Not even the alpha's command could bring a ceasefire to the younger man's tears though. The soothing licks, the declaration of surety, the lack of pain, of nips and aggressive growls only made Gilroy cry harder. He didn't know what to feel anymore but the floodgates were open and the tears just would not stop coming. His belly was full but the fear of not knowing when his next meal would be left him hungry. He was tired, weary to the very bone and unable or perhaps unwilling to take another proverbial step onward.
When he begged to be left alone, when he had fought to defend himself, he had been easily ignored and overpowered. When he begged for death and a merciful freedom from his shackles of existence that too now was kept from him. The maws of death were not hungry for him yet but oh how he wished they were.
So he wept. He wept for the past that never seemed truly behind him, for the ones he had loved and lost, for his own pathetic and incapable existence. He cried for fear and relief and out of pure, deep-sated despair at the unknown.
With his knees still tucked in close against his breast, he finally collapsed onto his side in front of the massive wall of flesh and fur. His body shook stronger now with his cries and hiccups soon interrupted his every breath as he struggled to breathe easily. In that moment, Gilroy was giving up. It was not submission to a higher force, to a more worthy opponent, it was complete and utter surrender in the face of reality. He just wasn't fit to live or survive.