So, to give credit where it is due, this fic idea was not mine. This came from a line in my ficathon entry (which I know isn’t posted yet, but will be soon, I promise). When Michael read it, he insisted this line demanded a story.
So, here it is.
And another thank you to, Michael, for BRing this story. And giving it it’s title. So, really, this is nearly as much Michael’s work as mine, and you can feel free to blame him if it’s bad…
Fighting Dirty
“Come on,” Lois said as she reached for Clark’s arm. What was he doing sitting there? It was already ten in the morning and they had a story to write. Nothing was going to get done with them sitting in the newsroom.
“Where are we going?” Clark asked her, the amusement clear in his voice.
“We have a meeting. I think this may be it.”
“‘Be it’ what?” he asked, but at least he was getting up.
“I think this may tell us what we need to know to crack the Anderson case wide open,” Lois told him. “Lenny promises he knows something, and he’s an impeccable source.”
“Lenny?” Clark asked, guiding her towards the elevator with a hand on the small of her back. “Which one is he?”
“You haven’t met him yet,” Lois said, opening the door to her Jeep.
“What?” Clark asked her, shocked. “Have you been holding out on me?” Lois turned to him and laughed. The look of utter despair on his face was hilarious.
“Hey! A girl has to keep some secrets,” she told him, and smiled wider when he laughed.
******
“Where are we headed?” Clark asked as Lois drove further and further into Suicide Slum.
“Lenny is a sort of opportunist,” Lois informed him. “He’s always starting up new businesses. Makes him a bit hard to find, but he’s reliable, so it’s worth it.”
“And today?” Clark prodded her.
“Today Lenny is the proprietor of a bar,” Lois said. “They specialize in mud wrestling competitions,” she added with a completely straight face. She could see Clark staring at her open mouthed for a moment before she couldn’t bear it any longer and started laughing. “Stop it,” she commanded him. “You’re giving me a case of the giggles.”
Clark laughed with her, and for a few minutes Lois felt warmed by the sound of his laughter. “So,” he said when they were quiet again. “Where does Lenny really work?”
“He really does own a mud wrestling bar,” Lois insisted.
Clark chuckled. “So, I need to wait until we get there to find out?”
“No,” Lois giggled. “Really.” She pulled her car into one of the few open spaces. “See,” she said, pointing to the sign.
“You weren’t kidding,” Clark said in surprise.
“No,” Lois said, looking around. “Can you believe how busy this place is? It’s eleven in the morning on a Tuesday. Who spends their weekday mornings at a mud wrestling bar?”
Clark laughed quietly as he took her arm. “Let’s go find out, shall we?”
“So, what’s the deal?” Lois asked as they walked up to the door.
“With what?” Clark asked.
“With mud wrestling bars? Why are they so popular anyway?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Clark asked her. “Women in skimpy bikinis rolling around in the mud. What’s not to like?”
Lois stopped in her tracks. “Wait. Don’t tell me you’re a fan?”
Clark looked at her incredulously. “So, let me get this straight. You expected me to understand the appeal, but not be a fan?”
“Exactly,” Lois told him. “I figured, you’re a guy, so you’d know. But you’re… well, you. So you wouldn’t condone that sort of behavior.”
“What sort of behavior?” Clark asked her. “The women aren’t strippers or something, Lois. They’re fully clothed.”
“Fully clothed in skimpy bikinis,” Lois reminded him.
“So am I supposed to be against the beach, too?” Clark asked her.
“The beach is different,” Lois informed him. “The purpose here is simply to ogle the women.”
“And that’s the part you think I’d be against?” Clark asked. “The ogling?”
“Exactly,” Lois informed him.
“Not at all,” Clark informed her, taking a step back to look at her more closely.
“Stop it!” Lois said, giggling despite herself.
“Hey!” Clark defended himself. “I figure I’m not supposed to do any ogling in there, I better get my share in out here.”
Lois rolled her eyes at him as she swatted him with her purse. “Let’s go!” She ordered him.
“At your command,” Clark said, winking at her.
“So,” Lois started again a few steps later. “You’ve been to one before?”
“One what? A mud wrestling bar?”
“No, I meant a beach,” Lois replied deadpan.
“Well, I did grow up in Kansas,” Clark reminded her. “There aren’t too many beaches nearby.”
“And mud wrestling bars?” Lois prodded him as he opened the door for her.
“No, can’t say I ever have,” he told her.
“I knew it!” Lois exclaimed, although her voice was covered up by the loud noise of music and men laughing in the bar.
Lois walked up to the bartender. “Lenny here?” she asked.
The bartender gave her a quick once-over. “No need to see Lenny. You’re hired. We usually prefer our contestants wear fewer clothes though.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lois saw Clark chuckle, but she ignored him. “I’m not here for a job!” she told the bartender. “I need to speak to Lenny.”
“What, sugar?” a passing woman asked. She was a statuesque blonde, very pretty, Lois noted. And she was wearing the requisite bikini. “You think you’re too good for this? Have some sort of highfalutin job?”
This time, Lois could hear Clark’s laugh. She turned to glare at him before turning back to the woman. “No, I’m sorry,” she tried to make amends. “I’m really just here to talk to Lenny.”
“Hey, Sarah,” the woman called to one of the women in the pit. “This gal here thinks she’s too good to join the competition.”
“Does she?” one of the wrestlers asked, eyeing Lois. Lois thought she might have been a red-head, but it was hard to tell with her hair covered in mud.
