Fair request for assistance leads to nothing (2,2)
I believe the answer is:
so so
'fair' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'request for assistance leads to nothing' is the wordplay.
'request for assistance' becomes 'SOS' (distress call).
'leads to' says to put letters next to each other.
'nothing' becomes 'O' (looks like zero - 0).
'sos'+'o'='SO-SO'
(Other definitions for so so that I've seen before include "Indifferent" , "Ordinary" , "neither good nor bad" , "OK" , "Fair" .)