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early-sxnsets · 6 years ago

Text

Unveil

Archive Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17343617/chapters/41439146

Chapter 8/11 of Of Wealth and Leisure

Word Count: 4213

Summary: Unspoken secrets of the past come into focus, leading to the only known clue in the murder of Mrs. Pitch. Their lead reveals something much darker than expected.

“So, you’ve been getting along awfully well with Mr. Pitch,” Ebb says, speaking more into the room than towards me. Sparks burst out from under the log as she prods it with a poker, adding another into the flames.

I feel guilty for shivering only moments ago, which prompted her to fuss completely and add to the fire. The late December air drifts through her weakly sealed windows and door, leaving the poor woman to live within layers upon layers of clothing. At times throughout the last month or so, I’ve been subtly sneaking her extra clothes; an old, ill-fitting jacket I’d forgotten about, a pair of thick cotton trousers. She dotes upon me, ruffling my hair as if I were a child and saying that I’m too good to be in such a dark household.

She’s not particularly wrong in her statement; I have been growing particularly close with Mr. Pitch, or Baz, as I call him privately. We’re not joined at the hip, exactly, but the threatening air between us has shifted dynamics entirely. Instead, we now spend afternoons reading through old trade documents and family records books, attempting to find recurring names. Some have stuck out, but all fall flat eventually.

He’d shared with me his anxieties over his title; the heir to both wealths and the power structures in play. We’d gotten drunk one night, weeks into his recovery, and laid sprawled out upon the Moroccan rug of his bedroom floor. He had told me, in a long winded speech, that he’s as equally fearful of his allies as compared to his enemies, as neither are predictable.

When I rested my hand upon his shoulder and lolled my head to the side, asking him whether or not he trusted me, he took a long moment's pause before closing his eyes. “Yes,” he mumbled at last, settling my ruffled edges with his liquor-smooth voice. “If you’d have killed me, you would have left me with my injury and fled.”

I had no other words for him, hand lifting up and tracing down his nose.

He let me brush my hands upon his bared skin that night, curious to feel the curves of his wrists and dipping slope between his chin and Adam’s apple. In silence, he sat and observed my delicate movements up until I’d settled my index finger on his lips. In fear, I’d retracted back and rolled to face the ceiling again before distracting myself with talk of my interactions with wealth.

Such events haven’t been uncommon between us since. An unspoken intimacy of grazing touches coupled with long, extended moments of staring. I think it’s grown into a competition; who can breakdown first, crumbling into a newly directed conversation to avoid whatever’s at hand.

Whatever is at hand? It’s been gnawing at me, making a home inside the carved out part of my brain where my usual thoughts once occupied and endlessly pestering my conscious mind. Agatha’s words ring clear in my ears every time I make Baz smile, even if just with a poorly said tease.

“Do you fancy Mr. Pitch?” Do I? Surely, I’m overthinking such statement. Although, it’s rare for me to think over something so tediously at all. Not being one much for thinking, it’s bitterly unfair that the only thing I can think about is the state of my attractions. For the sake of myself, and for the fear of a truthful answer, I allow a single repeat of the word “No” to filter through my mind as I stare at his stone-grey eyes.

I do not believe I fancy Mr. Pitch.

If anything, I’m unsure if we’re truly friends. I believe we endure each other’s company in order to make my time here more bearable, as compared to slicing each other to shreds. At least, that must be his perspective--I would not refuse to call Baz a friend, but I doubt he would share the same sentiments.

“We’ve been working together, yes,” I say into my mug, feeling the steam dampen my nose as I tip it up for a taste. It’s only a few degrees off from scorching me.

Ebb turns her head and looks over me curiously as she closes the fireplace curtain. “Working? That’s an interesting word, ‘innit?”

“No,” I retort quickly, blinking before backtracking. “Well--no. Maybe. Perhaps without context…”

“And what context is that?” she prompts, still staring at me quizzically as she draws back her seat, resting across from me.

As per impulse, I shrug while hearing remnants of Baz’s voice in the back of my mind, mocking me for doing so. “I’m trying to help him with finding his mother’s killer. It clearly haunts him, and I’m curious as to solving it.” My fingertips feel down the teacup, pressing against the clay ridges and inconsistencies. “You don’t happen to know anything about that day, do you?”