“No,” Lois insisted. “Not at all. I’m really here to see Lenny.”
“Oh, come on,” one of the men called out. “Join in the fun, honey.”
“Yeah, come on, sweetcheeks,” another man added.
Lois rolled her eyes. This had been a bad idea. She looked back at Clark for help, but he had taken a step back, like he wasn’t with her. “Clark?” she prompted him for help.
But she knew that was a mistake when he winked at her. “Yeah, sweetcheeks,” he said, smiling. “Why don’t you join in?”
“Can’t I just speak to Lenny?” Lois asked no one in particular. She should just cut her losses and leave. Her words were drowned out by the giant ball of mud that hit her right on the chest. “Good aim,” she muttered to herself. She was half way across room from the pit.
“It’s okay,” the woman who had thrown it, whom Lois was fairly certain was blonde, said. “She looks too easy anyway.”
“I’m not easy,” Lois insisted, realizing as the words were leaving her mouth that this was a mistake. “I’m trained in Tae Kwon Do,” she added feebly.
“Yeah, come show us some of your moves then,” the blonde said.
“I’ll gladly let you have my spot,” the red-head said, pompously.
“No, thank you,” Lois said, throwing a murderous glance at Clark for not saving her. She turned around and headed for the door. She’d talk to Lenny some other day.
Clark, realizing it was time to stop teasing, ran to open the door for her. Only when he turned around, Lois was turned back towards the pit. And he could see a splat of mud on the back of her jacket that matched the one on her chest.
“Hey!” she shouted as she, to Clark’s utter amazement, tugged off her jacket. “This is my favorite suit!”
She pulled her heels off as well as she approached the pit. Clark wondered what to do. Should he pick her up and leave now? Would she hate him if he didn’t? Maybe she’d hate him if he did. Yeah, it was probably better to let her fight this out.
Lois climbed into the pit, and immediately leaned down and grabbed a handful of mud. Before she knew what was happening, she was pulling the blonde woman’s hair. All of her Tae Kwon Do training was wasted in the slime. She couldn’t get her bearings. This would be easier to do if she could kick, she knew. But the darn A-line skirt she had chosen to wear that morning wouldn’t allow it. She stood up, but before she could unbutton her skirt the other woman had pulled her down again.
A few moments later, Lois, clearly losing, crawled away.
“Knew you’d be easy,” her opponent taunted.
“I’m not easy,” Lois said, her ire up again. “It’s just this darn skirt,” she said as she stood up again and reached behind her for the button.
She had the skirt unbuttoned and partly unzipped when the catcalls roused Clark from his trance. He couldn’t believe what he’d been watching, but this was enough. He really did need to step in now. He walked up to the pit, and grabbed Lois around the waist from behind.
“Hey, what are you doing?” the other wrestler asked him.
“Taking her home,” he insisted.
Behind him, the other customers were calling him names. And not nice ones.
“Let me go,” Lois insisted, her legs flailing, but Clark ignored her. He reached down and picked up her shoes with his free hand and added her jacket to the pile as he moved towards the door.
“Let me go!” Lois said louder, but Clark, knowing what was good for him, ignored her. Even if Lois wasn’t thinking straight now, his mother would box his ears for letting things go any further.
Her protests got weaker as the cold air outside hit her.
“Think I can put you down now?” Clark asked.
“Yes,” Lois said, her tone petulant.
Placing her shoes on the ground first, as he didn’t want her walking on the blacktop in just her stockinged feet with all the broken glass around, he placed her down gently.
“Thanks,” Lois muttered.
“Lois?” a voice came from behind them.
Lois spun around. “Lenny! There you are.”
“I see you’ve been inside,” Lenny said with a grin.
Lois turned to grab her jacket from Clark roughly. “Yeah. Nice place.”
“Oh, I bet your partner enjoyed it.”
Lois shot Clark a look.
“It was okay,” Clark said, knowing this was not the time to goad Lois.
“What do you have for me?” Lois asked Lenny, and Clark had to admit that she was sexier now, dressed in her suit, covered in mud, and still looking like she had the world by its strings, than she had been inside.
“It’s inside,” Lenny told her.
“Um, maybe I should go, and you could wait out here,” Clark offered Lois.
“I have a back entrance,” Lenny promised.
******
“You should have helped me in there,” Lois told Clark while they drove back to the Planet.
“I did,” he insisted.
“Not soon enough,” she told him.
“You seemed to be doing okay for yourself,” he said with a grin.
Lois shook her head at him. She had to admit, she had done okay for herself. Well, sort of. She had lost, but she still blamed her skirt for that. Besides, she thought, as she looked down at the envelop sitting in the center console, Lenny had come through for them. She may be covered in mud, but they would have a headline on the front page in this evening’s edition.
“I bet this isn’t the furthest you’ve gone for a story before,” Clark said from beside her.
“Excuse me!” Lois’ temper flared up. “I’d never…”
Clark laughed. “The wrestler was right. You are too easy.”
Despite herself, Lois found herself laughing. She was glad Clark had been with her. Even if he had waited too long, he had saved her from herself. And there was no one else she trusted to keep this incident to himself.
“This is just between us?” she confirmed.
“No way,” Clark told her. “This is classic Lois…” His voice trailed off at the glare she gave him. “Of course, it is,” he told her sincerely instead.
“Right,” Lois said, her tone measured, to make sure he remembered his obligation. “We’re partners. You have my back.”
“And what a lovely back it is,” Clark said, as he deftly defended himself from her swatting hand.
