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Unbreakable Curse [Saria and Clementine]

Vincent raised an eyebrow, stacking his bowl on his plate and pushing it to the side to make room to cross his arms on the table. "It's not that bad, just... a pain," he said with a sigh. And the last thing he wanted to be stuck doing in his few hours in his proper form was cleaning, but it really did need to be done, company or not. "Tea I have plenty of... I like trying all the flavors and brands." He probably had more tea in his cupboards than anything else. "I'll eat anything. Well, almost anything, so long as it's not bitter." He eyed Grayson curiously at that. "Really? People walk up to you and hand you a bag of food?"
 
Grayson burst out laughing at Vincent's description. "No. Nothing like that," he managed around his giggling. "Well I suppose they do have to walk up to my office. I have a lot of students in Home EC area and they always just bring me their leftovers, which I in turn share with my smaller classes. I guess it's just become the norm now." Grayson shrugged like it wasn't weird, but now that he thought about it, it kind of was.
 
Vincent propped his chin on his hand and tapped the thumb of his other hand on the table. "Sounds like you're popular. I bet you get anonymous love letters too?" he asked with an amused smirk. Grayson wasn't bad looking and if he inspired the same passion for his work in his students, he could easily imagine some of them becoming infatuated.
 
Gray snorted, trying to his his blush behind a sip of his coffee. "Not at all," he replied as casually as he good, though Vincent would be somewhat right. It never failed but by the end of the semester, at least a handful of students had ask him out, both men and women. It was kind of embarrassing, especially since Grayson thought is only redeeming qualities included his study habits and awkward moments.

"Hey. So what time do you want me to come over tomorrow?" He asked, clearly trying to change the topic.
 
Vincent snorted. "Mmhm..." he said, not sounding convinced in the least. He reached for his pie, trying to savor it, but there was just the right combination of nutmeg and cinnamon and sugar and... he really couldn't help but close his and savor the first bite before practically scarfing the rest.

"Um, anytime past d-" He started to say 'dark' but stopped himself. "Usually after seven or eight is good..." He sucked the fork clean of gooey sweet goodness and pushed the empty plate away before reaching for his wallet out of habit. "Should I take some of the material home tonight?"
 
"You can take some home tonight if you don't mind going back to the library. Or I can just bring everything over tomorrow." He blinked, watching Vincent scarf down his pie. Gray looked down at his own, nearly gone crumble, finding that he agreed with Vincent. The pie was delicious. At least he now had an idea of what the man like. Gray smiled to himself, taking down the last forkful of his pie.

Grayson saw Vincent reaching for his wallet and immediately waved his away. "I've got it, remember?" He smiled, tossing down tip for the table attendant. Thankfully, he'd already been able to pay when he got their food in the beginning. "And eight-ish sounds perfect."
 
Vincent blinked in surprise when Grayson actually followed through with paying, tilting his head slightly as he studied him a moment before slipping his wallet back into his pocket. "Thanks... You were right, they do have good pies." He smiled and stretched his arms over his head with a soft moan. "Can you bring it tomorrow? I won't have time to do much with it tonight." He grumbled softly about having to clean, though it wasn't really that bad now that he thought about it. It wasn't like he really made a mess as a human.

He stood and ran his fingers through his hair. "See you tomorrow then?"
 
"Told you," Gray replied with a grin. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Vincent. Have a good evening." With another smile and a wave, Grayson was parting ways with Vincent until the following night.

True to his word, Grayson showed up a little past eight, loaded up with the goodies he'd mentioned before as well as all of their needed research material for the night. He doubled checked the address in his hand, always hating going to a home he'd never been to before. He was always convinced that he got the address wrong, despite everything being correct. Smiling to himself, he shoved the hastily written on scrap of paper into his pocket before knocking on Vincent's door cheerily.
 
Vincent spent the entire night vacuuming, cleaning, dusting and picking up the books that had gotten a bit out of control. He hadn't realized how badly the guest-room-turned-library had gotten. There was hardly any room in there anymore outside of an uneven path that wound around the room. He piled the extra books onto the makeshift bookshelves he'd nailed into the walls in the living room, subjects ranging from Japanese culture (the majority of them on kitsune or Japanese tales and folklore), talismans and curses, various religions, Indian and Buddhist information, and the occasional book on occult or witchcraft. Some were far older than others and all showed signs of being read at least once.