Ebb swallows visibly as I speak, eyes downcasting as I finish. While I’d say it’s suspicious, I remind myself that it is Ebb. She would never hurt a beetle, let alone have any part in the murder of Natasha Pitch.

With that aside, her voice drips with guilt as she speaks. In her typical fashion, tears start welling up in the corners of her eyes, and progressively grow until they steadily drip down her cheeks. “I was here, you know. I’d moved to the grounds when I was 11, invited by the family to work alongside Mrs. Pitch. I’d told you, I’d been friends with Fiona, and our families were friends. Therefore, Mrs. Pitch trusted me to help her tend to the estate, and so on. She called upon me soon after she’d had Basilton, and her being herself, refused a nanny.

“About four or five years into my staying, the attack happened. I was preparing one of her horses for an afternoon ride and I’d heard such awful screaming--like the world was set ablaze. When I got there, I’d found Mrs. Pitch dead and the poor, young Basilton with a nasty injury. He survived, of course, but when the investigations came through and they’d asked him what happened to his mother, he was too shocked to even speak still. Don’t think he ever fully got over it.” She stops, wiping her face and staring off out the window. I fear stopping her, so I allow her to pause before continuing to speak. “While nothing ever got confirmed, my brother Nicodemus always had a crowd that aroused suspicions-”

“And what were those?” I cut, jumping a tad in my seat as my brows narrow. For the first time, the slightest hint at a lead sets me on my absolute edge.

Ebb taps her tears away onto her scarf, sniffling as she occupies her hands with her mug. “He’d always said there was such horrible business deals going on in town. I never quite wanted to believe him, but he’d say he’d sit at the tavern and hear men speak in hushed tones over body counts and trading hit deals...”

I let a beat pass, mind reeling as I assess the information. “Ebb, do you know where you brother is now?”

She seems to ignore my question, mind off somewhere distant as she continues. “He always got into so much trouble, my brother. He’d eavesdrop on conversations he shouldn’t have. Part of me blames that on his skipping the country with Fiona, but I also think he just wanted to leave…”

“Did he know anything?”

“... he seemed scared for me to stay, but only because how close I am in proximity to the Grimm-Pitch family…”

“Ebb?” I plead, eyes searching hers frantically as she appears glazed over and distant. Heartbeats between us pass irregularly before she snaps away and stares up at me, tears streaming more steadily.

“He said he’d heard a hit for Mr. Pitch’s life,” she breaks, cracking around the edges. “I didn’t believe him. I should’ve believed him. If I’d believed him--”

I stare on, throat constricting as I raise a hand. “Don’t--it’s not your fault, Ebb. It wasn’t… it was a while ago, and you were young. You cannot hold yourself at blame for the actions of others, even if the situation is so haunting.” I swallow around my words, trying to push the next ones out. “But, this is important, Ebb, so please. Did you know who said it? Where it was said?”

She wrings her hands around her navy blue scarf, knuckles bearing a bit white as she swallows down a lifetime of guilt. “I… no. I’m sorry, Simon. I just know it’s the only tavern in town…”

Searching her face, I nod and stand. “Thank you. I’m sorry, I have to run, but thank you so much.” I take her hands, shaking both of them as she nods understandingly and waves me off without a word.

I find myself sprinting up to the manor, taking stairs two at a time and rushing into the library where I know Baz is lounging with a book as he waits for my return. While perhaps a tad dramatic and unneeded, given this information is nearly two decades old, I still burst into the room with a heaving chest and eyes wide.

He stares up at me in bewilderment, eyes narrowing and mouth turning sour. “What is this fuss about--”

“We have a lead,” I say breathlessly, struggling to catch air back into my lungs as I lean on the door. “Ebb--she--the tavern--a lead.”

He bolts upright, book falling onto his lap as he studies my face. “A lead?” he asks, pushing himself to his feet carefully before limping over and standing in front of me, hands in front of his chest as he tries to decide what to do. “Good heavens, a lead!”

I nod, impulsively outstretching my hands and linking them between his. “Do we have time to run? Shall we make our leave tonight?”

His fingers curl around mine as he looks over my face, thinking. “It's Christmas Eve, man, we can't run now. But, surely, we can take a horse from the stable and ride into town after everyone has fallen asleep.” His lips twitch, threatening a smile. “At last…”

My feet shift, keeping my balance steady as I lean up to speak to him. “What do we do if we find the man?” I whisper, eyes searching his as I keep up on the balls of my feet to speak closely with him.

