Title: Hair today, gone tomorrow
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 3,428 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 418 - Hair
Summary: Jack has a slight problem with body hair.



‘Grocery shopping again?’ Jack said, spotting Ianto stroll past with a clutch of recyclable fabric shopping bags. ‘You did that last week.’

‘Yes, and in the intervening period, you lot have eaten everything. I'll only be an hour. Probably less.’ He closed the gap between them and placed a hand on Jack's cheek as he pecked him playfully on the lips. He frowned as he pulled back. ‘Did you shave this morning?’

‘Of course I shaved!’

‘Well, you missed a spot or three,’ Ianto said, feeling the rough stubble beneath his thumb pad, giving Jack. Another quick kiss for good measure before turning to leave.

‘Don't come back without hobnobs!’ Jack yelled back.



‘Jesus, someone had a rough night,’ Owen remarked, carrying a heavy load of overdue reports and a box of alien artefacts that went with them. ‘Did Teaboy kick you out last night? You look like something the cat dragged in.’

Jack reached up and stroked his jaw, feeling the growing roughness. Even his worst five o'clock shadow took the better part of a day and a half to manifest itself, and now it was showing up scarcely before lunch. He had definitely shaved properly, whatever Ianto had said, but there was no mistaking his stubble for anything else.

‘So?’ Owen asked, still waiting for an answer to his question.

‘So, it's about time you handed these in,’ he said, snatching the top folder off the pile and flicking it open. Only once Owen left and was out of sight did he turn around and check his reflection in the windows behind him. Owen wasn't wrong. He did look scruffy. He growled low and pushed up from the desk. He'd shave again and this time he'd get even closer than he had before.



‘This may come as a stupid question,’ Ianto said, bundling a pile of dirty laundry and towels into a basket at the edge of the manhole that led down into Jack's private bunker, ‘but why are there four razors in the bathroom tidy?’

‘Because they're all blunt,’ Jack complained, having binned them in frustration not two hours ago.’ Not one of them is as good as an old fashioned barber's blade,’ he said, reaching up to stroke his chin and annoyed at the fact that it still felt stubbled.

‘They were brand new,’ Ianto said, holding up the packet they'd come from, which had also ended up in the bin.

‘Well, new doesn't mean they work.’ He didn't want to admit that he was on his third shave of the day and whilst he'd been pleased with the silky smooth finish he'd managed from his old wartime shaving kit, it was a distant memory already.

Ianto heaved a sigh, rolled his eyes and scooped up the washing basket under his arm. ‘Whatever you say. Just don't go throwing out mine.’



Ianto groaned as the sound of his mobile chirping at him woke him from slumber. ‘Always the bloody rift,’ he mumbled, tossing back the duvet and fumbling on the bed side table for his phone. ‘What?’ He didn’t bother with pleasantries. At this hour there could be only one person who dared to call him.

‘We have a serious problem,’ Jack said, sounding as concerned as Ianto feared.

‘Alright, I’ll be there in ten,’ he said, already tugging off his pyjama top and grabbing the first clean shirt from his closet.

‘No need, I'm on my way to yours.’

Ianto could already hear the heavy thud of boots pounding towards his door, no doubt waking up all his apartment floor neighbours. It was all he could do to reach the door and pull it open before Jack came crashing through it. No sooner was Jack through the door than he was throwing off his coat and unbuttoning his shirt, tugging the fabric away and then pulling his t-shirt up and over his head, stripping himself.

‘Just because I've got my shirt off wasn't an invitation!’ Ianto complained, still standing there half dressed himself. He was wondering if Jack truly had an emergency on his hands or if this was just some bizarre late night booty call.

Jack ignored the barb and instead closed the gap between them, puffing out his chest and pointing at it. ‘Look at it!’ he demanded, indicating a decent dusting of light brown hair covering it and trailing all the way down to his belly button and beyond. ‘I have chest hair!’

‘Yes, you do,’ Ianto said, not sure what to make of it other than the fact that to his mind Jack still looked handsome, or even a bit more manly on account of it. Rugged Jack had a lot of sex appeal. ‘More troubling is that you're also sporting a beard,’ he said, not so distracted as to let that go unnoticed despite Jack's semi-nakedness. Not to mention the fact that his hair was looking a bit longer and floppier than usual. This was the crisis? ‘Going for a new look?’ he asked.

