Vanity—being a sin—was strictly Crowley's division. And he had been busy.
Aziraphale was at the shop across the street, waiting in line to pay for a few groceries; tea, pastries and sweets, those fig cookies that Crowley liked. He pulled another magazine off the rack and fought with the basket looped on his arm until he could hold the book in both hands and flip through it. He frowned. Pages and pages of women in metallic swimsuits, panties and ill-fitting jackets, garish makeup and tall hair, every article centered on either how to lose weight to get a man, how to dress to get a man, or how to perform sexually if you want a man. "Bold and Beautiful", the front proclaimed.
Aziraphale knew better. Not every woman was like this, nor wanted to be. He put the magazine back, taking a glance at the other covers and seeing much of the same. Of course, this kind of thing never lasted long. Vanity lost it's appeal with age—partly for maturity, and partly because humans aged so quickly. They are young for a blink of an eye, and then it's only a handful of decades before they're in the ground.It was something that Aziraphale still had trouble dealing with, mostly because Crowley was the only one the angel ever saw on a regular basis, and he never looked over 28.
As the woman in front of him moved up, Aziraphale hefted his basket onto the counter and saw another myriad of glossy magazine covers, but he ignored them. Just another trial and struggle, another sin to overcome. He had more pressing matters anyways—like church attendance, charity, and keeping the pigeons from crapping on the awning of his shop.
It was only a year later when he changed his mind.
He was walking with Crowley through London Center, his forehead wrinkling spectacularly over the course of a few blocks.
"What's wrong?" Crowley asked.
Aziraphale's eyes followed a short blond as she walked passed: she smelt like nail polish and chemical hair spray, and a cloying, heavy perfume, and Aziraphale could plainly see the creases of her ass through her sheer stockings, tucked not-so-subtly under a thin strip of cloth that could have been a skirt, if only it were a few inches longer.
Crowley watched after him. "Micro-mini."
"What?"
"Micro-mini." As if that explained anything.
Aziraphale opened his mouth to ask when another woman—dark hair, straight and shining like a knife—came out of a salon to their left. She didn't quite turn around in time, and almost ran into Aziraphale, stumbling on her tall black stilettos.
"Oh! I'm so sorry!"
"Quite alright, my dear." He had his hand on her arm to steady her. "No harm done." She gave him a brilliant, perfect white smile through her jewel lips, and Aziraphale returned a friendly and sympathetic one, after taking a short trip south on her and deciding that her back must really give her problems.
When he looked over again, Crowley was smirking at him.
"What?" Aziraphale asked irritably.
"Well? What do you think?"
"What do I think what."
"Her tits, angel. What did you think of them?"
Aziraphale groaned. "I knew it. What was that?"
"Breast augmentation." Crowley smiled. "A tit job. Almost a necessity in the entertainment industry."
"Another one of yours?"
"Almost. Mine, and a collaborator. Vanity is really making a comeback, did you know?"
"I thought it might've been..."
Then Crowley laughed at him. The sound put Aziraphale's nerves immediately on edge, and kept trying to push them over it when Crowley didn't stop. After a few moments that were entirely too long, he settled into a chuckle, taking his glasses off and swiping a thumb beneath his yellow eyes: he was crying.
"What are you laughing for?"
Crowley just grinned a mouthful of long teeth and slipped his glasses back on. "I'm laughing at you." He gestured to the open crowd on the street, and Aziraphale followed the hand with his eyes: women and men in the height of Pride, each one as decked out and fake as Christmas in Nevada. Crowley started laughing again, but it was a little different: an even sharper and mocking sound that Aziraphale hadn't heard in a long time. He felt his face grow hot.
"Where have you been, under a rock? No, wait," Crowley put his fingers to his lips. "Looking after your books, I suppose. Making sure everyone goes to church, helps their fellow man."
Aziraphale couldn't deny that, not really.
Crowley snorted, a heavy wet sound. "Keeping the birds from shitting on the—"
"That's it—"
"Snort! The awn—Snort! The awn—!"
