The Time Is Now

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/46456183.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Twin Peaks
Relationship: Dale Cooper/Harry Truman
Character: Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks), Harry Truman (Twin Peaks)
Additional Tags: Cold Weather, Snow, Holding Hands, First Kiss, Sharing Clothes, Fluff,
Love Confessions, Background Case, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-04-13 Words: 4,240 Chapters: 1/1

The Time Is Now

by Merrinpippy

Summary

“Harry, where’s your jacket? And your Stetson?”

Harry’s hands fly to his chest then to his hair. His head tips back in a gesture of grim
defeat. He groans emphatically, exhaling a thick cloud into the air above him. “No wonder
it’s so goddamn cold. Oh, fuck me—is it snowing?”

Or: After an unexpected snowfall, this time it's Coop who's dressed appropriately and Harry
who's underdressed. It's an easy enough problem to fix if either of them has the courage...

Notes

This was supposed to be a 1000 word warm-up posted a week ago. And yet,

See the end of the work for more notes

The white glare of sunshine hits Coop square in the eye when he climbs out the door of the cruiser,
interrupting a mouth-splittingly wide yawn. He winces reflexively and shuts his eyes tight,
admonishing himself for his carelessness. Bright lights get the better of him on far better days, and
he’s not exactly on top form this morning. The light shines bright orange even through his eyelids,
and he suppresses an uncharacteristic grumble; it’s too early to be this bright in Spring.

“Thanks again for your discretion, Harry,” Coop yawns, inflating his vowels near indecipherably.
Harry’s door creaks as it thumps closed. “I can’t get back the hours I spent tossing, turning, and
becoming classically conditioned to despise Bird Call-Disco, but even such a short car nap will
have done wonders.”

“Any time.” Harry’s voice comes from right next to him, not the expected distance on the other
side of the vehicle, and his eyes fly open only for him to wince a second time at the too-bright sky.
Harry’s said something else, too, but he’s still in the transition from asleep to awake and though it
falls on his ears it does not enter his brain.

He shakes his head with finality, thumping his fist lightly on the cold car roof to properly ground
himself. “Apologies, Harry — what was that?”

“I said, did you say Bird Call-Disco?” Harry’s voice matches his expression: lip curled and brow
furrowed in an appropriate cocktail of confusion and revulsion.

“I did say that,” Coop confirms. “And I’ll add that the less I say on the subject further, the better
off you’ll be.”

He sidesteps the door just enough to swing it shut. He uses his reflection in the window to make
sure his hair’s in order, then takes a quick inventory to make sure he’s got everything else. Room
key, wallet, and tape recorder in his pocket; uniform all accounted for; usual coat missing but
substituted for with two jackets he’s been gifted in his time here: a heavily pocketed tan fishing
jacket from Major Briggs, and underneath that a versatile hiking jacket from Hawk. Shoes on; hair
taken care of…

But something’s missing. He’s about to voice as much to Harry and finds his answer in beholding
the man himself. “Harry, where’s your jacket? And your Stetson?”

Harry’s hands fly to his chest then to his hair. His head tips back in a gesture of grim defeat. He
groans emphatically, exhaling a thick cloud into the air above him. “No wonder it’s so goddamn
cold. Oh, fuck me — is it snowing?”

Coop makes the mistake of looking up, as if the answer is at the particular point in the sky Harry
himself is looking at. He gets a snowflake in his eye for the trouble, and he hisses at the icy
intrusion. “Oh, it’s snowing,” he grimaces, blinking it away as best he can.

“Great,” Harry drawls. “This is what I get for leaving my stuff at the station.” He looks, to Coop,
very underdressed, and not only because of the weather. It’s not every day in Twin Peaks that
Harry is bereft of his typical Sheriff’s jacket and Stetson while outdoors.

Realization comes swift. It’s hardly been a typical morning; Coop’s made sure of that.

“I’m sorry Harry,” he says sincerely, frowning at himself.

Harry frowns too. “What for?”

“It’s my fault you forgot your things,” he explains gently. If he hadn’t called ahead and given Harry
various well-reasoned arguments to drive them both here, Harry might not have been in such a rush
that he’d forgotten to grab his things. Ah, the breakage of routine; Coop knows well its perks and
pitfalls.

But Harry’s already shaking his head and waving him off with a dismissive (unjacketed) arm.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he insists. “It was entirely my own fault. If I hadn’t gotten lost in my own
thoughts — ” Harry cuts himself off. His eyes meet Coop’s then dart away, bizarrely furtive.
“Come on, it’s this way,” he changes the subject abruptly, starting off down the dirt path.