“We’ll decide there,” he says somewhat dismissively, hands unlocking from mine and lowering as he glances over me. “Do you plan on changing for dinner?”

I blink at the conversation change, feeling suddenly inadequate in my everyday outfit. “I hadn’t particularly planned on it, why?”

“Such a ghastly outfit for a holiday dinner, don’t you think?” he comments bluntly, rolling his eyes before catching my wrist. “Show me to your clothes; I’ll pick what should be worn for tonight.”

For the past months within this residence, the awareness my of social stature has somewhat gone mute. There’s the general activities we participate in, but since there’s little to no discussion between the family (besides Mr. Pitch and the children) and I, there’s no need to try to show up each other. This, though, changes within the flash of an eye when a holiday is presented. Unsure of whether or not we’d have company, I’d assumed my daily fashion would be proper enough, but the way Baz flips through my outfits makes my stomach churn.

“Do you have visitors?” I ask the question that should’ve been brought up long ago.

He waves a hand to dismiss it. “No.” And that’s all there is to that. No.

An outfit change for people I eat with everyday. Just as Friday dinners are, but apparently more pressuring, due to the festivities at hand. Whatever those will be.

He drags out a particularly sharp suit (a grey one), stuffing it into my arms before making a bored face as he shoos me off. Upon my return to the room, he’s nowhere to be seen.

I don’t see him again until the dinner bell rings.

As I take my seat, drawing in my chair and looking over the decorative dinner spread, he saunters in casually and nods at each of us. Suddenly, I feel naked despite such a well tailored outfit, looking dull in comparison to his. A deep maroon, with black lacing details. Every piece matches, down to the draping coat and tie. He has his hair pushed back, and his hat sits delicately and well-framing on the top of his head as a few waves of inky black lay on his shoulders.

He must catch that my jaw is slightly open, because he mocks closing it subtly. I blush, barely even knowing that I’m blushing.

Dinner is brief and joyless; a typical night’s meal, just accompanied by better dressing and more holiday based decorations. At the end, we all wish one another a good night before making off to our typical evening business. Baz and I find ourselves in his room, trying to create a sturdy game plan.

I’ve slowly grown to be more alert while in Baz’s private chambers. Despite the fact that our interactions have been remaining as relatively innocent, I still feel the prickling anxiety that a servant would walk in and have the wrong idea of the nature of our relationship. The way we act here is unusual, to say the very least. Given our slightly more turbulent interactions outside of our private conversations, it allows anyone who may know the truth of our “friendship” grounds to speculate.

Nevertheless, I make no effort to spend less time with him. I fact, more than often, I spend the night sleeping on his sofa. This way, we would research and work until our eyes couldn’t take the strain any longer and we were forced retire for the night. While I’m aware that my bedroom is feet away, I actively decide to tell myself that it’s easier to stay than to leave the room.

I elect to ignore my other thoughts on the situation.

Tonight, though, we don’t allow ourselves to get tired. I don’t believe I can, truly; the adrenaline sparked from the new revelations and the adventure only hours away keeps my mind running.

I lounge back on his long, deep velvet maroon bed bench, my gaze following him as he paces impatiently. At first thought, I consider telling him to settle near me and speak his mind, but I know how much effort that takes in itself. So, instead, I let him run himself in circles as his eyes squeeze shut.

“Baz,” I utter after watching him wear a track into the wooden floors, sitting upright as I speak. He doesn’t immediately snap away, hand up around his face and holding his forehead in the crook between his pointer and thumb. “Baz?”

His head lifts upon the second calling, blinking into consciousness and nodding. “Hm? Oh, yes. What is it?”

“I believe it’s nearly midnight,” I say, planting my feet onto the floor and forcing myself up as I button back up my smooth grey jacket. I catch him studying my every movement, gaze softening around the edges. I elect to ignore it. “Shall we make our leave?”

He nods wordlessly, collecting a heavier overcoat before instructing me to go collect my own. We meet out in the hallway, halfway between our respective bedrooms. In utter silence, we trek down to the stables and carefully tack and saddle both rides. Within minutes, we’re making our way out the far exit of the gates (the one that takes much less effort to open) and riding rapidly down the winding roads towards the town.

