"It's not that I don't appreciate it." Rufus frowned. "I do. The thought, timing and, ah, execution was flawless."

"But what, boss?" Reno sighed a little, dropping the few broken shards of what was left of the bottle on the sticky floor. It wasn't as if the mess there could get much worse anyway.

"It's just that the next time a would-be assassin disguised as a potential business partner tries to shoot me at close quarters in my own office, I would appreciate it if you used, say, a bottle of beer or even wine to break his fingers and smash his skull in. Not," he gave Reno the full force of steel blue eyes, "an expensive and rather rare bottle of my most favourite champagne." He took a step over the messy corpse, careful not to get stains on his suit pants.

"Sorry boss, can't do." Reno fished out the assassin's gun from the pool of blood, wiped it off a bit on his pants and checked the safety and bullets. "Who the fuck tries to shoot someone this close? Guns are ranged weapons. Fucking amateurs," he muttered to himself before elaborating his former statement. "Ya see, a champagne bottle is made to contain 6 atmos of pressure. They're almost half a cm thick and can easily break bones. A wine bottle might knock a man out, but I don't like taking risks with 'might'. So it had to be the champagne." He pronounced it almost like shampoo.

Slightly stunned Rufus stared at his most obnoxious Turk. Of course he knew Reno was damn good at what he did within his field of work but honestly he'd always seen him as mostly a thug. He hadn't known Reno took such a specific and precise interest in his work and his respect for the Turks rose a fraction.

"Oh. Well. I suppose I've never thought of it quite like that. Very well, you get someone to clean up this mess and you are dismissed for the day. Good work. I'd offer you a drink but my best champagne" – he pronounced it carefully incase it might actually stick – "is soaking up in the carpets."

"I'll just go with a beer then, thanks boss." Reno picked up a bottle of expensive – if by no way as expensive as the champagne – microbrew beer made a salute and dialled up cleaning service as Rufus moved his white clad ass to his second favourite office.

Once in the elevator Reno allowed himself a small wicked smile as he opened the bottle and drank, Rufus always insisted on a drink after a failed homicide attempt.

And Reno had always fucking hated champagne.