‘No! It's just gone crazy and started up all over.’

‘Have you thought about waxing? Ianto teased, unable to take Jack quite as seriously as he obviously found the situation.

‘Twice, if you must know,’ Jack said with a scowl that told him just how unpleasant an experience he'd found it. ‘It just grows back, literally in an hour.’

Ianto shrugged off Jack's concern. ‘It's not so bad. I mean, the beard doesn't quite suit you, but the chest hair… Well, now you're just like every other bloke. Maybe a little bit on the extra hairy side.’

‘You think this is bad, you should see–’

‘Don't,’ Ianto said, grabbing both of Jack's hands before he could reach for his belt. ‘I have a colourfully active imagination.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Jack’s voice ratcheted up a single notch of panic.

‘Well, for a start we’re going back to bed. It's 2am and we both need some sleep.’

‘But…’

‘The world isn’t ending and, from what I can tell, you’re not in any pain or immediate danger, so it’s nothing that can’t wait until morning to be puzzled out.’ Whilst Jack was usually one to keep a calm head in even the most dire situations, he could be downright ridiculous when it came to the innocuous.

‘But…’ Jack’s whining tone repeated itself.

Ianto gave his lover the eye. ‘A man asks you to get into bed with him when you’re both only half dressed and you’re going to say no?’

There was a moment of petulance before Jack let Ianto lead him back to the bedroom, putting his pyjama top back on even as Jack was removing his trousers, revealing matching hairy legs to go with everything else.

There was no rhyme or reason for it, but neither did there appear to be a quick solution, so he slid under the duvet and waited for Jack to join him before cuddling up close to stroke Jack's ego. He let one hand drift through the new thick curls across Jack's pectoral, before curling his fingers in them and letting them catch, nestling close on top of his shoulder to prevent him going anywhere. He closed his eyes and nuzzled Jack's beard. With luck, things might resolve themselves by morning.



The second time Ianto was rudely woken was to a girlish shriek that made him jump out of his skin. He might have yelped in fright himself, except that he had a mouthful of hair getting in the way, and none of it his. He pulled it out with a wince and then saw what had caused Jack to emit such an unmanly sound.

In the space of just a few hours, his formerly prominent chest hair had grown several inches into a layer of thick, almost fur, with a head and face to match, each sporting several inches of long hair that all but covered his head, with just a tiny gap where the tip of his nose poked out and the bit where he pulled his overly long fringe out of his eyes. His whole arm from shoulder to fingertips was covered in hair, and judging by the feel of what his leg was pressed up against under the duvet, Jack’s legs were similarly covered. Balls.

‘Now do you think we have a problem?’ came Jack's muffled words.

Ianto sighed. ‘I’ll text Owen to get his butt in extra early.’



Jack sulked all the way to the hub, letting Ianto drive, since he was at risk of not being able to see, even with his hair now pulled back into a ponytail. ‘I still say you should have cut it all off,’ he said, tugging at his beard which Ianto had instead painstakingly brushed out until it was free of tangles, along with the rest of him. He’d managed to get his clothes back on, but it had been a painful experience, with hair getting caught in every last buttonhole and zipper.

‘Not much use for Owen if I shave it all off,’ he replied. ‘He’s going to want to see you in your natural state.’

‘Not like it won't grow back,’ Jack said. ‘I swear it's grown a few inches since breakfast.’ He knew it had since Ianto had trimmed his beard enough for him to get toast through a gap to his mouth, but which was now all but gone. He unconsciously started plaiting some of it just to keep it under control and away from his mouth. It looked ridiculous, but for now it was at least marginally effective.

‘I don't know what to tell you, Jack. We just have to go through the motions as always, eliminating all possibilities until we land upon the reason and then the cure.’



‘You really know how to bugger things up, don't you, Harkness?’ Owen said, taking one look at Jack and shaking his head. ‘Tinkering with alien stuff again?’

‘No.’

'Owen folded his arms and gave Jack his best disappointed school principal glare. ‘So, turning into Cousin It is just normal, is it?’