Aziraphale stopped, fixed his scarf, and turned around, leaving the demon bent over, holding his stomach, and choking.
He was halfway across the street when Crowley's snarling voice thundered after him. "You mark my words, Angel! If they aren't anorexic and blonde, they'll be shamed till they are!"
But Aziraphale kept walking, thinking about a lovely man he'd met in America a few years ago.
—
Six months later, a rapper named Sir Mix-A-Lot released an extremely catchy and popular song, and Crowley watched the world change, just a little. A minuscule shift, barely perceptible. But it was there.
Crowley dropped out of the project for a short time to let the hype dye down (they'd come around, they always came around) but when he got back there were things in the way. Trends, like 'natural beauty' and plus-sized models. The War against Anorexia. Body image and self-confidence. Pride was there, of course, but he didn't have much to say about it outside of "We cocked up." Then he packed up his makeup and hair gel, and his mirror, and he left, leaving Crowley with the ruin of his empire-in-the-making—the Little Sin that Couldn't.
Having nothing else to work on, he went back to London.
Crowley was growling and picking at his strawberry salad. "I'm not sure what happened. He came out of nowhere."
Aziraphale made a sympathetic noise. "Of course. But that's how it is, in't it? You think you have them figured out, and something like that happens."
Crowley stabbed at a slivered almond on his plate. "I mean, the song itself isn't even that good."
"No, no." said Aziraphale. He was pouring more Zinfandel into the sweating glass. It was hot outside. Their waitress, a young beautiful pierced girl, smile at him and whisked the bottle away.
"'No' as in it isn't that good, or 'no' as in it is good?"
"'No', as in no more wine."
Crowley scoffed into his glass. "Never thought I'd hear the words."
"I think I'd like a beer..."
"We had the magazines and the television in our hands—"
"Well, I'm not surprised, really."
Crowley took of his sunglasses and pierced Aziraphale with a stare. "And why is that?"
"My dear," said Aziraphale. He waved the glare away with practiced ease. "You know."
Crowley sneered. "Oh yes. Inherent failure, but of course." He snapped his fingers, and the waitress showed up in record time with a bottle of Cuervo and a bowl of lemon wedges.
Aziraphale snapped his own fingers, and she blinked twice and turned around.
"Angel—"
"I have a few appointments, and I know you don't drink by yourself."
Crowley glared again, but it was more calculating. He watched Aziraphale gather a few of his papers, fix his glasses, and straighten his never-crooked tie. The angel sighed and looked at him. "What is it."
Crowley said nothing. Only stared, arms crossed, looking as petulant as a child, without actually looking like a child.
Aziraphale took out some money and laid it on the table underneath a glass. "Will I see you next week, or will you be sulking?"
Crowley snarled. He opened his mouth to say something about that, but Aziraphale cut him off.
"Well, just let me know when you're feeling better, my dear."
And Crowley watched Aziraphale and his ugly sweater disappear down the street. He watched him all the way until the angel was out of sight, hands wrapping themselves in the tablecloth, foot tapping a mad beat on the concrete. The waitress came and went, just as quickly: the man at table B3 was growling, and was it normal for eyeteeth to be that long?By the time she got back into the restaurant, she forgot about the teeth. By the time she got to the drink station, she forgot about the man in the black suit entirely.
By the time Aziraphale got back to his shop, Crowley was swearing and popping the Bentley into gear, running an errant hand through his perfect hair and then slamming it against the steering wheel, because that bastard couldn't have, he just couldn't have.
A few phone calls later, a bribe, four threats, and finally a plane ride to America secured the niggling, irritating feeling at the back of his neck. It did nothing to settle his sense of self-righteous indignation at the nerve of him, the absolute nerve...
Of course, it was as he thought.
He spent the evening at a small pub, getting soaked in Guinness and catching up on the news, front pages, smug and rich figures on the TV. Wealth disguising itself as happiness and health.
His retaliation came to him, pretty and bright and wrapped in a bow.
Two months later, the Kardashian's were on TV.