Daniel finally figured it out. It was not without the usual violence that came with interpreting the puzzle known as Rorschach. That was to be expected. But he'd finally gotten a handle on how to navigate when he found himself in this sequence of events.
Early on in their relationship, Dan learned that his friend was prone to night terrors. It would begin when Dan would awaken to being jostled whether by Walter shuddering slightly or jolting with a sudden burst of motion. Dan would lie awake as his partner twitched and flinched. As the dreams would wear on, Walter was given to vocalizations but they rarely made any sense. Sometimes he would growl and snarl and Dan would watch his muscles contract as he inched away. Sometimes he would make hesitant sad noises in the back of his throat that would break Daniel's heart.
He'd gotten good at how to remedy all of these disturbances through trial and error. He wouldn't soon forget how to deal with the particularly nasty instances when Rorschach seemed to be fighting the Devil himself in his sleep. Daniel had made the mistake of laying his arm around his friend and pulling him close. Rorschach reacted by clamping down on his arm and nearly ripped it from its socket. He had burst from Daniel's grasp as if escaping the certain hands of doom but had not let go his hold on Dan's arm. He was making as if to jump behind Dan and pop the limb from its socket when Daniel yelped and retracted with all his might. The momentum flung Walter into the bookcase in the opposite wall and broke the shelves, leaving Walter under a pile of books. Dan remembered seeing Walter's face in the dim light before he flung him loose. His friend's eyes were open but his brain was still asleep and worse, it was in Rorschach-combat-auto-pilot mode.
After Dan wrestled his glasses from the nightstand and fumbled with turning on the lamp, he looked around at the disheveled bed sheets and broken bookshelf on the floor. Walter sat flushed, out of breath, and disoriented amongst a pile of books and broken trinkets. The look on his face pretty well illustrated the phrase What the fuck just happened? without saying it. His red hair stuck out in all sorts of directions as he looked down confused at the mess. Anyone else would have missed it altogether in Walter's dour features but Dan detected a hint of fear mixed with the confusion.
Dan rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses and shuffled out of bed. He rolled his shoulder a few times to make sure it wasn't dislocated then stooped to help Walter up out of the mess. As he steadied the shorter man on his feet, he tugged his rumpled pajama top down and dusted off the broken bits of trinket from the fabric. "Man, you've got some vivid dreams." Walter looked back at the destruction in his wake. Dan waved it off with a yawn. "We'll clean it up later. Let's get some coffee." and they headed down to the kitchen.
Dan knows now that unfortunately, in instances like those where the twitching is violent and Walter begins to thrash about, he should just let it run its course. He inches cautiously away from his friend and lets him work it out. It goes against all he wants to do and it's painful to watch but in the long run no bones are broken and the thrashing always subsides. Walter eventually wears his inner demons down and goes limp with sleep and heavy breathing.
But, if he's lucky and he rouses at the first twitch of something amiss, Dan can head off the whole fiasco all together. If he wakes and finds Walter's flinching to be minimal and the primal growls have not yet begun, he can employ an old trick known to mothers everywhere. He can curl up behind him and thread his arms around the thin body. He spreads his fingers out to encompass his friend in compression and lays his nose against the nape of Walter's neck. The flinching increases at first and then dies away as the body goes limp to accept the force. His breathing begins to slow back down and the heart under Daniel's hand slows from its hammering. Sometimes, but not often, the hand over Daniel's will squeeze and cling. It is those instances where Rorschach can subside and Walter can sleep like a babe swaddled in the pressure of Daniel's embrace.