Hi RouxB - I am so pleased you've enjoyed this story; it was such fun to write and I loved doing it.
I'm glad that you've enjoyed them as ordinary men; I like writing about everyday people who are just trying to do the best they can.
One of my big writing interests outside fanfic is to tell stories about people who usually tend to have some kind of issue attached to them and just show them as being like everyone else. For instance whenever a deaf person appears plots etc. tend to centre around the person being deaf, and I would like to write about a person getting on with their life just like everyone else, but they just happen to be deaf. I really have issues with putting people in boxes and having the gay person appear in a novel, or the deaf person, or the homeless person. And for that one thing about them to define their whole person.
So - thank you for enjoying the normality of their relationship; I really do appreciate that.
Helen