ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴘᴇʀꜰᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ

barbie & uncle j

in which ella convinces trevor to take her to see barbie and trevor convinces jack to go with them...kinda.

THIS TAKES PLACE WHEN ELLA IS AROUND 3 YEARS OLD.
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"daddy, i love you." ella blurts from the end of the table where she sits in the booster seat that sits on top of the dining room chair.

trevor swears he feels his heart growing three times it's normal size when he looks down at his baby girl who has a sticky mess of syrup and fluffy pancake on her fingers and face. he looks over to penelope with his lip jutted out, penelope looks to ella who has a devilish smile on her face. she so badly wants to tell trevor he's somehow about to get played by a three year old.

"i love you too, babe." trevor smiles back to ella with a mouth full of scrambled eggs.

the table is silent for a few short moments, the scraping of metal forks on plates the other thing being echoed throughout the apartment. that is until ella giggles, trevor and penelope's head immediately snapping over to where she sits, both her hands covering her mouth as she tries to conceal her giggles. her blonde ponytails bouncing as she does so. trevor's eyebrow raises at her, only making ella laugh even more—trevor's thankful she's still at that age where she thinks her dad hung the moon.

"daddy can we watch barbie?"

trevor stops mid-chew, his eyes going wide at ella's request. of course she would ask that. she's been obsessed with all things barbie lately. playing with the dolls, watching the youtube videos, the movies—anything barbie you could think of, ella knew about it. so when she overheard penelope telling celeste that a live action barbie movie was coming out, she was gasping and running down the hall to her room to grab her favorite doll—which this week ended up being cowgirl barbie but would probably change to the classic one in a couple days.

"maybe mommy can take you to see barbie." trevor gives ella a small smile.

that answer was not going to work for his very insistent daddy's girl. ella can be heard letting out a huff, then a groan. her tiny arms are crossed across her chest and she has a pout on her face, eyes narrowing at trevor—something she caught onto seeinf penelope do it so many times. trevor gulps and ultimately looks to penelope for help for which she's throwing her hands up in surrender, shaking her head, and giggles slightly.

"no! i want you to go." ella cries.

"yeah daddy," penelope teases. "she wants you to go. margot robbie is barbie anyway."

trevor rolls his eyes and goes back to his breakfast until he realizes the big blue eyes that are staring back at him and he mentally curses to himself knowing ella will not give this up until trevor gives her an answer and unfortunately for him, he can't ever tell his baby girl no.

"i would love to take you to see barbie."

—

trevor picks up his phone that night after him and penelope put ella to bed. he presses the favorited contact before holding it up to his ear, praying to god his best friend won't betray him now. he's about to give up when he hears jack answer the phone but decides to do a small happy dance in his seat instead.

"what do you want, z?" jack spits.

trevor's gasps dramatically at his friends tone. "is that any way to greet your best friend—what could possibly be pissed about it's summer. we're in michigan, we don't have to worry about anyth—"

"trevor, the point—you're missing it completely dude. why are you calling me?"

"i—uh, there's a little league game going on tomorrow morning that i think we should go to. a lot of the boys are big fans of hockey. i think it would be nice to surprise them." trevor feels bad for lying, he really does. especially when he brings kids into the mix knowing that's jack's soft spot.

"oh hell yeah, absolutely! bring my little elly jack, too. pick me up in the morning." jack says before hanging up.

trevor laughs as he runs his hands over his face, throwing his head back against the couch when penelope walks out from the bathroom. "you are so evil."

trevor smirks, tugging penelope down his lap ultimately trying to unwrap her out of the towel she's clad in. "i'll show you how evil i can be."

"don't you ever say that again if you want to get me into bed with you."

—

that next morning, trevor and ella are driving to jack and celeste's vacation home that is just a couple miles away from the one trevor decided to buy on a whim one day during the season when he was bored—without telling penelope, also without going to look at it in person.

"uncle j!" ella screeches from the backseat as jack climbs into the passenger seat beside trevor. she tries to wiggle out of her tightly done up car seat but it's to no avail.

"hey ella babe!" he smiles, reaching his hand back to the backseat offering out a high five to the overly excited little girl.

trevor can barely hold it together when he sees that jack brought along a bag full of pucks and a silver sharpie — still fully believing that they were going to go crash a little league baseball game. he almost laughs at jacks attire too, which isn't funny at all. he's simply dressed in a devils t-shirt, black athletic shorts, wearing a snapback on his head. but it's the trajectory of it all. he looks like he's about to go sign pucks for a bunch of fans—not go to see the barbie movie.

"barbie!" ella yells, breaking the silence in the car.

trevor winces and he hopes jack doesn't notice it. he had to bribe ella to stay quiet about where they were going but she was three, how much could he expect out of her?

"you like barbie, el?" jack asks, turning to face ella in the back seat.

"yes, yes yes! we're going to see barbie!" she cheers.

and that's when trevor knows he's done for. jack is moving his eyes to the side of his skull first to side eye trevor, then his body moves to face his liar of a best friend who's stopped a red light. trevor chews his lip as he watches jack from his peripheral vision.

"thanks for coming uncle j!" trevor smirks, placing a plastic crown on top of jacks hatted head before the light turns green.

jacks face is so unamused when he says, "i'm going to tell her about the time you went to the government penalty box."