Coop follows obediently, welcoming his higher brain functions as they deign to switch on. Hello,
attention to wider surroundings. Multitasking, better late than never. Good of you to join us,
optimistic demeanor.

At last a sleepy smile breaks on his face, and the morning is less dreary. It occurs to him that, with
the inherent uniqueness of the structure of snowflakes, he is the only person with the privilege of
that particular iteration of snowflake finding its final resting place in his iris. Perhaps he needed the
intrusion this morning of all mornings; he doesn’t usually have to remind himself that
unpleasantness does not equate to bad. That lesson is one hard-earned.

They are not, for once, in either the thick of town nor the thick of the trees. The dirt trail cuts
through several fields overrun with tall grass on either side, currently fighting with all its grassy
might not to be weighed down by the onslaught of increasingly puffy snowfall. Obviously they
have fields in Pennsylvania, even in the heart of its cities, but something about the uninterrupted
swathe of grass pulls at a part of Coop that he’s been dwelling on more and more since he arrived
in Twin Peaks.

He takes a breath to note this aloud to Harry, and to ask his amateur tour guide if there really is a
difference between the type of tall grass that grows here and the stuff back — where he’s based.
He nearly chokes when the sharp breath sends a trail of frost to dry out his throat.

Jeez, it’s cold.

His jackets have his torso covered fine, but his face is in the process of numbing, and his fingers…
He shrugs the shoulders of his jacket down so that its sleeves cover his hands and then eyes Harry
for signs he’s suffering similarly.

Ahead of him, Harry stuffs his own hands in his pant pockets, looking almost casual if it wasn’t
for the shivers subtly taking hold. Coop quickens his pace, local flora taking a backseat in his
priorities. He can ask about all that when they’re inside and warmed up. When he overtakes Harry,
Harry blinks at him and then also speeds up to match with a little knock of his elbow in what Coop
assumes to be camaraderie rather than a weak shoulder check. This has the advantage of somewhat
shared body heat, and Coop pretends not to notice their arms brushing together in the hopes that he
can offer some of his own warmth.

It’s apparently not a massive distance to the house they’re headed towards, just enough to be
inconvenient, and they make better time than they might have if the flakes weren’t falling heavier
and heavier around them, chilling the walk with frost and an urgency not to dawdle. Coop makes a
particular effort not to engage his partner in conversation for the sake of putting Harry’s energy to
better use keeping him warm.

Only a few minutes in and Coop’s bitten his lip eight times.

But then amidst the uninterrupted white and brown comes the beautiful interruption: a flash of rich
blue at the edge of the grass. Coop’s face splits into a grin, and he investigates with his usual
fervor.

“Oh, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs, then fishes out his tape recorder — fumbling a little bit with
stiff fingers — and hits record. “Diane! It is a frosty white morning but I’m happy to report we’ve
just had our first splash of color: a lone cornflower, a plant I usually only encounter when its petals
garnish my ice cream. It’s such a lovely rich blue, Diane, and would you know, it smells a little
peppery! But it appears to be entirely on its own, which I don’t believe is common in
wildflowers…”

Harry’s booted footsteps finally reach him, the Sheriff wisely having opted to keep his pace rather
than expend energy running to keep up with Coop. He expects Harry’s footsteps to continue past
him and peter away, but with a scrape of what Coop can only assume to be reluctance, they come
to a stop just behind him. Even more unexpected, a solid pressure at his shoulder: Harry’s hand,
unmistakable even through all his layers.

“Thank goodness, he speaks,” Harry says good-naturedly. His warm breath tickles Coop’s ear, and
he struggles to withhold a shiver. “You were so quiet, I was starting to get concerned. Hello Diane,
if-f you can hear this.”

“Sheriff Harry Truman,” Coop introduces him a little shakily to the tape recorder, but elaborates no
further; Diane… oh, Diane knows.

“So, what’s so important that you’re — a cornflower,” Harry notices with some surprise. “V-very
early for her to be blooming. Chose the wrong time to do it, what with this weather. All the rest of
them are still waiting.”

“What a very brave flower,” Coop agrees, reaching out a finger to gently brush one of its fanned
petals.

“Won’t survive long,” Harry says, sounding mournful. “Shoulda waited.”

Coop hums noncommittally. “Maybe. But then we wouldn’t have noticed her today — she might
never have been noticed at all.” And Harry might not be touching his shoulder.

Harry barks out a short laugh. Coop feels the shake of it through Harry’s grip on him. “And I’m
sure that’ll be such a comfort when she freezes stiff miles ahead of her fellow flowers.”

Truly the Laura Palmer of her peers.

