[ The more that Sam picks up, the more he wishes he hadn't. It's not that he doesn't want to know any of this, necessarily, or even that he doesn't want to experience it - although hell no he doesn't, no one would want to - it's more that he doesn't want to know it like this. He likes Damon, and it's so fucking unfair for something like this to get spilled out without Damon's control, on someone he barely knows.

Nobody should have ever had to feel that kind of helpless, to watch the hope that someone would come fade into nothing. To reach a point surpassing anger and devastation where the only way to cope is to feel nothing at all. Sam knows what that feels like, both on his own - albeit something far less literal than shutting off emotions - and because of how closely connected he is with Bucky.

There's something almost like relief when he feels Damon latch onto the breathing technique, when the rise and fall of their chests sync up. His eyes stay shut as he lets it all go, breathes in and out and lets it fade. He can't forget it anymore than Damon can, can't ever unlearn what it feels like to experience it, but he can bury it down somewhere no one else can touch it. ]

I don't know. It's not the usual kind of bleed over that happens sometimes, it's... [ It's happened a couple of times before, but not very many, and usually only with someone Sam already had a connection with. Except the one time it'd helped forge a connection, and if Sam hadn't already started that by letting Damon in his head, he can definitely feel it now. But ultimately, there's only one important thing about what it was. ] Not something I should have seen.