Trektober Day #12: Diplomacy
“Dr. Bashir, why are you not with a patient?”
Julian hastily swallowed the ration bar and strained to smile.
“I’m taking a short break to eat something. Dr. Ariz approved it.”
“Why Dr. Ariz would allow such lazy carelessness is beyond me,” Ritelas said contemptuously. “You humans have no discipline.”
If Julian thought that Garak’s lunchtime snipes at his humanity had been bad at the Replimat, it had nothing on a whole planet of Cardassian superiority. Julian’s grasp on the culture still failed him. Inevitably, when he fought back, it was someone who was using insults to flirt and took his passionate response entirely the wrong way. When he stayed professional and calm and didn’t engage, that was usually when it was someone who actually held his species in low regard and needed to be taken to task or else they’d keep finding reasons to needle him about it.
It was a situation that required careful diplomacy.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. My husband, Councilor Garak, has been working hard to ensure our people understand each other, but of course if you have any issues with my behavior you can report them to the Aid Alliance Committee.”
That usually put an end to the argument, although Julian would be hard-pressed to say whether it was because he was married, or because his husband was the famous Garak, or because of the reminder that interplanetary civility was the current priority of the government. Maybe, despite the Cardassian love of the state, they hated bureaucracy as much as he did and simply couldn’t be bothered to file the complaint.