Work Text:
The video opens with a shot of Gritty diving menacingly towards the camera, eyes jiggling wildly. The on-screen text reads “Gritty Meets the Centaurs.” The scene cuts to crisp footage from a camera hidden high up in a corner. Double doors with a sign reading “Visitor’s Locker Room” beside them are in the middle of the shot.
One of the doors swings open and a man walks out, head down, looking at his phone. In the corner of the video, text clarifies that this is Troy Barrett, a player for the Ottawa Centaurs. He seems very interested in whatever he is doing on his phone. As he steps out into the wide hallway, he lets the door shut behind him and begins to type something.
Suddenly, and without warning, an orange and black blur emerges from around a corner. Troy looks up from his phone as he hears the loud stomping of Gritty’s footsteps approaching. Gritty charges towards Troy, arms raised menacingly in the air. His rotund body jiggles as he runs. Troy doesn’t react immediately. The look on his face is pure confusion and fear. He backs up until he runs into the door he just walked out of, dropping his phone. He’s frozen, cornered. He looks away, as if Gritty is about to stab him and he doesn’t want to watch the knife go in.
Gritty arrives in front of Troy and just sort of… stops. Troy turns to look at the oversized furry beast in front of him. Gritty bends slightly so his eyes are level with Troy’s, their faces just inches apart. They stay like that for an almost awkward amount of time. The horrified expression on Troy’s face quickly fades into bewildered amusement. He begins to laugh hysterically and brings his hands up to cover his face.
Gritty stands up straight and lightly pets Troy on the head, as if to comfort a scared child. Then he turns and walks calmly in the direction he came from.
Troy is left standing in front of the doors, laughing into his hands. Once he is sure Gritty is gone, he slowly bends down to pick up his phone. He quickly taps the screen a few times and raises the phone to his ear. He begins to walk down the corridor as he talks into the phone.
He says in an exasperated but playful voice, “Harris, you are never going to believe what just happened.”
He walks out of frame and the video cuts.
The next shot is of the same locker room doors. The door opens and another man steps out. He turns to face back into the locker room and shouts something unintelligible. Then he turns back around and continues out the door. Text appears in the corner again, informing the audience that this man is Wyatt Hayes, the Centaurs’ star goalie. He is carrying a backpack on one shoulder and holding a stack of comic books in his opposite hand as he enters the hallway.
Once again, Gritty leaps out from around a corner and charges towards Wyatt. The Centaurs’ goalie reacts quickly, putting his free hand out in front of him, as if this would somehow stop the neon orange monster in his tracks. But Gritty doesn’t stop. If anything, he increases his speed. When Gritty is mere feet from Wyatt, he seems to be defenseless, but then he raises his other arm and launches the stack of comic books at Gritty. Pages of brightly colored paper fly through the air. Seemingly surprised, Gritty comes to an immediate stop. One of the books hits Gritty in the face, two hit his massive torso, and one misses him completely. The books fall to the floor as Wyatt and Gritty face each other. It seems that Gritty wasn’t expecting to be assaulted by reading materials today.
Silently, Gritty crouches down and gathers the comic books. He takes a surprising amount of care with them, delicately organizing them into a neat pile. Wyatt just stares at him while he does this and cautiously accepts the stack of books as Gritty hands them back to him. Then, with no further interaction, Gritty turns on his heel and casually walks away, seemingly unphased by this entire event. Wyatt just stands there for a moment. He looks up and down the hallway, checking to make sure no one else was waiting to pop out and surprise him. When he is confident he is alone, he walks hurriedly down the tunnel. The video cuts.
