#(prolly)

spencer "i know what it's like to be afraid of your own mind" reid is veryy afraid of his own mind in nycto. his thoughts don't make sense, his feelings don't make sense, and he's very mad about it.

that little crush he had on mephi in amherst mixed with the resentment he felt after the betrayal the same way that vinegar mixes with milk. that shit curdled. combined into an ugly concoction of raw, oxymoronic feelings that shouldn't coexist, but do. hate and "love". disdain and desire.

spencer, especially in the early days of the agreement, is hell bent on getting revenge. putting mephi in prison, bringing her to justice, is his number one priority (allegedly), and he's willing to go along with her mind games because he fully believes that getting rid of her will rid him of his feelings.

and at the same time he refuses to acknowledge that those feelings even exist. because they're weird and gross and he hates them and he can't, even for a second, admit that he wants to shag that serial killer--because what does that say about him? what kind of person lusts over--worse, yearns for--a woman who has killed dozens of people in cold blood? unfortunately, we all know what happens when you bottle up your feelings, especially when they're as...pungent as spencer's are.

and it's more than just physical, too!! if spencer's feelings were as simple as physical attraction, he'd have moved on already.

like with my post about mephi, i don't think he loves her. but i think that he could love her, and i think that's why this situation bothers him so much.

his feelings for mephi, as juvenile as they were, were real. there was a genuine connection between them, and it persists even now. it's curdled, sure, tainted by reality and the blood staining mephi's hands, but it's still there.

spencer still likes her, still wants to know her, whether he wants to acknowledge it or not. beneath his facade of disdain he finds her fascinating, both as a case study and as a person.

as an aside: is it crazy of me to say that, to an extent, spencer's initial fixation on her in amherst was because she was a secret serial killer? the physical aspect was there, obviously, but i think he could sense that there was something simmering under the surface. something weird. different. something that was awfully similar to what was inside of him. maybe he mistook it for kinship. maybe he was right.

there isn't really a concise explanation for how spencer feels about mephi, he doesn't understand it himself, but it isn't pure hatred, no matter how many times he says it is.

mephi is the most interesting, most confusing person that spencer has ever met. he's obsessed with her, with the constant challenge she provides him, and with the very feelings that he is so disgusted by.