The day he spent sleeping and was just finishing his shower when he heard the knocking. He draped his towel over his wet hair and pulled a pair of jeans on. "Coming!" he called, hopping on one foot and making sure his jeans were zipped before tugging the door open, completely forgetting about a shirt. His chest showed toned muscles from the martial arts he kept up with when he could and a few odd scars on his shoulder and left side. "Hey, come on in," he said, reaching out to help alleviate Grayson's load of supplies or goodies.
 
Grayson found himself with a face full of toned chest. He blinked and gaped slightly, admiring how in shape Vincent was. He usually didn't care about that kind of stuff, but damn if Vincent didn't look utterly fabulous. Grayson was only jarred out of his admiring when Vincent was helping him with his handful. "Oh. right. Yeah thanks," he replied with a laugh, nodding his head before he stepped into Vincent's very clean house.

"Run yourself ragged cleaning?" He asked teasingly, toeing off his shoes, not wanting to track dirt into Vincent's clean house.
 
"You've no idea," Vincent grumbled, taking the goodies to the kitchen and setting them out on the counter. He'd already pulled a dozen different varieties of tea out of his cupboards and set them out for Grayson to peruse. "You can put that stuff on the table in there," he said, pointing towards the living room. He plugged in the pot he'd filled with water before his shower and set it to heating up. "Feel free to help yourself to some tea. Let me find a shirt." He hadn't had time to do laundry, but he was sure he still had one or two that were clean.

He disappeared down the hall, rummaging through his clothes and settling on a t-shirt that had caught his fancy. It was black with a shark and said 'Bite Me'. Sometimes, he was sure the teens in this era were rubbing off on him. Or maybe he was just getting too old and his humor was downsliding. He scrubbed his hair dry and finger-combed it on his way back to Grayson.
 
Grayson would have rather stared at Vincent's bare chest all night, but instead of saying so, he just nodded, watching as he went off to grab a shirt. With a sigh, Gray dropped his research material on the pointed out table. Before, he'd seen Vincent as nothing more than a benefactor and someone to help him with this research. Now suddenly, Gray was all to aware of how handsome Vincent was. He'd thought so before, but it was only a passing though. Dammit, but he hated it when this happened. It was like he was face first in a book for years and years and had just finally caught up for a breath of reality. And Vincent was that reality.

Running his fingers through his hair in mild irritation at himself, he spared at glance at the now closed Vincent before bee lining for the tea. "I see you were lying about the tea," he said with a laugh, helping himself to some earl grey. "I'm glad you have it all though. Most of the food I brought is kind of sweeter. You like sweet stuff, right?"
 
Vincent hummed softly and fixed himself some peach-flavored black tea. "I'll eat just about anything," he replied with a smile, picking up a box of cookies to open up and taste. "Not bad." He scratched at his stomach and glanced at the table where everything had been set. "So any suggestions on where to start? I might have a book or two related to it somewhere."

He picked up his tea and the box of cookies, settling on the floor between the table and sofa and crossing his legs. He set the tea on the corner of the table and looked through the books. There was plenty of room on the sofa for Grayson to sit, a worn chair to Vincent's left, and an even more worn bean bag across from him.
 
"I was thinking we could start during the era the artifacts are dated at." Gray crammed a tasting cookie into his mouth before taking up tea and heading over to Vincent. He plopped himself down on the couch, knees by Vincent's shoulders. It would be easier to go over information if they were sitting side by side. Setting his drink down, Grayson reached for one text in particular.

"This is the book a showed you the other afternoon. Remember the similarities? I want to cross reference the image with other cultures and see if there is anything continuous about it or if these particular markings only show up twice." He knew he was babbling, but he could feel the heat radiating off of Vincent made him feel like a nervous high schooler on a study date.
 