I stay behind Baz, trying to be aware to any dangers around us whilst failing to do so miserably. He’s utterly distracting; a cavern of darkness from behind, seemingly pitch black in comparison to the bright, freshly lain snow. I cannot see much besides the whipping tail of his jacket and the billowing of his shoulder length hair in the wind, but the bright moonlight nearly turns him blue in the dead of night, reflecting iridescently and hypnotizing me into a trance.

I don’t snap from it until we reach the edge of town, slowing our horses to a more calmed trot as we near the tavern. He guides me through, as I’m barely accustomed to the area itself.

In the dead of night, the gentle clomping of the horses’ hooves echo down the somewhat emptied alleyway, occupied only occasionally by a shying away woman of the night. It’s clear we’re not welcomed by any person in the town; it’s never a good sign when wealthy men come down in the early hours of Christmas morning. The dawning realization hits me of how much we look like we’re tempting the Devil.

Upon reaching the tavern, Baz ties off the horses nearby and leads the both of us inside, stuffing tobacco into his pipe. As the doors push open, heads turn in the dimly lit haze of the room. It reeks of hops, and the cloud of smoke nearly makes it impossible to make out faces even feet away from you. Everything's hanging heavy in haze of the the holiday drunken depression.

Confidently, Baz swaggers over to the bar, leading me to scurry behind him as he orders a local brew. I, on the other hand, stay sober in fear of needing to be the defensive brawler for both of us. In seeming disregard to his class status, Baz throws back his drink and orders a new one immediately after, melting right into the scene as he spins the rim of his mug.

As his hand reaches out for the second, a deep, ugly voice snarls something from the other end of the bar. He sits closer to the fireplace, silhouetting his figure. In the hidden identity, he still bites a characterful commentary towards my companion. “Why is such a pigeon-livered boy like you here?”

Baz stiffens beside me, fingertip still tracing the rim as his eyes remain downcasted.

“I said,” the scraping of wood reverberates in my ears despite the chatter around us as the man stands away from the table, “what’s your business here, ratbag?”

Without raising his head, the voice beside me addresses the offensively bold man. “I’m trying to find out information. Doubt you’ve got the brains for it, though.” As the other man draws closer, I can smell the wafting stench coming from him. A cocktail of liquor and sweat, seeping into his clothes and giving the illusion that he lives to drink and drinks to live.

“You got plenty of years of education, you don’t need to learn nothing here.”

“Somebody knows more than I.”

I finally grow the gut to raise my eyes, peering up at the man who drew closer and finding myself meeting an unexpectedly familiar face. He looks like a near mirror image for Ebb, yet more time worn and tattered. It strikes me as almost as a blow to the head, sending me mentally toppling back in my seat.

This must be Nicodemus.

It all ruminates inside me, trying to catch up the situation. I had believed he left; I’d imagined that Baz had expected him to have left as well, but there he is. In the flesh.

In a disheveled, depressing state.

“Tell me, Mr. Petty,” Baz keeps his eyes focused elsewhere, finding themselves on his pipe as he turns it in his hand and returns it to his lips after swallowing the remnants of his second drink. “Who killed my mother? What did they want from her?”

The man’s eyes flicker over him, seeming a tad amused as he begins. “There was a difference there, Mr. Pitch, between who killed her, and the person who wanted something.”

Baz clearly pushes back his discomfort, head lifting as he fearfully looks over the man. “A hit, then?” Nicodemus nods. “Who was it?”

“You must me mad to think I’d tell you.”

“I’ll pay,” he offers quickly. “It’ll feed your habits for a while, if you take it. You can keep your facade of hiding for a little longer.”

The man pauses briefly, sitting at the bar beside Baz as he orders another drink. After he downs it, Baz impatiently cuts in. “What’s your point in hiding it? It’s done now, it should mean nothing to you.”

A longer stretch of silence between us extends, and the reality of his answer hits the brilliantly bright Baz before it reaches me.

“It wasn’t her, was it?” he breathes, eyes blowing wide as he backs up towards me. I resist the urge to reach out and drag him close. “It was meant for me.”

Nicodemus pulls his lip into his mouth, looking at Baz with a shockingly familiar look of empathetic sadness before his face falls flat once more. “I would watch my back if I were you, Mr. Pitch. You’re focusing on the wrong attacks now.”