A thought surely neither of his companions would appreciate. Coop clicks off the tape recorder but
stays kneeling down, not wanting the thought to be visible on his face when he turns back to the
Sheriff. After a few heavy seconds of silence, another tremor of Harry’s makes its way to Coop,
and this one isn’t born of laughter. Harry snatches his hand back and takes a few slow, wet steps
backwards, then Coop hears him continue up the path.

“Take your time,” Harry calls back to him. “I’ll be up ahead.”

Coop spares a final glance at the lonely cornflower before he dares to watch Harry walk away. He
hadn’t missed the nearly perfect masking of Harry’s teeth chattering, and his shivering is even
more prominent now than it had been before they stopped — Coop’s second faux pas of the day,
and it’s barely past breakfast. Harry’s attempt to hide his reactions from Coop is almost funny in
its ineffectiveness.

Surely not for the first nor last time of his life, Coop curses the need of man to look tough and
unaffected, not only for its interruption of their physical contact, but also for the question Harry
hasn’t asked him, despite how obvious it should be otherwise.

No matter. It’s an easy fix when Coop puts his mind to fixing it, and he stands and stretches and
starts anew.

“Harry, wait a sec,” he calls ahead, smiling as Harry halts without hesitation in the middle of the
trail.

Even visibly shivering from the cold, Harry puts away his irritated expression to fix Coop with one
of fond curiosity. “Yeah?”
Coop catches up to him in just a few short bounds, his footsteps wet and loud especially next to the
absence of his partner’s. He doesn’t answer him quite yet. He circles around Harry, who just stands
there rubbing his hands together and letting huge puffy snowflakes accumulate in his hair, and
Coop marvels at his patience with him; Coop’s seen Harry’s exasperatedly interrupt friends and
coworkers in far less uncomfortable circumstances, and ones that unlike Coop, they weren’t at
fault for.

This does have a point to it, however: still faced away from him, Harry doesn’t see Coop shucking
off his top jacket until Coop’s already slipped one of Harry’s arms through the armhole, and Coop
simply follows the movement when Harry whirls around to protest. The temperature drop is an
immediate slap to the face — and one Coop cheerfully ignores.

“Coop, no, I can’t take — ”

“You’re not taking anything,” Coop interrupts him, wrestling Harry’s other arm into place. “In fact
you are significantly resisting.”

“It’s freezing!” Harry insists, his words punctuated by the thick cloud of condensation that
follows.

“Exactly,” Coop agrees. Point made. He claps Harry on the back and gestures his other hand back
to the path. He takes the lead this time and delights in the crunching of gravel that betrays Harry’s
scramble to fall into step with him.

“Aren’t you cold?” Harry tries again, ever the gentleman. “Thought it was my job to take care of
you in this town.”

In truth he is cold, but he’d be a terrible agent if he let that hinder him, and more importantly, a
terrible friend. He doesn’t admit that Harry’s concern is warming him right back up anyway. Plus,
while the fishing jacket is layered — all those pockets — it’s sleeveless, and while keeping the
torso warm is necessary for survival, Coop figures he still has the better deal by far. He holds out
the arms of hiking jacket in demonstration.

“I suppose I’m experiencing the very rare benefit of not being accustomed to the weather of a
particular region: when the weather doesn’t turn out as expected, my overdressing turns into
simply dressing.”

A scoff of laughter from Harry. “Hm. Point one to the outsider,” he concedes, before his head turns
whip-fast to face him, his eyes widening as he hears what’s just come out of his own mouth. It’s
almost comical, but Coop doesn’t insult Harry by laughing as he rushes to correct, “Wait, not like
—”

Coop brings up his hand to quiet him. His fingers aren’t as straight as he usually holds them, stiff in
the biting air. “No need to apologize, Harry. I am an outsider — you’ve even joked as much before
without offending me — and to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Harry frowns, and Coop hurries to elaborate without sounding overeager.

“If I’d grown up here, I might take for granted all the things that fascinate me now. Like early-
blooming cornflowers, or the stars on a clear night… or Douglas firs,” he adds, lips twitching
upwards at the memory of their first meeting. He steals one more glance at Harry before fixing his
gaze ahead and powering through: “And I might not have started down the path that would lead me
to working alongside you.”
He all but holds his breath after that before remembering that the cold and condensation will
certainly give that away. He catches Harry staring at him in his peripheral vision, but Harry doesn’t
say anything while they push open the wood fence and enter the grounds of the house at the end of
the dirt path. Coop remains relaxed as a conscious choice.