Vincent nodded and reached under the table for some of the books he'd come across while cleaning. One was an old leather bound book he'd picked up ages ago, an anthology of ancient stories and myths from several countries dating back to at least the seventh century. "This might help. I think the Asian ones are towards the end," he murmured, carefully flipping through the pages with various languages until he found ones starting to look more similar to the markings in the pictures. "What do you think?" he asked, holding it up for Grayson to look at, only then really noticing how close they were sitting to each other as his arm rubbed against Grayson's leg. It almost tingled like his hand had when Grayson had grabbed it and he swallowed as he fought the initial instinct to pull away. It...didn't exactly feel bad, but they had work to do. Now wasn't the time to let his neglected urges loose.
 
Watching Vincent flip through the book, Grayson leaned over to get a better look, his chest brushing Vincent's shoulder as he did so. "I think I'm a genius and that I was right about the markings being oriental in origin. The only question is, why in the world was it all the way over in Brazil? Even if the markings are Japanese, the culture was still very isolated during the period of the artifacts. That's also if we're to believe if the carbon dating is correct." Gray's brow furrowed in thought and he scratched the back of his head.

Reaching over Vincent again, he grab one of the books he'd brought, hurriedly flipping through the pages. "I marked this one because the object recently found looks very much like this one." It was Gray's turn to shower Vincent a picture of what looked like a giant, hallowed out gourd. "The Japanese kept their sake in these, but there's also folklore about displaced souls being trapped inside as well. Kinda creepy actually."
 
Vincent laughed softly at the genius comment, tilting his head and discreetly breathing in Grayson's scent when he leaned over him. The spicy sweet scent was even stronger than before and he was momentarily distracted with thoughts of tasting his skin to see if he tasted as good as he smelled. He hummed softly and looked at the book Grayson held out. That brought back memories.

He blinked a bit as that sank in, straightening and glancing back at Grayson. "They found a gourd in Brazil?" What the hell was going on? "What's the carbon dating say about its age? Are they really... leaning towards this being a Japanese site?" He didn't remember anything that mentioned any Japanese going towards Brazil, but then he'd never been in South America.
 
Grayson blinked at Vincent's exclamantion. "Oh. Yes. Yes they did. I guess it didn't get put into the photo packet a gave you then?" Grayson pulled out his cellphone and scrolled to a picture of what he was talking about. "Look. See here?" He offered the phone to Vincent, unknowingly doing the same thing Vincent had been doing only a moment ago. Gray found himself enjoying Vincent's woodsy scent and wanted nothing more than to pressed his nose into the man's soft, dark hair.

"I don't understand it though," Gray added, surprised that his voice was a littler huskier sounding than moments ago. He cleared his throat, shoving his glasses up his the bridge of his nose. "I mean. It's really crazy. They dated that gourd back to the time of the Kyowa period!"
 
Vincent took the phone and turned it this way and that, partially distracted by Grayson's breath on his ear. Kyowa? Why did that sound familiar? He tried to remember as he stared at the gourd. Kyowa... Kyowa... That wasn't that long ago, was it? His head jerked up as he remembered. "Follow Heaven and take your destiny... unite all people," he murmured. "There was rumor of someone taking a ship with a small crew out around that time, but... they disappeared..." He looked back at the phone, trying to remember what the captain's name was. "Noritsune...? No, that was Ichinotani..." he mumbled to himself, biting his lip with a faraway look as he rifled through memories. Something about a quest to take a gift across the ocean, but he vaguely remembered something about a cursed object being switched with it...
 
Grayson blinked. "Vincent?" He asked softly, nudging the male's shoulder. "What're you talking about? Who is Noritsune and Ichinotani? The writing on the gourd doesn't translate to that. Look. See?" Grayson pulled out a slip of paper that had both the kanji that was written on the gourd as well as the best english translation he could come up with. "I tried my best, but the language is old. I think it says, "forbidden in the one who takes the soul, hidden on the vine. Beware else time will call." I honestly have no idea what that even means. I--"

Grayson yelped suddenly as the words on the paper suddenly lit with a golden light. He grew hot, making Grayson drop the paper. Meanwhile, somewhere in Brazil, the gourd was glowing as well.
 
