one of the most admittedly superficial disappointments clark kent has ever suffered through in his less-than-roller coaster of a personal life has been the recognition and gradual acceptance of the fact that as a kryptonian, certain celebrated inebriates across the planet hold less of a desired effect on his physicality than he ( or others ) might have wished for; his eyes never become glassy enough, his speech never moss-covered enough, the shining, unalterable steadiness of his towering figure indomitable. he can’t get drunk-- at least not by normal means, nothing short of diana’s dionysus-inspired brew has been able to even so much as render him dizzy, and it’s a tragedy really, a calamity, especially in moments like these, in bars like this, around so much noise and giddiness, the levity and spirits filtering through the air enough to bring even the most stoic of faces to a laugh.
his inability to lose himself inside the bottom of a mug isn’t usually what keeps him from the bar scene anyway however, that being plenty accomplished by his natural-born awkwardness and introversion ( the chagrin of one of the world’s mightiest heroes being socially inept something he’s often lightly teased over, with very little hope of recovery ), but occasionally there are brief nights he holds in wooden booths, ordering whatever has the highest alcohol content available, laughing at all the truly terrible karaoke-- but only when he’s around the right sort of person, only when he’s mingled his own personal glow with that boyish green hue.
he doesn’t do it for himself though, obviously, doesn’t surround himself with petulant, disorderly chaos for his own amusement, as though sticky floors and beer guts is something he wants to come home to his apartment smelling like in three hours from now, but he’s here because his friend sometimes needs to unload and for someone like hal, unloading is a sin, a sacrilege, a profanity, a leakage. hal thinks himself a locked box, buried emotions and ideas deep within the ocean of his whirlwind personality, and perhaps sometimes he’s correct, but then other times clark can bring him here and coax that twisted, knotted ball of twine in his gut to uncoil and relax, fade back into the relative harmony they attempt to establish here in battleworld.
it’s not much and it’s not flawless, but superman could take out a whole garrison of demons in a single afternoon and still feel useless if he can’t help save his friends from their own personal issues.
he watches hal down another shot and chuckles, fingers making tiny little designs in the precipitation on his own glass. “i don’t think you quite understand the rules of this game, buddy, you’re supposed to only drink when you’ve actually done the thing, not just thought about it a lot. it’s called ‘never have i ever,’ not ‘never yet but maybe someday’. you can’t honestly tell me you’ve been to the rings of saturn.”