Years ago, he might have worried more about those social rules, the ones where men aren’t
supposed to say things like that out loud. But he’s said weirder things since meeting Harry, and
part of the appeal of him in the first place is that he doesn’t mind Coop’s eccentricities — and in
fact, seems to revel in them. So he doesn’t feel self-conscious about his own words, per se. But it
doesn’t stop him worrying about Harry’s reaction.

For the moment, he forces his imagination away from analyzing and pattern-recognizing Harry’s
silence.

His shivering, at least, is nowhere near as bad as Harry’s was, so he can rest assured he’d made the
right call in that department. But his extremities sting, and briefly he entertains the idea of reaching
out and slipping his hand into Harry’s for warmth.

He keeps his hands to himself.

Finally under the cover of the front porch, a clearing of the throat, and a blur of movement beside
him — Harry catches Coop’s wrist, pulling them face to face. Now Coop actually gets a chance to
see Harry in his clothes full-on, a little tight around the chest and shoulders; the fabric pulls in ways
that have Coop forcing his eyes up to Harry’s face instead, despite the distinctly sexless nature of
the fishing jacket, praying that his blush is passable as from the cold.

Harry’s lovely features are set in a serious expression. He holds himself pointedly firm, as if this
is… not an act, but a choice, a display of strength in his own convictions: he’s come to some sort
of decision, Coop surmises.

“We really do see you as one of us,” Harry tells him, low and earnest, “no matter how long you’ve
actually been here. I, uh… I speak for more than just me when I say that if you did want to stay
long enough to ditch the ‘outsider’ title…”

Harry surprises Coop then for the nth time this morning. With his free hand he clasps Coop by the
shoulder, a move which almost disguises the hand on Coop’s wrist loosening, then dropping down
to intertwine their fingers. He can’t suppress the jump his eyebrows make, so he squeezes Harry’s
hand twice in quick succession just to make sure there’s no room to misinterpret his surprise as
displeasure.

“There’s room for you here.”

Coop’s stiff face aches from the width of his responding grin.

Harry fidgets, shifting his weight onto his other foot, but he doesn’t look away from Coop, and his
own lips pull up into a helpless smile.

“Certainly, uh, more room than in this damn jacket of yours,” Harry adds in a more jovial tone.
“I’d say we need to feed you better but I’ve seen up close how much pie you chow down!”

“What’s the point of a good metabolism if you don’t take rigorous advantage of it?” Coop shrugs.
The minute shoulder movement pulls on the hand still interlocked with Harry’s, drawing both their
attention back to it.
Having already defused the emotional intensity with a joke, presumably Harry intends to do the
same with the physical and pull his hand back, perhaps with a friendly punch for good measure…
but Harry does neither of these things, instead giving him back the same double squeeze as Coop
had given before.

The sensation is akin to being bowled over. Coop employs meditative technique in order to breathe
deeply through the unexpected surge of adoration that rushes over him, and even that isn’t entirely
useful. His internal sensations that should be grounding are the cliche butterflies in his abdomen
and a hot face, the external, Harry’s hands on him. He mourns that he must let this moment pass
for a multitude of good reasons: it’s cold, they’re right outside a potential witness’s house on the
job… It's not the right time.

But then he thinks of Laura Palmer and the cornflower, bold and beautiful and before its time. Of
Harry’s staunch presence behind him and at his side. Of his endless patience. The snow itself
seems to slow its falling beyond Harry and the porch, as though Twin Peaks itself is holding its
breath in anticipation. Or perhaps it’s one of those few seconds that slow themselves to an infinity,
where the subconscious brain understands the enormity of giving this part in particular the time it
deserves. It’s an easy decision, then.

Coop uses the grip on Harry’s hand to tug them together.

He has less than a short second to savor the wide-eyed surprise on Harry’s face before he guides
the movement to its logical conclusion — slow motion over, apparently. His other hand rises to cup
Harry’s jaw, but once there, barely brushes his freshly shaven stubble. He touches Harry more
gently than the fragile petals of the cornflower, even with his fingers stiff and awkward with the
cold.

Harry’s breath leaves him in a gush of crystalline air, the condensation obscuring them from the
world through a white cloud, though whether this is from the shock of sudden movement or from
Coop’s finger’s on his jaw, he cannot tell.

Time to lay his own cards on the table. He inclines his head, slow this time to give Harry both a
chance to understand exactly what his intentions are, and to stop all this right here if he doesn’t
want this. As always, there is the possibility that Coop misread the situation, and the last thing he
wants is to make Harry uncomfortable.

But the touch of Harry’s forehead is more sudden than the touch of his jaw; Harry losing his
patience at last. The clutching of their intertwined fingers grows ever tighter, as though Harry can
by sheer force of will drive them so close as to merge. Coop isn’t averse to the idea himself. The
pressure at his brow is nowhere near as forceful as that, but it does mean he can feel Harry tilt his
head even before his jaw presses more firmly into the cup of Coop’s hand.