As quickly Nicodemus’ cryptic messages spill out, the faster Baz bolts from his seat and leaves in a flurry of his dark coat and starling rush of footsteps. I freeze momentarily before following out, shouting his name as I watch him untie his own horse and take off, not even hesitating to my voice. In a panic, I shakily untie my own ride and race down the roads, following his far off figure as the kickback sprays more outwardly behind me.

Thankfully, he slows down after we reach nearly a quarter of the way back to his family’s residence. I expect him to fall into step with me and simply trail me home, but he abruptly stops and dismantles before doubling over and panting.

I pull up beside him, stepping off my horse slowly. Baz startles, staring down at me as I approach. Swiftly, he outstretches his hands and shoves me down onto the snow, snapping a tearful “Leave!” before disappearing into the woods.

In a chaotic, disorienting blur, I follow him in, hopelessly shouting his name. Eventually, I find him backed up against a snowy log and frantically searching his pockets. As I approach, he looks as skittish as a deer in the midst of a hunt. He practically yelps, chest still heaving as his hands fly to my chest and jacket, throwing it open. His hands dig into my pockets, shouting barely coherent cries in front of me.

“Good God man, where do you keep your dagger? Your sword? For the love of all that is fair, any blade will do!”

I feel my vision get dizzied, partially by the proximity and sliding of his touches, but also by the distressing rapidness of his words. In a haze, I slot my hands around his jaw and cup around it to feel his smooth, well shaved cheeks. He continues shouting, crying and begging me for a knife as I shake my head, trying to break through his words.

“Please, Baz,” I yell back, shaking him slightly as his hands dig through each of our pockets once more. “Listen to me, just listen!”

“It’s my fault,” he cries dismissively, “just please, grant me the fate I’d meant to be given.”

“Baz!” I snap, pulling his jaw forward and staring into his searching, wild eyes as tears stream down his frozen cheeks. “Good heavens, I beg of you to stop this now!”

He shakes his heads, warping further into an incoherent jumble that it makes me feel as if I’m the insane one, begging for a dagger.

In a whirlwind, fear fueled moment of total desperation, I pull his head forward and slam my lips into his in order to quiet him for just a brief second. To my surprise, it works immediately. His hands going limp and freeze against the fabric of my suit jacket, his mouth keeping up against mine in shock. After moments pass, I feel him push back into me, hands sliding up my chest and gripping whatever can get a hold of as he kisses me back with the force of a battle.

After a minute or so of rough, clumsy kissing, he makes the move to pull back and practically hyperventilate against me. Slowly, I snake my hands up his front and hold his hair, attempting to coach him through his breathing. I let him come down against me, stroking his head and murmuring sweet soothing words.

Despite the wet seeping through to my leg in this calf-deep snow at our feet, I stand still with him as he trembles and folds over on top of me. We stay put at first, unmoving and pressed up against one another. I consider moving to see him, but my mind begins whirling back into reality. What if I spook him into running again? What if I’d ruined our budding possible friendship with kissing him?

My mind gets cut short by lips pressing to mine. At first, it’s tentative; unsure motions and little, tracing touches of his fingers finding the exposed skin of my neck. Then, upon my positive response, it suddenly sparks back to heated and fervent, tumbling me back into the blanket of snow as his body covers mine.

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years ago

Video

youtube

BILLIE EILISH - BAD GUY

[6.93]

The Jukebox has thoughts on Billie Eilish? Well, duh.

