##
/([A-Za-z])\1(?:\1+(*SKIP)(*FAIL))?/
####
perl -e'
use v5.14;
for ( "aa", "bbb", "cccc", "deefffgggghhiiiii" ) {
say s/([A-Za-z])\1(?:\1+(*SKIP)(*FAIL))?/[$&]/gr;
}
'
####
[aa]
bbb
cccc
d[ee]fffgggg[hh]iiiii