It was hard to read Jack's body language and facial expressions but even Ianto could tell he wasn’t happy. ‘I’ve been doing this job longer than all the rest of you have collectively been alive. I know how to handle alien tech. Plus, I don't know of any technology that does this.’

‘What? Activates your hormones and follicle production?’ Owen asked. ‘Cause that’s what these test results show,’ he said, flipping his laptop screen around so that they could see it. ‘It's like puberty in overdrive.’ Owen smirked. ‘Lucky you, Ianto, that his sex drive didn't go bananas as well or you wouldn't even be able to walk this morning.’

‘Can we stick to the problem and make jokes about it later?’ He didn't doubt that he and Owen, if not the girls, would dine out on this for months, maybe years.

‘I don't know what to tell you then,’ Owen said. ‘Something has acted as a catalyst to do this, but if you can’t tell me what, I don't know what to do to suppress it, other than giving you a tonne of female hormones to counteract it. Even that’s not guaranteed to do anything.’

‘I’ll take anything at this point,’ Jack said, stripping his shirt and t-shirt back off, as it was getting stuffed full of ever increasing hair, letting the four inches of light brown hair roam free. It looked like it must have been a relief to be free of the restrictive clothing regardless of the situation.

‘How about I give you a clip before Tosh and Gwen get in?’ Ianto suggested. ‘At least then we might be able to get you back into a loose sweater or something.’

‘You wanna play barber?’ Ianto didn't have to see it to know Jack was arching a sceptical eyebrow at him.

‘Either that, or we can take a drive up the valleys and I can get one of the farmers up there to give you a shear? God knows the scissors in my drawer probably aren't going to cut it.’

‘Try,’ Jack said in a warning tone.’

‘You’re the boss.’



Jack was surprisingly still whilst Ianto took to him with the sharpest pair of scissors he could find. At least to get rid of the first few inches of growth, before he could tempt fate with a proper electric hair clipper. Usually Jack couldn't sit still to save himself, but he supposed when the consequence of not doing so was to get poke with a very sharp implement, or worse, to have Ianto give up and leave him the way he was, he was prepared to be as compliant as was necessary.

‘It’s quite fine hair,’ Ianto observed, ‘there's just loads of it.’ Unlike his own chest hair which was dark and wiry, Jack's fur, for want of a better description, was soft and silky. Were it not for Jack's displeasure, he might have even complimented it. Being able to enjoy running his fingers though it now, apart from to brush out tangles and get under it so that he could snip it off, was a luxury he couldn't afford.

‘Pass me that mirror,’ Jack said, pointing at the tiny swivel mirror that sat on the bureau on the other side of the room. Ianto walked over to it and set it down in front of the counter next to Jack as he lathered up his face with water and shaving cream.

‘I wish you wouldn't use that thing,’ Ianto said, pausing to watch Jack wielding the sharp barber's knife with its unprotected blade, preparing to remove the hair from his face. The thing was large enough and sharp enough to slit his trout from ear to ear.

‘It's the only thing that’s going to do the job,’ Jack replied. ‘Now, don’t knock my hand,’ he said, determined to shave himself.

Ianto heaved a sigh. ‘Fine. There’s still your back to be clipped, unless you want to try out the porcupine look.’

Jack scowled then raised the blade to the underside of his lathered chin. ‘Snip away, Ianto. No man wants a hairy back.’



For all the time Ianto spent diligently cutting and shaving Jack’s body, by lunchtime it was as if he hadn’t touched it at all, and by the time the rest of the team left that night, Jack had given up on clothes altogether, covered head to toe in a long, thick coat of hair that covered up everything.

‘I’m finding it harder and harder not to make any Star Wars references,’ Ianto said, placing a mug of coffee on the desk along with a metal straw, in the hopes that Jack might be able to find his mouth with it.

‘Oh, please, don't hold back the Chewbacca jokes on my account,’ came the snippy remark. ‘Owen’s been using the name “Captain It” all day long.’

‘I don't think he meant for you to be in earshot at the time,’ Ianto said, knowing what a lie that was.

‘I don't think he thought I could hear anything at all,’ Jack said.

