Work Text:
genuflect \JEN-yuh-flekt\, intransitive verb:
1. To bend the knee or touch one knee to the ground, as in worship.
2. To be servilely respectful or obedient; to grovel.
Genuflect is from Late Latin genuflectere, from Latin genu, "knee" + flectere, "to bend."
***
"My life is over," Dawn declared the moment she was through the door, before her coat was even off or the bag that undoubtedly held dirty laundry hit the floor. Buffy and Spike looked at one another, not needing telepathy to know they shared a single thought: Oh, lord, what now?
"Is it Dylan?" Buffy asked, hoping it was just boy trouble and not something more serious.
Dawn favored her with a look that said she'd missed the mark entirely. "Dylan and I are fine. I'd be over at his place now if a certain someone," she glared at Spike, "hadn't shipped him off to parts unknown on some mission."
"Copenhagen is hardly 'parts unknown'," Spike replied, his voice patient, "and he should be back by the end of the week. I just asked for a translator; Lydia's the one who assigned him."
The news was greeted with the Eye Roll. "Anyway, it's not Dylan. It's my advisors."
She pulled off her coat and tossed it onto the rack, followed by her scarf, before making her way to the couch and dropping dramatically to the cushions. "They hate my paper and they're absolutely convinced I'm going in the wrong direction."
Buffy gave Spike a look that said "your problem." He was the one who'd done the whole academic thing, after all; a masters and a doctorate, complete with fancy diplomas from Cambridge and the thesis for the Council he'd had to complete before Giles could promote him.
Spike didn't look thrilled, but he sat down next to Dawn. "I thought your advisors liked your work on the maiden, mother and crone imagery in folklore."
"That one's going great. I'm talking about my Council thesis."
Buffy sat down as well, realizing it wasn't just Spike's problem to deal with. "You're doing something on the cyclical nature of the Sunnydale Hellmouth, aren't you?"
"Yes, and I got an e-mail from my advisor -- or rather, his secretary; he apparently can't be bothered to use e-mail -- saying that my sources are too 'anecdotal' and he doesn't believe my premise can be supported with other information."
"But you're using Giles' diaries, aren't you?"
"Yes, and the interviews with you, Spike, Willow, Xander, Angel, Giles -- plus the research from the Sunnydale Press tracking the cyclical nature of local weirdness. I'm not just looking at the September to May cycle, but the cycle over the years."
"Watcher accounts are supposed to be considered primary sources," Spike said. "They've been accepted for years; Robinson knows that."
"Well, he seems to be questioning it now -- or maybe he doesn't like the idea of the interviews. I'm not sure because the e-mail didn't go into great details. Just that the sources were too anecdotal and I needed to come to London to meet with him." She slid down further into the couch cushions, covering her face with her hands. "I must be crazy to go for a doctorate and try to do the Council thing at the same time."
"Yes," Spike agreed, "but it can be done -- and they had much more heartburn over my thesis than I can imagine they'd ever have on yours. Robinson's just got a bug up his butt about something. He's a reasonably good egg. You sit down and talk to him, and I'm sure you'll be able to work it out."
Dawn peeked out from behind her fingers. "Really?"
"Really. Look, when you go in, you're going to have to do some genuflecting; that's all part of the game. Hopefully, he won't be expecting you to move on to full-blown groveling, because you've got a good premise and you can't let him push you around too much or he'll lose all respect for you."
As Spike instructed Dawn on the art of buttering up her advisor, Buffy leaned back in her chair and decided there were, on occasion, some advantages to not having gone all the way through college.