Andy Hutchins: Nothing clicked for me with Billie Eilish until "Bad Guy." I understood the appeal intellectually, because it has sometimes been my wheelhouse: "Prodigy-cast makes off-kilter pop music from a perspective with more than a little precociousness and possibly a feminine spin that serves to disrupt rather than reify" is my jam for months at a time, sometimes. But some combination of prodigy and precociousness sometimes striking me as preciousness -- something that I've occasionally found issue with in the work of Sky Ferreira and Solange and Lorde and Cher Lloyd and fka twigs and Haim and Kacey Musgraves and Lana Del Rey and so many women who have occupied this same treacherous lane where deviating from delivering what is expected from a young woman making pop music can offend the sensibilities (or engage the biases) of even someone who has strained to stave off the stupidity of dismissing music made by young women and largely intended for young women -- and what I read as a deliberately dark and standoffish aesthetic put me off of Eilish, whose stuff just didn't compel me. Everything clicks for me with Billie Eilish now that I've heard "Bad Guy," which I reckon is pathetic on my part, because so much of the DNA of "Bad Guy" is in other work she's done that the things that differentiate it as The Hit and The Breakthrough come down to tempo and a kooky synth run in the hook that every third YouTube commenter thinks is stolen from Plants vs. Zombies. But "Bad Guy" is also an unassailable pop song and has come along at a time when bulletproof ones are not occupying the charts -- the closest competition in the current top 40 by my sight is, like, a Katy Perry song whose verses let down its magnificent hook, a bunch of drowsy-to-dire Khalid and Halsey tunes, a C- effort from Taylor Swift, and a microwaved Lizzo track that I've known of for a while and don't consider her best stuff -- and so it stands out even more from the pop metagame than the larger Eilish oeuvre does from a host of less realized tunes. And I'm a sucker for an unassailable pop song, especially one with a vocal initially delivered so low that it demands attention to the dial in the car but that is by turns brightly funny ("...duh!") and world-weary and campy to the hilt (the titular phrase being stretched to a titanium crocodile's rasp), a relentless bass line that sounds like a monster's heartbeat echoing in a cave, and lyrics that constitute a semi-sincere embrace of some Lolita tropes and a more powerful sarcastic destruction of them while somehow also being fully ready for Instagram captions and Twitter display names and ... well, no one's on Tumblr anymore. But that's hardly Billie's fault, and I'm not docking points for only barely failing to raise the dead with a virtuosic song that makes me this glad to be alive. [10]

Alfred Soto: There's a reason this song has become the breakout hit besides its insidious keyboard hook: Billie Eilish sings not mumbles the gender bending hook. Otherwise a ditty that the top 40 could use more of; its quietness is a tonic. [8]

Joshua Copperman: Sounds great, looks great (if possibly plagarized), memes great. The deadpan anti-sexuality of "might-seduce-your-dad type" is "Guys My Age" done right. The delivery of "my soul, so cynical" like even that is too earnest of a statement. The only weak part is the ending switch-up. But you knew all that already. Duh. Besides the cries of "industry plant!" there's also the ongoing sense that Eilish is a music writers' idea of what a 17-year-old Tumblr-born pop star would sound like. And sure, she's a young music writers' dream; I have a byline at Billboard because of her. But also, it's genuinely smart music that is mostly set to age well, even if it's hard to tell if it m a t t e r s. Who knows what 17-year-olds of any predilection towards seducing dads are actually listening to; I'm 21 and finding that out is only getting more difficult, if maybe not more necessary. If teens still control popular culture, if anyone does, who knows if this really does reflect them, or if its bottomless angst is mocked like Limp Bizkit? Is "Bad Guy" just "Heathens" for the late-2010s? Does this really represent the next generation? And which next generation; the shit-talking saviors, or the ones just like their parents and the radicalized alt-right kids? There's no easy answer to any of these, no "duh" to shrug them off. But there is Eilish and co. applying the daily grind of apocalyptic dread to smaller-scale topics. Processing death on "Bury a Friend," processing one's own body image on "idontwannabeyouanymore," processing changing gender roles here. Finding your place in 2019 is a lot for anyone. No one is getting it right. What Eilish does instead is turn that uncertainty to playfulness, confidently existing within the mess instead of trying to find her spot. [8]

