The importance of Cas’s clothes being the same since the beginning and why it matters that Future Cas has different clothes.
When Dean first meets Cas he is dressed like, “holy tax accountant”, Jimmy Novak. This outfit we could see as unflattering and awkward. Dean makes fun on it on sight.
And yet Cas continues to dress like Jimmy against all logic. Cas is learning to love and to be human from Dean and yet his fashion never changes.
When we first meet Cas he is literally Dean’s knight in shining armour. His entrance is a hero’s entrance. This guy is a fucking prince. He is an angel and he’s here to tell Dean he SAVED HIM FROM HELL!
Future Cas, though he’s cool and he loves likes past Dean, our Dean doesn’t like him as much as he likes his own present day Cas. He famously comes back to his time, puts a hand on Cas’s shoulder and says, “don’t ever change”. He means, “I love you the way you are”.
Present day Cas is still dressed like Dean’s knight in shining armour. To continue to dress the same way as when they first met is a very romantic gesture.
Future Cas, though he looks fun and dtf, is cynical about life and therefore love. Future Cas gave up his role as Dean’s protector. He loves old Dean and is amused by him but he’s amused by everything. He has given up on being Dean’s almost-boyfriend. He is out there having orgies and not giving a fuck what his own Dean thinks. He clearly still loves him but his life is no longer Dean-centric.
He is in love but he has given up on trying.
In his own time, his Cas is literally standing on the side of the road waiting for Dean to wake up so he can help him. That is commitment; that is devotion.
That’s what Future Cas no longer has. He will follow Dean into battle and probably die but he won’t wear his hero costume anymore: he doesn’t believe in that.
The juxtaposition of the orgy scene and Cas saying, “I thought you gave up trying to label me”, has always lead me to think that maybe Future Cas and his Dean have fooled around or at least discussed Cas’s sexuality with regards to men. “No labels”, is a very bisexual thing to say and Future Cas only having sex with women would not prompt Future Dean to want to label him.
I think even Future Dean doesn’t like Future Cas as much as he used to like Cas before. If Future Cas and Future Dean ever hooked up it would’ve been in Cas’s nihilist, nothing-matters context, which I don’t think is what either Dean wants from Cas.
In a future where Cas and Dean grow apart, they both die. In a future where their romance dies, they both die and Sam becomes Lucifer. And he comes back to Cas to tell him not to change and so they can look at each other adoringly on the side of the road. If there’s hope in Dean’s present, it’s with Cas, his Cas, real, hopeful, devoted, tax-accountant-looking, Cas.
