#this was a bit kunikida-centric in terms of pov but i couldn't help it as this is quite self-indulgent

[requiem626k]

Do you think Connor and Kunikida would get along?

*giggles with excitement*

You can't even guess how wide my smile was after reading your ask. Thank you so much for having this big brain idea and sending it to me, oh mon dieu. 

Short answer before going on with all the detailed ramblings: Yes. Yes, I think they would. By the way, the “Connor” I’ll be talking about in the rest of my response is not Machine!Connor or Deviant!Connor, it’s just... Connor himself as a whole, who’s started off as a detective but now is starting to notice weird things in his program.

Connor is a “man” of duty. He values diligence and details, and he always seeks to accomplish his mission. For Kunikida, the punctual and perfectionist man that he is, I can’t even imagine how important these character traits are. At the beginning, when Connor is still all machine-like and distant, Kunikida would feel more comfortable than he has ever felt around “human beings”. As we’ve subtly seen through the manga, Kunikida always subconsciously tries to dismiss all the feelings that could “get in the way” and to behave only with his “logic”, even though things almost never go down that way. He isn’t fully aware that his ideals are more shaped around his inner emotional world than what his logic says. 

Regarding all this, I could say that Connor is his “ideal colleague”, and he considers him as such until he witnesses how far Connor can go just to accomplish his mission: overlooking human lives and judging them only through “probabilities of survival”. That is something that directly clashes with Kunikida’s ideals. Encountering that kind of event would cause the primary shock to Kunikida and would push him to seriously ponder on what it meant to be human and what androids could be “lacking”. Because in theory, everything with Connor was perfect to him; a determined predator going after his prey no matter what, fighting to assure a less dangerous and more ideal world, unable to have any kind of unnecessary feelings that could cloud his judgement, he’s everything that Kunikida would’ve dreamt to be. In theory.

Now, from Connor’s point of view, Kunikida would be an incredibly “useful” partner because he wouldn’t have a prejudice/hatred towards androids like Hank did. He wouldn’t feel under threat around him, and he could count on Kunikida to provide him any kind of authorisation or tools. But things would drastically change after Kunikida witnesses the irrefutable proof his “soulless machinery” that he did his best to ignore until then; which I believe would cause their only major dispute. He would explain Connor his ideals, his ideal world where no one dies before their eyes no matter what, and this would enormously conflict Connor’s program. To think that there would be so many things to consider, so many factors that could come into play that could lead to making a difficult judgement -- or even worse, to failing a mission! -- doesn’t make sense to him.

After that point, I just see Kunikida trying to give Connor subtle messages to push him out of his comfort zone -- to force him to deviate. He’d know it’s illegal. He’d know it’s prohibited. But, as always, he’d think with his heart without knowing it.

He’d make Connor listen to classical music and ask him about his opinion on it, stopping him when he proceeds to cite the instruments. No, the technical information doesn’t interest Kunikida. He wants to know how it makes him feel.

He’d make Connor write down whatever is on his mind. He’d invite him to attempt writing poems with him. He’d take him out to walks, talk to him about his experiences with his outer world and more importantly, inner world. He’d talk to him about the physical consequences of human emotions like fear, hope, love, passion, jealousy, happiness, sadness, lust. 

About how beautiful those feelings are.

A month ago, he could’ve sworn he hated those feelings that he deemed useless. But now that he knows what it means to be without them... He starts embracing it. Noticing the little gentle flickers that appear in Connor’s eyes gives him the hope he needs to go on.

Their relationship would be, without a doubt, a hard one at times; but it’d be absolutely therapeutic for both of them.