Fix'ns.

Katters of course had to kick my butt fer using the cliche faux boyfriend/girlfriend seduction ploy that ends up becoming real love thing, so I fixed it.
GAWSH.

Garis isn't instructed to seduce Els. He runs into her while she's meeting a contact at a brothel and one of Sacco's brothel employees' common habits is to wear glamours to appear more expensive. He wears an Atlantic Lionfish. He goes up to her at the bar with the intention of getting money out of her, but she keeps refusing him(on account of having business on hand). Later when she's leaving she spies Garis having a bit of trouble with a past customer--rather, the customer's having trouble with him. Sacco's boys and girls have a tendency to get their clients very drunk and then take more money than was agreed upon, and Garis's client is pretty pissed about missing an extra couple hundred monies.
(Also, Els's dogfish is now a giant salamander, because they rock like a hurricane.)
When the client's about to put some smackdown on Garis, Els intervenes. Since Els can't really fight very well, much less hold her own against four other bigger, meaner deeps mers, she gets pretty beat up while Garis zips off as fast as he can.
However, even he has a little conscience, and he ends up returning and hiding, waiting until the thugs are done and then swimming over to see if she's still alive.
He takes her to a doctor friend, since there aren't really any effective hospitals in the darker parts of Outlantis, and Els wakes up resting in someone's unpleasantly smelling bed. She takes note of the stitching and bandaging and that she's not in as much pain as she should be.
Garis's doctor friend tells her to go home and rest for the next few days, and Garis goes with her to make sure she gets home all right, since she has no idea how to get there from the doctor's.
Almost getting her skull beat in has given Els a little perspective on life, so she what-the-hell's it and asks Garis out point-blank on her front doorstep. Surprisingly, he agrees.
He's basically setting her up to get money out of her, and when Els says "take it slow" he figures she means the more civilized "third date = sex" thing, which isn't something most deeper city mers waste time on. So he figgers he'll play along and go on a couple dates, have a little fun, and then gank her cash when they do it on the third. When they get to the third date and surprise, no sex, Garis goes home assuming he's going to cut his losses and avoid her, but for some reason, when she calls, he says yes to another date. And another. Until they're going out regularly, and hanging out like a boyfriend and girlfriend, and he realizes he's not letting her down gradually because she's nice, he's getting involved. Because he likes her. He really, really does.
Meanwhile, Sacco's having her boys/girls etc keeping an eye on him. Because he happens to be one of her favourite whores. She has them look into Els some and finds out who she is. And epiphany! She can use Els to summon the leviathin. And if Els refuses, she can use Garis and threaten to kill him if she doesn't.
The main issue is that Garis has a friend with benefits who's very possessive about those benefits and who he hangs out with in his spare time. This mer, Shiv, is one of the people Garis gives discounts to just because the sex is good. She's pissed that he's spending time with another mer, in an actual relationship, presumably not charging this individual anything. So she gets herself on detail to keep an eye on him. She also makes things difficult for him when he's away from Els, dropping in onn him when he's home alone, forcing him into bed to remind him who he belongs to--or rather that he doesn't exclusively belong to any one person. When Garis slips up one of these times and says Els's name, she beats him up some and leaves him there. He avoids Els until the more visible bruises are gone, but she can sense something is wrong. However, she never really finds out about it until much later.
And then at the end what happens is that Sacco does use Garis against Els, and Els starts to summon the leviathin, but then instead summons the hippocampus. Her power begins to run away with her, overloading her body, so to release it she grabs ahold of every animal within a hundred miles and summons them too, and then gives off a few small explosions to blow off a little more steam. In the chaos Sacco gets the hell outta there(and is eaten by the baby Jormungandar), but after Els releases Garis and they're breaking outta there, Shiv grabs him and drags him down a hallway. Els turns to see this just as massive chunks of rubble collapse, blocking her off from him. She starts trying to find a way around it. As he struggles to get away, Shiv rips the glamour charm off and effectively destroys it. Without it to pretty him up, Garis is too afraid to face Els as himself--but when he gets away from Shiv and sees Els about to be crushed by falling rubble, he zips out and shoves her outta the way. Without speaking, Garis wordlessly grabs her by the wrist and shows her the way out. He doesn't say anything or tell her who he is, and when they've gotten out he pulls a houdini, too ashamed to face her.
Els starts to figger out her way home, followed by the baby Jormungandar, despite her efforts to dissuade it. In its simple-minded larval stage, it's a lot like a puppy and has become very attached to her. She's confronted by SMAM, who sensed her seals being busted through by the gush of power. And etc, etc, they want to recruit her, etc etc.
At the epilogue, Els is visiting a brothel, the name of which was given to her by Shiv--who was taken from the rubble by SMAM for interrogation. She asks for Garis, who was fired now that he has no glamour to make him pretty, but a friend of his tells her where to find him. So Els keeps looking until she finds him.
I'm not sure how to wrap that ending up after that but I like it.