It didn't mean that Paul wasn't still glad to be able to put his hands on his sentinel, and when O'Neill had given him the afternoon off and told him to be late the next morning, he hadn't asked any question and had rushed to the airport to be able to greet his partner off the plane. He had only taken the time to change into more casual clothes, the type he didn't wear often, a dark gray pair of jeans that highlighted his ass and tights—running was often the only activity he could find the time to do with his busy schedule—and had unbuttoned the top two buttons of his polo shirt.
Evan zeroed on him as soon as he entered the hall, and desire bloomed in Paul's stomach at the sight of his sentinel walking intently in his direction.
His months in the Pegasus galaxy had been good for him. His hair was longer, past regulation, and he had gained muscle, his arms looking like they were about to burst out of his black tee shirt. He was dressed like every military man that left the mountain; black BDUs, black shirt, and if it hadn't been late spring he would have had a black jacket on top. Dress uniform and camos did nothing for Paul, but he associated those clothes with Evan having downtime—and spending long nights with his lover.
Evan licked his lips when he reached him, an unconscious tell, put a hand on the back of his neck and the other on his hips, and drew him into a kiss that barely stayed appropriate for a public setting. Paul lost himself for a moment, his mind blanketing Evan's and connecting them mentally, until he was forced to pull back as the burst of emotions on both their part threatened to overwhelm them.
"Let's get somewhere more private." Evan whispered against his lips, stealing a last kiss before taking a step back.
"My flat's stocked with everything we might need, and I have a free morning."