At this close distance, there’s no hiding Coop’s gasp — some part of him must have expected this,
otherwise he wouldn’t have initiated anything, but the reality of it is startling, and wonderful
beyond words.

“You have terrible timing,” Harry breathes a puff of warmth into the space between their lips, and
Coop can’t check his expression to gauge whether he’s actually upset because somewhere in the
last several seconds his eyes have drifted closed of their own accord.

He parts his lips, an apology perched on his tongue. Harry beats him there before it can see the
light of day.

Harry’s lips are shockingly soft against his. Chaste, but so deliberate as to be scorching anyway.
Coop catches himself in the mind-addled paralysis typical when being kissed for the first time,
cataloging the overwhelming sensations both within and without: the pounding of his heartbeat, the
churning of excitement in his stomach, and Harry there, Harry there, and Harry there. But he
refuses to disappoint by way of inaction — with a meditational technique he usually uses for far
less urgent matters, he reasserts control of his own reactions and finally kisses back.

It’s the spark that has Harry jumping from chaste to heated. Coop changes his mental definition of
scorching, because it turns out it was sorely underestimating Harry — and then there’s no more
room for calculation or categorization, only the drag of Harry’s tongue on his, the heady taste of
his mouth, the — ! The pleasant scrape of blunt nails through his hair, and the tug pulling him
back.

Dizzily, Coop blinks his eyes open just in time to watch the string of spit between their lips stretch
and snap. He swallows compulsively. Catches Harry’s eyes dropping to watch the bob of his
Adam’s apple.

“Harry,” he starts, breathless. He loses his train of thought immediately.

Harry laughs and somehow it doesn’t even break the tension. “Alright there, partner?” he teases,
his voice rough. Coop shudders. With the heat of their bodies pressed together, there’s no pretense
that it’s from the temperature.

“I thought you were shier,” Coop manages with a shaky smile of his own.

Harry shrugs, petting his hair seemingly absentmindedly. “I thought I had to wait longer to have
you,” he admits. Indeed, his patience exhausted, Harry’s already nudging his way back to Coop’s
mouth, pressing hot kisses to his chin, his cheek, the corner of his lips.

“You said I had terrible timing,” Coop reminds him, searching his expression now that his eyes are
open to see it.

Harry grimaces and takes a deep breath, then lets his hand fall from Coop’s hair. Coop’s kicking
himself immediately for the mistake.

“I stand by that,” Harry says. He pries Coop’s hand away from his face, but then brings it to his
mouth. Harry kisses his knuckles, his fingertips. “I wanna take my time with you, sweetheart.”

Once again, Coop’s pushed into the passenger seat of his own body, overwhelmed with sensation
after sensation. His heart might genuinely be on the verge of giving out, sweet or not.

“After,” Harry says, inclining his head nebulously back towards the house.

Right, the stranger’s house whose porch they’re under. Damn, is Coop really so out of practice that
so short a kiss has such an effect on him? The answer, of course, is yes, though he’s relatively
certain that it being Sheriff Truman doing the kissing is no small part of it.

“You promise?” He tries to tease back to get himself on more familiar footing, but in his
introspection he’s forgotten to master his tone. He sounds too genuine, too vulnerable. Too soon.

But Harry’s eyes are soft on him, unflinching. Right. Of course the Sheriff’s stalwart courage
would follow him here, too. He lets Coop’s fingers free one by one until he can curl their pinky
fingers together. “I promise,” he says, completely sincere.

God, Coop’s gone on him before they’ve even begun.

 They disentangle themselves from each other little by little, reluctance slowing their progress to a
crawl, but eventually they’re straightened out and more or less back to their professional selves.
Except for the fact that when Harry knocks on the door and steps back, his hip presses into Coop’s
from the side, standing as close as physically possible under the vague pretense of huddling for
warmth. Harry’s straight face is less than convincing.

Coop pokes at it, murmuring under his breath: “Kissing Sheriff Truman, better than a car nap.”

They wait side by side on the porch, stifling giggles and listening for distant sounds of human
movement deep in the house.

In the Twin Peaks cold, hip-to-hip with his partner, Coop finds himself impossibly warm.

End Notes

Hello please yell with me about Twin Peaks in the comments, on twitter @stagedfinale, or
on tumblr @merrinpippy ^-^

Also! Title is from The Time Is Now by Moloko and holy shit is that song perfect for this
fic and frankly trucoop in general go listen!

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!