Vincent didn't seem to notice Grayson trying to get his attention until he caught the words that could only be a spell. He glanced up with a flare of panic. "Don't!" But it was too late. Somehow Grayson had managed to activate the incantation and the traps and spells within. His eyes widened as he saw the golden light, glancing around the room as he felt the spell latching onto one magical item before ditching it for another, seemingly searching for something. A few moments later, it latched onto him and... didn't let go. Oh fuck!

He gritted his teeth as something wrapped tight around him, the light growing brighter as a...vortex opened around them with a rush of screaming, unnatural winds. There was a pulse of a powerful force around them and then something sucking him towards the vortex. "Gray! Get out of here!"
 
Paralyzed as the wind whipped around him, Grayson stared at Vincent, watching at the wind swirled harder around the man. Grayson felt the pull of the strange, golden light, but not as much as Vincent it seemed. He watched as the vortex pulled and twisted at Vincent, dragging him closer and closer to the center. Vincent's frantic cry was what spurred Grayson into action. "Vincent!" Gray cried, lunging for him and grabbing tightly around his waist, trying to pull him back.

He was no match for the power of the whirlwind though and found himself careening forward with a shout of surprise. Blinded by the golden light, Grayson clung to the only solid surface around, Vincent. He held on as tightly as he could, wondering when they'd stop swirling out of control.

Briefly, Gray felt the wind start to still and thought he felt leaves whipping into his skin. His stomach in his mouth as it felt like he was falling, Grayson fainted before they made it to the bottom of wherever they were going, still tightly holding onto Vincent.
 
Vincent tried to shove Grayson back, but it was no use. The spell had him completely immobilized and was only getting tighter as it felt like it was trying to rip him apart. He felt the unsettling sensation of traveling at a great speed through... what felt like time and space. He had no idea how long it lasted, only that by the time they stopped his throat was raw from screaming and his body felt like something had flayed every inch of him. The spell still pulsed and twisted around him and a searing pain erupted in his head as hundreds of years of memories fell out of place. He choked and coughed up blood, screaming hoarsely as he struggled to get his hands together, doubting even his magic could get rid of the spell trying to crush him or rip him apart.

His vision swam and blackened at the edges, and he was vaguely aware of blood running from his nose. He gritted his teeth and forced his hands together, sluggishly shifting his fingers and praying his muscle memory was enough to get them right as he choked out a mantra in hopes it would work. He nearly blacked out on his third repetition though it must have finally worked as the spell snapped in a fracturing of gold light, leaving him free to clutch his head in agony.
 
Grayson came too barely a moment later, only to look up and see Vincent bleeding out of his orifices. "Vincent!" Grayson cried, struggling to get up. His body felt like jelly and while he wasn't in any pain like Vincent obviously was, he was still having a hard time trying to orient himself. He tentatively touched Vincent's face, terrified by all the blood he saw. Shakily, he tried to wipe some of it away, looking for some kind of wound, but finding none.

"Vincent," Gray rasped, anxiously smoothing his hand against Vincent's cheek, not knowing what to do. For the first time he realized that they were in a forest of some sort, but he had no idea how they had gotten there or why. Grayson's scientific brain was trying to grasp the fact that they'd just been teleported somewhere.
 
Vincent screamed as the touch to his face felt like fire on frayed nerve endings, though the pain was far more intense than searing pain in his head and he latched onto it, eyes clearing slightly as he stared up at Grayson, a face that was a blessedly short segment of his present. He gripped Grayson's arm with a desperate strength and stared at him, the few memories he had of Grayson snapping into the forefront as he stubbornly shoved everything else into the back as 'Before Grayson.' The jumble in his mind eased and he didn't try to force the memories into any semblance of organization. He could worry about that later.

"Gray," he finally managed to choke out before slumping on the ground with a moan. He felt dizzy and sick and stared up at the... trees? He turned his head, breathing in air that was far more clean and sweet than it should be. "Where..?" he asked, shivering as he felt something he hadn't felt since the world had started its turn toward technology. Magic. Already his flayed senses could feel the presence of earth- and other mostly benign spirits around them and he closed his eyes. "Oh gods," he moaned. Only one place had such things in such quantity as far as he knew. Where else other than Japan would they think to give a name to a rock and worship its spirit?
 
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