#i am once again overthinking canon-divergent aus lol

[bluejayblueskies]

au where jon and tim don't have a falling out in season two and actually trust each other :))

send me an au and i'll give you 5+ headcanons about it!

this au is canon in my heart <3

1. there are about a million ways this could come about but the one that's sticking in my mind right now is, for some reason or another--maybe he's looking for something, maybe he was trying to help not!sasha find something, etc.--tim finds the tapes that not!sasha hid in her desk with sasha's real voice on them and listens to them. and tim's like 'hey, this is weird' and does some research and comes to the conclusion that something is wrong with sasha. this is pre-mag 50 (tim's conversation with jon about basira where he assumes they're seeing each other), so when that conversation comes around, it goes something like this:

jon: i'm helping her with the investigation off the record

tim: oh. oh.

jon: oh, no, tim, it's not--

tim, cheeky: good work boss :D

jon: it's not like that!

tim, after a moment: it's... it's not about sasha, is it?

jon, now thoroughly lost: sorry what

and at this point in time, everything isn't completely destroyed between the two of them (that, in my opinion, happens in mag 65 binary), and so eventually, they both come to the realization that that's not sasha

2. they don't destroy the table. it's not necessarily because tim's any more inclined to be like 'well let's act in a less genre-savvy way,' it's more like, they come up with a plan together and tim is a bit less impulsive in general and he'd be more inclined to be like 'let's consider all of the options before we do anything.' i don't know if they would come to the conclusion necessarily that the table is binding the not!them and keeping it from wandering wherever it wants? but i think whatever conclusion they came to, smashing the table wouldn't be it

3. when all's said and done and they've gotten rid of not!sasha (in a probably very plot-intensive way that i don't feel like outlining right now lol), jon isn't on the run for leitner's murder bc it never occurred, he and tim aren't at odds (though tim will probably still be a bit irritated about the stalking regardless of why it happened and will also definitely be mourning sasha), and elias is definitely having a bit of a time of it trying to figure out how to orchestrate a bunch of marks when jon has no current reason to leave the institute. he would probably still tell them about the unknowing though--can't have them knowing the rituals don't work!

4. jonmartim supremacy. they get together sometime mid-season three and it's fantastic. they all move into a too-small flat together and spend their time preparing for the unknowing and doing research and getting takeaway and kissing. elias's plans are in shambles.

5. i don't think this would still happen what with the butterfly effect of changes and all that, but i can't get the image out of my head of jon still getting kidnapped by the circus and, since jon's not in and out of the institute a lot, his absence being noticed by tim and martin. i don't know how tim finds out--maybe jon told him about nikola approaching him and asking about the gorilla skin, maybe tim managed to get it out of elias, maybe he just figured it out himself--but tim figures out where jon's being kept and he and martin rescue him. tim gets to chop up a fair amount of clowns during the rescue mission and he's having the time of his life. and because of who i am as a person, there is a lot of hurt/comfort.

there's so much plot that can happen in this au that i don't think i can outline off the top of my head without at least a few days of considering the butterfly effect of changing one event lol, but i don't think the apocalypse would happen and i also don't think tim would die, because lack of support and isolation is such a major part of the later seasons and i strongly believe that if tim and jon had never fallen out, a lot of that would have been avoided.