Yes! YES! I was right! This is Version 1 John. The John that first came by. He talked to Dave and Dave said he can’t be here. Dave is using his Time Powers to tell John “yeah you are fucking the timeline” so John can go back in time to prevent himself from doing the thing to keep time stable.

THAT’S what the second John was for, to push himself away and keep him unnoticed.

Which means that when John does get a handle on this Jumping abilities, he can use Dave as a way on whether he can mess with the timeline or not.