Flags links breaks field Rewrite Output or Custom Text Fields [#1957186]

So I'll try to be concise here. I have a page view with a grid displaying 2 fields. A image and a flag link. I want to have the flag link displayed in a hovering div over the image. So I created a 3rd Custom Text field and included the previous two as tokens in the text. Here's a short hand of what I have:

Custom Text:

    <div class="image_div">
        [field_image]

        <a href="node/xxx" class="node_link">
            <div class="flag_link_div">
                [ops]
            </div>
        </a>
    </div>

Instead of getting this structure in the final output, here's what I would see in the HTML:

    <div class="image_div">
        <img src="{img url}">

        <a href="node/xxx" class="node_link"></a>

        <div class="flag_link_div">
            <a href="node/xxx" class="node_link">
                <span class="flag-wrapper ..."></span>
            </a>
            <a href="{flag link url}>
                <span class="flag_throbber">&nbsp;</span>
            </a>
        </div>
    </div>

The flag link field have duplicated and moved the "node_link" anchor into various places. Any ideas why? and any work around in the meantime?