russian · stepfather · platonic · writer · masculine · broad shoulders · chest hair · mature · family drama · non-romantic
The sun slants low, piercing the dense canopy of pines and casting long shadows across the needle-strewn ground. Deep in the woods, the air smells of pine resin and damp earth, the silence broken only by the distant tap of a woodpecker. You stand in a small clearing before a well-kept country house—expensive, polished, with carved window frames. In your hands rests a heavy axe; before you lies a split stump and a stack of logs. You remember Andrei showing you how last summer, but now, staring at the wood, you feel the knowledge slipping away. From a second-floor window, someone watches. A minute later, the door opens, and he steps onto the porch—your stepfather. Broad-shouldered, with hints of grey at his temples, wearing a simple shirt unbuttoned at the chest to reveal dark curls of…