Leah Isobel: I was on Tumblr in 2011, so "might seduce your dad type" doesn't feel as provocative as she might intend. (Also, Halsey did the exact same thing.) Besides, pop is a space for fantasy and role-playing, and she's not the first 16-year old bad girl to make adults freak out a little. What gets me is that the song itself is a brilliant production piece in search of an equally compelling melody; the biggest hooks here are an audible eye-roll and a Tim Burton rip. I love the idea of Billie as a goth-teen-pop star, and the choice to swerve into a spooky outro instead of a more traditional structure is genuinely a lot of fun, but this all feels like so much posturing -- normal for a teenager, but not that compelling to listen to on its own. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: If Billie Eilish is the Gen Z Fiona Apple, which I've heard from about three separate people even before the Discourse started, then "Bad Guy" is her "Criminal," down to it being creep flypaper. Everyone quotes that one dad line a bit too eagerly, like they're subconsciously thinking that if they have the pithiest take they just might get to be the dad. (It isn't even the most suggestive line.) There's a strong case for the dad being the bad guy, if only because he's, well, the guy. But "Bad Guy" lives in the world of teenage politics, where the guys just are and the girls get their badness thrust upon them, and their choices are to shrink away or play along. Duh. ("Bad Guy" : "duh" :: "Your Love Is My Drug" : "I like your beard.") But all this is pretty serious analysis for a fundamentally trolly song: half-mumbling the melody to a beat I'm pretty sure I made in a high school to go with a video project; rhyming bad/mad/sad/dad like a Mavis Beacon keyboarding tutorial (or whatever the kids have now; maybe they're just born typing); crooning an exceedingly Lana Del Rey-ish "I'm only good at being bad" then immediately cutting that crap for a bassy, fuck-off breakdown; filling only about 60% of the song with, like, song. [6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Not the most impressive or cohesive Billie Eilish song, but it is the one most likely to remind you of how fun her music can be (that she included the Invisalign skit in the video helps). The coda is fine, but the best reversal is found elsewhere: the nonchalant cries of duh followed by a cartoonish synth melody, underlining just how playful the song's darker elements are. [6]

Josh Langhoff: Eilish sometimes sounds like the Cardigans if they only did Black Sabbath covers, "evil" squeezed between an extra set of scare quotes, and sometimes she's Nellie McKay on downers, ennui shaped like wit but without the laughs. Sometimes she's good and sometimes she sings ballads. And somehow that combination produced "Bad Guy," the elusive Somehow Perfect Pop Song That Sounds Like Nothing Else On The Radio. I can't say I love it, but all her murmuring and posturing makes Top 40 radio seem, after too many years, like a playground of endless possibility. What'd we do to deserve this and "Old Town Road"? [8]

Jessica Doyle: Yes. Some are red, and some are blue. Some are old, and some are new. Some are sad, and some are glad, and some are very, very bad. Why are they sad and glad and bad? I do not know. Go ask why that menacing bass and Eilish's whisper didn't deserve better lyrics. [4]

Tobi Tella: Billie Eilish's artistic direction and style of music makes it seem almost impossible for her to make a legitimate banger, but this fits in perfectly with the rest of her album tone-wise and also completely slaps. The simplicity of the production, literally created in a bedroom just adds to the perfect low-key vibe. The lyrics do make Billie sound a little like a teenager who will cringe reading them in 10 years, but as an 18 year old, sometimes doing stupid stuff you know is destructive and immature is FUN, and this completely captures that feeling. [8]

Will Adams: I love love love the idea of this shifty, close mic'd oddball dancepop song being as big of a mainstream hit as it is, even if it's one of the more slight offerings from the album. Extra point for the coda, where Billie drops the coy and reminds you how quick she is to put her foot on your neck. [7]

Pedro João Santos: The coda lamentably inverts the light heart of "Bad Guy": the colourful, whispered titillation conjugated with what's left unsaid, a sort of puerile pleasure dutifully translated by the Theremin-esque synths; not the heady, overlong consummation that it unfolds onto by the end. I must say I'm exhilarated that someone knew how to ape "Las de La Intuición" nearly 15 years on, although startled by the fact that it was Billie Eilish the one to do it. [7]

Scott Mildenhall: Done well, it's enjoyable to hear a musician having such fun, but especially so when one unexpected element of a song comes in to underline just how much fun they're having. In this case, it's the gloopy searchlight noise, playing out like the theme tune to a 1970s cop show set in space, in a way that cannot be anything but gleefully goofy. Such bold and playful invention is something pop music would suffer without. Extra points for the consideration to leave a gap before the outro so that radio stations can cut it out. [8]

Iris Xie: I still think this song should've been cut off at the 2:14 mark, because it said everything it needed to say. [5]

Katie Gill: That purposefully obnoxious "duh" sums up what Eilish wants to say more than the rest of the song combined (and is currently in the running for my favorite 2 seconds of 2019 pop music). This image of her as the bad guy isn't serious. It's bratty and playful, more her creating something she can have fun with instead of taking herself seriously. Unfortunately, that something interesting here is buried in a three minute piece that somehow manages to be three completely different songs which never actually coheres to a single whole. [6]

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