Ianto slumped down into the chair opposite and collapsed his mug thoughtfully as he studied his lover. ‘You really can't think of anything you've touched or been exposed to that could do this?’ He supposed it was lucky whatever it was hadn’t been contagious. He didn't think he’d make nearly as striking a specimen as Jack. And at least he hadn’t progressed his mutation beyond growing a whole lot of body hair. It would have been a totally different prospect if he’d been morphing into some kind of animal.

There was a sad shake of the head, that sent long glossy brown hair swishing elegantly. ‘Nothing. I literally can't explain this or whether we can fix it.’

‘I take it Owen’s hormone supplements haven’t helped any?’

‘Apart from making me crave chocolate and wanting to watch reruns of The Notebook just for a good cry?’

Ianto smirked. At least a little bit of Jack’s humour was still intact. ‘Apart from that.’

‘I have no idea what’s caused this,’ Jack said, his tone turning despondent.

Ianto reached across the desk and laid a hand on one of Jack’s hairy paws. At least it seems to have stopped growing. Six solid inches of hair all over was quite enough to be getting on with, and from Owen’s latest round of tests, had added a hefty fifty pounds of weight to Jack’s frame. ‘You know this doesn't change anything, right? Well, I mean obviously it changes some things. Can’t have you wandering the streets looking like this, and briefing the Home Office in person in London is going to be a bit complicated, but we still love you. How you look doesn’t change that.’

He couldn't see it, but he could tell he’d earned a smile from underneath all the soft brown hair. ‘Thank you. That means more than you can possibly imagine.’ He gave a wistful sigh. ‘I suppose there’s not much captain left. No coat, no dashing good looks…’

Ianto gave Jack's furry hand a squeeze. ‘You’ll always be my captain, Captain. And I'm looking forward to finding out how warm and furry you are in bed. I doubt I'll be needing a water bottle from now on. I’ll even dig up a copy of the Notebook for us to watch before bed.’



Jack's mood had improved in the morning after a full night of sleep and the assurance that his lover was perfectly content being tucked up around him. It was funny how fragile that pride could be. Ianto didn't even need to have words with the team. They all implicitly understood that temporary or not, Jack was still their boss and nothing was going to change how they felt about him. Any and all ego boosts were greatly received.

Of course, Jack's inability to venture far from the hub kept the rest of them busy all morning, running some of the errands and investigations that Jack might have otherwise been doing himself. It wasn't until just before lunch that the team were able to reconvene for a brief summary of the morning's work.

Ianto was standing behind Tosh, being shown some of the more in depth analysis she'd been discussing in the boardroom briefing. Gwen and Owen were trading scrunched up balls of paper from discarded research and killing time until they could break for lunch. Jack was still pottering around upstairs in the boardroom, having paused to take a call at the end of their meeting. At least he had been until a loud and violent ACHOOO! Cut through all of their current activities, drawing their attention upstairs.

Jack's sneeze just about rocked the gantry as he grabbed the handrail to support himself, the sound reverberated around the cavernous space. From way up above them, hair began to flutter down across the entire hub, making them look up where Jack stood, completely naked, but without a single hair on him that didn’t belong on his head or his eyebrows. Every last follicle had detached in that single instant, now making its way down and dropping all over the hub floor and their equipment.

There was a moment of complete silence and then Jack looked down at his body, all back to smooth clean skin. He did a weird kind of star jump and threw his arms out, oblivious to the face he was putting his entire naked body on show for them. ‘Captain Jack is back, baby!’

‘Lovely,’ Ianto muttered, looking back down at the mess Jack had managed to shed over every single surface. ‘Guess who’s going to be hoovering all afternoon, now.’

‘Oi!’ Owen barked. ‘Get some bloody clothes on and then get your arse down here,’ came the command. ‘You don't just get to moult and not have me poke you full of holes afterwards.’ All four of them caught Jack’s childish roll of the eyes as he sloped down the spiral staircase, across the hub and towards his office, everyone except Ianto averting their eyes as he paraded past.

‘Just once it'd be nice to have someone order me to take my clothes off,’ he grumbled.

‘Maybe later,’ Ianto whispered as he passed by him. ‘I’m going to want to do my own physical examination.

Jack smiled, perfect white teeth and sparkling blue eyes fully visible once more. ‘And the day keeps on looking up. They do say you should always seek a second opinion if you’re unsure.’