The audience is once again met with the empty hallway. One of the locker room doors pops open and out steps a young man carrying a duffel bag. The on-screen text explains that this is Luca Haas. He starts down the hallway, but only makes it a few steps before being confronted by Gritty. The large orange blob approaches quickly. Luca drops his bag and makes a noise that can only be described as somewhere between a scream and a whimper. He stumbles backwards, gets tangled in his own feet, and falls hard on his ass. Gritty comes to a stop in front of Luca’s dropped duffel. He crouches and slowly unzips it, then moves around its contents. It’s unclear what, if anything, he’s looking for, but his massive furry hands are fully inside the large bag. After a few seconds of searching through Luca’s stuff, Gritty pulls out what looks like a single protein bar. He inspects its metallic wrapper, possibly even reading the nutrition facts on it. Throughout all of this, Luca is just sitting on the floor watching this massive thing rifle though his personal belongings. When Gritty stands and turns to leave, still clutching the protein bar, Luca shouts after him.
“Hey that’s mine!” Luca calls out, but Gritty doesn’t seem to hear (or maybe he just doesn’t care).
Luca then stands up from where he fell on the floor and walks up to his bag. He leans over to look inside the bag that Gritty left wide open. He seems to be checking if Gritty took anything else or broke anything. After thoroughly assessing the damage, he zips the bag closed and picks it up. Still looking a bit frazzled, he continues down the hallway. The camera cuts.
The next scene is the same doors, but this time two men step out together, holding hands. It’s Ottawa’s captain, Ilya Rozanov and his teammate/husband, Shane Hollander. Ilya turns his head to whisper something in Shane’s ear as the door shuts behind them. Whatever he says makes Shane giggle and a smile spreads across Ilya’s face.
The two are startled by the sound of heavy footsteps as Gritty appears in front of them. At first, both look shocked and they drop each others’ hands. Shane’s expression very quickly turns from surprised to a look of amused recognition. He turns his head to scan around the hallway and eventually his eyes fall on the hidden camera. For an instant, he makes eye contact with the audience, then turns his attention back to his husband who looks terrified. Before Shane can say anything to calm him, Ilya takes off running down the hallway, Gritty chasing him at full speed.
Shane jogs after, yelling “It’s okay. It’s just a prank.”
Ilya can’t hear him and keeps running. The video cuts to a different angle of Gritty chasing Ilya down a different part of the same hallway, Shane following behind them. Gritty’s eyes wobble with each step and his massive body sways as he thunders down the corridor. Ilya turns a corner and the camera cuts to yet another angle of him being pursued by Gritty who is still being followed by Shane. The scene cuts again to a final angle, revealing that Ilya has reached a dead end. He turns around to see Gritty rushing towards him. Seeing no way to escape, Ilya raises his clenched fists, getting ready to fight. Gritty imitates the gesture, coming to a stop right in front of him. The two stare intensely at each other, waiting to see who will throw the first punch.
Just as it seems things are about to get physical, Shane catches up to them and exclaims “Ilya, it’s okay. It’s just for a video. He can’t hurt you.”
Ilya’s eyes dart from Gritty to Shane, then back to Gritty. He slowly drops his hands to his sides and his stance relaxes a bit. Gritty slowly turns to face Shane, who throws his hands up as if to say “I didn’t do anything.” Gritty then turns back to face Ilya and mockingly brings his hands up into a fighting stance and throws a few air punches. When he’s done mocking Ilya, Gritty spins around and begins to walk back down the hall. His body sways with every step.
Shane bursts out laughing, which doesn’t help that he’s already out of breath from their brief, but high-speed foot pursuit. Ilya also starts laughing now, seemingly realizing the ridiculousness of the situation.
“You were so scared,” Shane wheezes.
Ilya tries to compose himself. “No, no. I was not scared. I was just…” He pauses for a moment looking for the right words. “...making good content. Is why I ran.”
Shane scoffs, “Yeah right. You looked like you were about to shit your pants.”
Ilya admits, “Okay, fine. I was a little scared.” He seems deep in thought for a second. “How did you know we were being filmed?”
“You didn’t see the camera?” Shane asks.
“No. Where was there camera?”
Shane takes a step towards his husband. It seems he hasn’t noticed the camera that’s still currently filming them. He pulls Ilya into a tight embrace and kisses him. The couple stands there for a moment, smiling at each other.
“I’ll show you on the way out,” Shane says before releasing Ilya from the hug.
The two then proceed to walk back in the direction they came from, hand in hand. The scene fades to black and the video ends.